Evaluation of First-Year Student's Learning of Engineering Ethics in a Blended PBL Course

There has been a growing call to nurture and prepare current engineering graduates to think and act ethically as the products designed by engineers have both individual and societal implications. Engineering ethics revolves around the professional obligation of engineers to society, their employers, and the profession. Engineering codes of ethics commonly referred to as fundamental cannons form the base for engineering ethics education. It focuses on micro ethical issues, fundamental overarching responsibility to protect human health, welfare, and the environment or promote sustainable development. Engineering ethics was introduced to first-year engineering students as part of a PBL based course, which was taught in a blended mode due to the disruptions caused by the COVID19 pandemic. This study attempts to assess students' knowledge of engineering ethics and their ability to identify and resolve ethical dilemmas by applying the fundamental canons. When a module like engineering ethics was introduced to the first-year engineering students in a blended mode, it was essential to identify methods that would help assess students' understanding of engineering ethics. Students learn the concepts of engineering ethics through asynchronous videos. The module's primary objective was to develop students' ability to identify and resolve ethical dilemmas and map fundamental cannon. A discussion forum was set up, allotting students with a case study that had an ethical dilemma used as an instrument to assess the students. The results discuss mainly the cognitive levels that the students have reached in resolving an ethical dilemma. The analysis also predicted the areas where students found it challenging to understand the concepts. © 2022 IEEE.

Role of Indian Higher Education Institutions towards Aatmanirbhar India: Government Policies and Initiatives to promote Entrepreneurship and Innovation

The Prime Minister of India in 2020 announced his vision of Aatmanirbhar India to make India an economically self-reliant nation. He shared this vision while announcing the 1st economic package to support the Indian population during the COVID19 pandemic. He believed Aatmanirbhar India could be achieved through pursuing policies that are competent, efficient, and resilient along with being self-generating and self-sustaining. This vision was well aligned and would contribute significantly to India's plan of becoming a USD 5 trillion economy by 2025. However, achieving this vision would have required systemic changes in India's DNA as a larger section of the India population needed to become Innovators and Entrepreneurs. One element of adapting to this new DNA was envisioned through the development of innovation and entrepreneurial mindset among the youth of the country. It was important to capitalize on the potential of the young minds and awaken the innovators among the students in K-12 and especially higher education. In the last 3 years, the Ministry of Education (previously Ministry of Human Resource Development) along with other central organizations such as the AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education), UGC (University Grants Commission) etc have come up with a range of policies and initiatives, all strategically aligned to foster an ecosystem for entrepreneurship and innovation (IE) in higher education institutions (HEIs). In this paper, we highlight a set of initiatives and policies launched up by the government of India to promote entrepreneurship and innovation in HEI's. We elaborate on the National Startup and Innovation Policy, New Education Policy (NEP) along with national initiatives such as Smart India Hackathon, ARIAA (National IE ranking) and others. Case-studies are presented of noteworthy HEI's who have transformed themselves by using the government's efforts as catalysts to nurture IE. At the end, we highlight the potential of HEI's in India to collectively contribute to helping India become Aatmanirbhar (self-reliant) in the post-Pandemic world. © 2021 IEEE.

Responding to COVID-19 and transitioning to online learning: Evaluation of an institution wide capacity building efforts on technology-enhanced learning

The usage of educational technology has steadily been increasing in engineering education in the last two decades. However, the impact of COVID-19 pandemic has truly led to a wider acceptance of educational technology due to the lockdowns imposed around the world. In India, the lockdown announced in the mid of the even semester forced all faculty to transition to an online mode of teaching. The sudden transition to online learning highlighted the unpreparedness of faculty and students towards their acceptance and usage of educational technology tools. To address this challenge and get faculty and students ready for the online mode of teaching and learning in the next semester, an extensive three-week faculty development program was conducted for all faculty at an undergraduate engineering college. The program included both synchronous and asynchronous sessions on the design of engineering courses through technologyenhanced learning. To get a student’s preparedness for the transition, a 3-week orientation program was conducted prior to the start of the semester. In this paper, the detailed process of the capacity building efforts and evaluate the impact of the programs on the faculty and students are presented. A pre-and post-survey was conducted to examine the challenges faced by faculty and students due to the sudden transition to online learning and also analyse the impact of the capacity building efforts on the teaching and learning process. The results from the study will highlight the process of an institution level preparedness efforts to respond to a pandemic and ensure the continuation of the academic activities. We discuss the implication of the results in the post COVID19 world where blended learning would become the default mode of education in higher education. © 2021, Rajarambapu Institute Of Technology. All rights reserved.

Implementation of ICAP principles through technology tools: Exploring the alignment between pedagogy and technology

Higher education institutions around the world have encountered unprecedented times in the year 2020 due to the impact of the COVID19 pandemic. All academic institutions were forced to an online mode of learning due to the sudden lockdown imposed across different countries to curb the growth of the pandemic. Faculty who were teaching courses had to radically change their pedagogy and adopt technology tools that could support virtual synchronous learning. In this paper, we explore one such effort where faculty at a private undergraduate engineering institution reimagined how they could apply and teach innovative teaching methodologies through technology tools. Faculty teaching engineering courses have to often utilize active and collaborative pedagogical techniques to help students achieve higher level cognitive outcomes and we describe how the same techniques could be implemented through online mode of teaching. All the faculty prior to the start of the semester has undergone a 3-week faculty development program on technology-enhanced learning. During the program, the faculties were encouraged to identify technology tools that can be used to implement pedagogic techniques that are aligned to the Interactive Constructive Active and Passive (ICAP) framework. We describe in the paper the process followed by the faculty to align technology tools with the various pedagogies identified for the courses. We provide a list of various pedagogies by mapping them to the ICAP framework and discuss how the technology tools were used to implement them. The discussion in this paper will provide engineering educators with much needed insights on how to implement innovative pedagogies through technology tools. The results can be used by faculty as they transition to a blended mode of learning post COVID19. © 2021, Rajarambapu Institute Of Technology. All rights reserved.