1. Blending On-Line Tools in Engineering Courses
Feza Kerestecioğlu
Kadir Has University
Istanbul, Turkey
Yasemin Bayyurt
Boğaziçi University
Istanbul, Turkey
The 2nd World Conference on Blended Learning 2017

2. Outline Introduction Context of the study Current mode of teaching
Course and Curriculum
Why gone blended?
Current mode of teaching
Preliminary results
Conclusions
The 2nd World Conference on Blended Learning 2017

3. Introduction Changing times, changing instructional practices
Face to Face
Online
Blended
Blended learning (BL)
gives the students “… the opportunity to advance in their own pace using e-learning techniques where the content can be delivered electronically (mostly online)’’ (Ogrenci, 2013)
enables students to “… develop a sense of agency and ownership for their progress and a subsequent ability to guide their learning’’ (Horn and Staker, 2015)
Why BL in engineering courses?
For maximum student success (in exams, assignments, etc.)
To give students many chances to practice the content presented in the classroom
The 2nd World Conference on Blended Learning 2017

4. Context of Study Course and curriculum Kadir Has University, Istanbul
Department of Electrical –Electronics Engineering
Medium of instruction: English
EE 352 Control Systems
Electrical-Electronics Engineering junior-level core course
Modeling and analyzing dynamic systems
Mathematics background (differential equations, matrix algebra) is required
Compulsory or elective in other engineering curricula
The 2nd World Conference on Blended Learning 2017

5. Context of Study Why did we go blended?
Ten years of traditional methods of teaching
Degradation in the motivation
Decreasing attendance rate
Plagiarism attempts in homework
Classwork
Increasing attendance
Focused students during the lecture
‘‘Teach your classmate’’
Restricting learning process to the classroom
The 2nd World Conference on Blended Learning 2017

6. Current Mode of Teaching
Face-to-face teaching
Asynchronous on-line tools
Videos
Discussion Forum
Assignments
PowerPoint videos
Homework
Public Youtube videos
Discussion board
The 2nd World Conference on Blended Learning 2017

7. Preliminary Results Student Profile Native speakers of Turkish 33
Speakers of English as a foreign language
Speakers of other languages as a foreign language 11
Prefers textbooks as
printed material 10
electronic material 7
both, printed and electronic 16
Took an on-line course 28
Average number of online course involved
2.8
Took an on-line course out of the university 3
Took a blended course before 8
The 2nd World Conference on Blended Learning 2017

8. Contributing students
Preliminary Results
Course video access
Videos
Accessing students
Total access times
Homework submitted
Introduction 40
172 27
Review of Laplace Transform 34
107 23
Math. Models of Dynamic Systems 29 81 20
Transient Response Analysis 25 47
13 
Discussion board posts
Thread
Contributing students
Student posts
Instructor posts
Trajectory Planning 24 32 29
Solving Differential Equations 22 27 16
Suspension Systems 8 9
The 2nd World Conference on Blended Learning 2017

9. Preliminary Results Student Reflections
“I find the videos very useful. I use them while preparing for the exam.” (Student A)
“We can wind and rewind the sections we want to listen to over and over again.” (Student B)
“We can listen to the lectures that we missed thanks to the videos in the Blackboard Learn platform.” (Student C).
The 2nd World Conference on Blended Learning 2017

10. Conclusions
Rewards
Students do better in the exams and the assignments
They interact more with their instructor and their peers
Limitations
Familiarity is needed with the use of a blended learning environment
Difficulties in using the online component of the BL course
More research is needed for the generalizability of the results
The 2nd World Conference on Blended Learning 2017