DOI
10.5703/1288284316898
Keywords
PageRank, Engagement
Abstract
Instructors of engineering for the last quarter of a century have attempted to engage undergraduates through project based learning. Often these topics can fall short due to a lack of interest by the students. Faculty-lead student research experiences addressing pop-culture topics of interest can often stimulate student engagement and have the possibility to positively impact student-retention rates. This presentation reports on the preliminary findings of a sport’s data analytics approach for faculty-led student investigations and increased engagement. Freshman engineering students will rank teams or individuals through the PageRank algorithm creating a model of the complexity of sports. The specifics of the research will be briefly discussed in this presentation along with a general feel of engagement before and after the project. This presentation includes two semesters of findings and observations from the fundamentals of engineering course that all freshman-engineering students are required to take at the University of Southern Indiana. The course focuses on engineering problem-solving methods with much of the course dedicated to formulating problems for computer solutions using MATLAB or Excel. Students often come in with little coding experience and often become frustrated and can be verbally heard questioning if they chose the right major while working. Utilizing an interesting topic such as sport’s data analytics is an attempt to engage students in the learning process and motivate them through difficulties.
Included in
(POSTER) Freshman Engineering Student Engagement through Sport’s Data Analytics
Instructors of engineering for the last quarter of a century have attempted to engage undergraduates through project based learning. Often these topics can fall short due to a lack of interest by the students. Faculty-lead student research experiences addressing pop-culture topics of interest can often stimulate student engagement and have the possibility to positively impact student-retention rates. This presentation reports on the preliminary findings of a sport’s data analytics approach for faculty-led student investigations and increased engagement. Freshman engineering students will rank teams or individuals through the PageRank algorithm creating a model of the complexity of sports. The specifics of the research will be briefly discussed in this presentation along with a general feel of engagement before and after the project. This presentation includes two semesters of findings and observations from the fundamentals of engineering course that all freshman-engineering students are required to take at the University of Southern Indiana. The course focuses on engineering problem-solving methods with much of the course dedicated to formulating problems for computer solutions using MATLAB or Excel. Students often come in with little coding experience and often become frustrated and can be verbally heard questioning if they chose the right major while working. Utilizing an interesting topic such as sport’s data analytics is an attempt to engage students in the learning process and motivate them through difficulties.
Comments
Abstract for Work-in-Progress presentation.