An Integrated Platform for Blended Learning in Engineering

Education

Irina Makarova

, Ksenia Shubenkova

, Danila Tikhonov

and Anton Pashkevich

Kazan Federal University, Naberezhnye Chelny, Russia

Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia

Keywords: Blended Learning, e-Learning, Simulation, Virtual and Augmented Reality.

Abstract: Educational system under development of technique and emergence of new technologies faces a problem of

specialists’ competence, who should design, produce, maintain new technique and use advanced technolo-

gies. The analysis of applied forms of education shows that blended learning has advantages over traditional

learning and e-learning. For its successful implementation the unified informational educational platform

that allows developing educational content, managing the learning process and giving the opportunity of vir-

tual communication is required. The introduction of such advanced educational technologies like a virtual

and augmented reality, simulation and gamification will enhance quality of specialists’ training. The use of

real-world experience of leading enterprises of an automobile industry, as well as the student's evaluation

system based on the objective parameters are the main advantages of a proposed concept. At this stage, the

development of the module of monitoring the learning process is proceeding.

1 INTRODUCTION

Modern trends of the economy development and,

first of all, globalization processes require solutions

for complex problems. The development of educa-

tion system should focus on the long-term prospects

of labour market and should correlate with its medi-

um-term trends. However, the current education

system was created in the 19th century for specific

societal/economic/political goals and has not

evolved from 150 years ago. As it is noted in the

Concept of the long-term socially-economic devel-

opment of the Russian Federation for the period un-

til 2020, the necessary condition to form innovative

economy is educational system’s modernization.

Only an effective use of innovation (including

information and telecommunications) technologies

can help to overcome the contradiction between rap-

id development of scientific-technical progress and

the existing educational system’s inertness. This

applies to learning technologies, means for educa-

tion quality assessment, creating and using educa-

tional content, as well as to the organization of inter-

action between participants of educational process.

Some of the contradictions can be smoothed down if

a learning environment is formed using computers

(IT). We mean, first, the contradiction between the

necessity of diminishing the training period and in-

creasing requirements to the quality of the students’

competences, along with the process of rapid devel-

opment of industrial technologies. The second con-

tradiction is caused by the necessity to maintain a

high level of teaching competences together with

simultaneously increasing teaching loads connected

to requirements of updating learning contents. To

solve these contradictions a unified informational

educational environment should be created. It is de-

sirably to involve manufacturers in this process. This

will help not only to join forces in order to develop

study courses but also to launch communication

between all interested process participants. This will

improve feedback, create individual educational

paths for the learners and facilitate self-control and

quality control. This will modify the entire E-

learning concept 2.0 of “Motivation – goal – tools –

realization”.

2 TEACHING METHODS: FROM

TRADITIONAL TO BLENDED

Depending on the saturation of online technologies

to deliver content and interaction character of partic-

Makarova, I., Shubenkova, K., Tikhonov, D. and Pashkevich, A.

An Integrated Platform for Blended Learning in Engineering Education.

DOI: 10.5220/0006375601710176

In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2017) - Volume 2, pages 171-176

ISBN: 978-989-758-240-0

171

ipants, educational process can be: (1) traditional

classroom learning (no online technology), (2) tradi-

tional learning with web support (1-29% of the

course is implemented online), (3) Blended Learning

(30-79% of the course is implemented online: it

combines classroom learning with e-learning), and

(4) full online learning (more than 80% of the course

is online, mostly entirely without classroom com-

munication). For many centuries, traditional training

was dominating in higher school. Its undoubted ad-

vantage is the ability to transmit a large amount of

information in a short time. However, it is based on

memory, that doesn’t contribute to development of

creative abilities, independence and activity. In addi-

tion, this form of training doesn’t allow you to build

an individual educational trajectory.

In contrast, e-learning develops creative thinking

and independence of learner. At the same time, stu-

dents experience obvious disadvantages: the lack of

full-time communication with teacher; the need of

constant access to information sources; insufficient

opportunity to acquire practical skills. From the

teacher’s point of view disadvantages are: the need

for constant qualitative updating of training content;

the lack of the permanent monitoring of educational

process. The introduction of blended learning allows

enhancing advantages and reducing disadvantages of

these two forms of learning. Identification of causes

that prevent problem-solving can improve quality of

learning and optimize processes in educational sys-

tem. The results of a comparative analysis of consid-

ered types of training are presented in Table 1.

The problem of assessing a quality of education

is the common one to all types of learning. The sub-

jective assessment in a traditional education and the

complexity of a student’s identification in the pro-

cess of e-learning requires to intellectualize process-

es of the knowledge quality control that is possible

with a blended learning implementation. Integration

of various learning technologies on one platform

will allow improving not only a quality of education,

but also an adequacy of assessment.

Currently, there are practical examples of com-

bining traditional training and e-learning. Thus, in

research of Karabulut-Ilgu and Jahren (2016) learn-

ing occurs through video fragments that are subse-

quently finalized after getting feedback from stu-

dents, who answer questions checking their under-

standing of the material. After watching the video,

students perform practical interactive exercises in an

online environment. Online modules are interactive

exercises that demonstrate how to solve problems in

construction engineering. Classroom lessons include

an interaction of students in order to solve problems

and cases from real life.

Table 1: Comparative characteristics of learning types (1 -

traditional learning; 2 - e-learning; 3 - blended learning).

Features 1 2 3

Full-time communication with teacher

+ - +

User identification

+ - +

Dependent on the place and time of learning

+ - +/-

Communication with other students

+ + +

Individualization of training

- + +

Lecture material

+ + +

Tests

+/- + +

Practical classes

+ - +

Monitoring of learning process from the teacher

+ - -

Clear criteria to assess the quality of knowledge

- - -

3 THE ORGANIZATION OF

BLENDED LEARNING

3.1 Tools to Organize e-Learning

Software for e-learning on a market of educational

software is presented by simple HTML pages, as

well as by the complex platforms with greater func-

tionality. They include the learning management

system (Learning management system or LMS) and

learning content management system, used in corpo-

rate networks (Learning Content Management Sys-

tem, or LCMS). Most simply, an LMS is a software

application for the administration, documentation,

tracking, and reporting of training programs, class-

room and online events, e-learning programs, and

training content. Many large companies have their

own LMS system that is caused by the need for staff

training together with the working process.

The main task of LMS is to automate the admin-

istrative aspects of education, and LCMS is focused

on the content management of “learning objects”.

Currently, two types of e-learning platforms are the

most common. Systems of the first type provide the

ability to design training courses and testing students

(Claroline, Dokeos), while systems of the second

type allow supporting organization of all educational

process. So, Moodle and Sakai in addition to a basic

functionality to create training courses also have

such functions as reporting the training statistics,

accounting students, opportunity to personalize

them. Such functions as management and modera-

tion of forums are realized in WebTutor system.

Systems 1C:OO and IBM Lotus Workplace Collabo-

rative Learning (LWCL) allows conducting discus-

sions and exchange of messages, scheduling of train-

ing sessions, create and track training programs is

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implemented. Although these systems can be used

for implementation of blended learning, all learning

systems with open source have common disad-

vantages: the complexity of service and support e-

learning, the lack or difficulty of technical documen-

tation. E-learning technologies can become key tools

of organizing blended learning. To use the full po-

tential of the e-learning system in the blended learn-

ing process, it should have a complete set of func-

tions that are necessary for qualitative training of

highly qualified specialists. Thus, there is a need to

develop a unified platform, that would allow inte-

grating all opportunities of existing systems and

develop functional modules that is necessary for

blended learning.

3.2 Blended Learning and Its Features

The use of blended learning could become one of

key solutions of problems existing in engineering

education, because it allows: (1) more efficient use

of time in classrooms, focusing on the problems

faced by students, (2) identification of students ex-

periencing difficulties, (3) picking up materials and

assignments that are optimal to a particular group

and a particular student, taking into account individ-

ual characteristics and a level of basic knowledge,

(4) use of objective criteria when assessing students

knowledge, (5) improvement of education quality by

implementation of progressive educational technol-

ogies (modeling, gamification, virtual and augment-

ed reality).

Most researchers note that blended learning is a

modern, universal method of education focused on

individual needs of students. The fundamental dif-

ference between blended learning and traditional

system is a combination of organizational forms of

training in real and virtual campus of the University

as well as combination of traditional teaching meth-

ods with e-learning technologies. This combination

can occur both at the training course and at the edu-

cational programs in general. The learning process

starts with a setting of a problem (often it is the ac-

tual manufacturing tasks). To perform the task stu-

dent receives access to the content that should be

studied in accordance with a teaching program. The

presentation form of a material can be various: lec-

tures, practical exercises, videos, presentations, in-

fographics, and tools to learn specialized software

products. Student chooses methods and the speed of

study by himself, taking into account individual

characteristics. At this stage, self-control of the con-

tent understanding is conducted in electronic envi-

ronment. It is important that in the classroom lessons

student has all necessary knowledge. The education-

al platform should also allow teacher to track the

points that are not clear for student and require de-

tailed further discussion and study. In addition, it is

important that educational platform provides the

possibility of online communication between teach-

ers and students. This can be implemented in a form

of discussions, messaging, webinars, discussion fo-

rums, online conferences, etc.

Teacher plans the classroom lesson on the base

of analysis of statistical data of the learning process

monitoring, as well as on questions asked online. In

classroom students can get answers to questions, that

have arisen in the process of self-study. Teacher can

also discuss solutions, found by students, their ad-

vantages and disadvantages. This increases the crea-

tive component of the educational process. This

method allows developing communication skills, as

well as teamwork skills, that are need for the com-

plex real-world manufacturing problems solving in

the future professional career.

4 THE CONCEPT OF THE

PROPOSED SYSTEM

Modular open multi-user architecture of developed

control system of blended learning is the basis of

reliability and stability of its work, as it allows

quickly identifying and eliminating causes of fail-

ures, excluding their influence on other modules,

and also increasing the speed and quality of tech-

nical support. This approach allows implementing

all necessary functionalities and supplementing them

when it is necessary.

4.1 Control Modules of Educational

Process for Teacher

The bases for elaboration of educational modules are

the Federal state educational standards (FSES) and

objective criteria to assess the quality of student’s

competencies: general cultural and professional. In

accordance with FSES, curriculums for each field

and profile training are developed. Teacher deter-

mines the structure of the course and enters data,

necessary for formation of teaching programs of

each discipline. After that, he can create the infor-

mation base of lectures, practical and other material,

as well as tests. The data characterizing the learning

process of each student (how much time did the stu-

dent spend studying the recommended material,

what sources did he used, how much time did it take

An Integrated Platform for Blended Learning in Engineering Education

173

him to perform the tasks) come into the module of

accumulation statistics and the learning process con-

trol. If student has any questions, he can use the

feedback form to contact the teacher. At the end of

the section studying, student passes the test. Results

(total score, test time, number of attempts) also

come into the module for further analysis.

Management of the training quality is based on

three-loop diagram (management of the quality of

student’s learning, management of the quality of the

group’s learning and management of the learning

quality of the specific field of training). To assess

effectiveness the system of indicators was devel-

oped. Correction of the process in order to increase

its effectiveness can be performed at each stage of

learning within each control loop. Such factors as a

quality of questions asked, the time for teaching,

quality of responses, speed and regularity of work

can be the criteria for evaluation of effectiveness of

student’s performance. Based on the personal char-

acteristics of the student an individual approach

should be implemented in the proposed system: the

teacher can choose such teaching methods, that will

be effective for this concrete student. Patrick Buck-

ley and Elaine Doyle (2017: 43-55) state in their

paper that it is generally accepted that matching an

individual’s learning style with the appropriate form

of an instructional intervention significantly impacts

upon the performance of the student and his/her

achievements of learning outcomes.

Analyses of statistical data will allow teacher to

determine the reasons for low efficiency. This may

be caused by individual characteristics of a particu-

lar student, by the complexity of the topic in general

or by insufficient quality of the educational content.

In the second case, the teacher may post additional

lookup materials, and in the third case, this will

serve as a signal to the teacher to change educational

content. The results of such studies in a field of user

personalization behavior presented in the paper

(Bent et al., 2017: 456–464), where authors present

the modeling of user behavior in the context of per-

sonalized education. The user behavior data is mod-

eled and sent to the cloud-enabled backend where

detailed analytics are performed to understand dif-

ferent aspects of a student, such as engagement, dif-

ficulties, and preferences.

4.2 Modules Organizing Students’

Training Process

Modules, that allow students to select courses and to

access training content and self-control means are

developed to organize the self-study process. In or-

der to start working in system, student must register

and select courses, which he will study. The main

feature of engineering education is that along with

learning theoretical material, there is a necessity to

acquire practical skills for the future professional

activities. Therefore, the learning content, in addi-

tion to already becoming traditional text, video and

multimedia, contains resources, using modern edu-

cational technologies, that contributes to intensifica-

tion of perception and development of a creative

approach to the practical problems solution (such as

models of real situations and systems, virtual and

augmented reality).

Modelling and simulation allow the student to

see studied process with their own eyes, that has a

positive impact on the learning process. The authors

of research (Wu et al., 2013: 41–49) outline the edu-

cational possibilities of recently developed “aug-

mented reality” (AR), alongside with the problems it

has brought in its wake. Thus, in research (Kesim

and Ozarslan, 2012: 297 – 302) it is suggested that

educationists should collaborate with researchers to

develop extended interfaces of reality. Although the

key role of producing augmented realities is played

by soft- and hardware technologies and there are

engineers for designing them, the educational tech-

nologies are seriously in need of specialists to design

learning activities for augmented reality.

It is shown (Martín-Gutiérrez et. al, 2012: 832 –

839; 2015: 752–761) that one of the AR advantages

consists in saving of instructors’ time on repeat ex-

planations because students can use them for inde-

pendent revision. Furthermore, the effect of these

technologies is twofold: facilitating the teachers’

control of laboratory courses and promoting the stu-

dents’ motivation. Research (Webel et. al, 2013)

describes an experiment of applying AR for training

of technicians in industrial maintenance and assem-

bling operations. The authors emphasize the im-

portance of drilling technicians in new skills due to

increasing complexity of maintenance operations

and demonstrate the superior performance of AR

tools compared to traditional teaching techniques.

Another tool to enhance learning of students is

an ability to conduct tests and experiments in a vir-

tual laboratory. Then he will be more prepared for

this experience in real conditions. The application of

virtual reality technology enhances an intensification

of training. One more tool is a business game in

which students are given an opportunity to demon-

strate personal and professional qualities. In the im-

plementation process of business games, students

will be able to define their role in the team and will

have an opportunity to form teams among the stu-

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dents, who will have the highest rate of interaction

among themselves. This can be useful for employ-

ers, who could visit the business game, have able to

see and evaluate actions of learners in the process of

solving problems and performing tasks of different

complexity levels.

The module of feedback and results output pro-

vides an opportunity of communication between

student and teacher and checking the training results.

Individual or group statistics on specific course or

the whole educational program as well as recom-

mendations are available upon request. This can be

recommendations for study and development of a

particular material, on what it is necessary to pay

attention (based on its rating in group, and also on

the basis of its individual characteristics).

5 APPLICATION EXAMPLES OF

BLENDED LEARNING

To check the efficiency of blended learning in engi-

neering education two groups of students were

formed: those who study traditionally and experi-

mental group. To make comparison correct, the

number of students and the field of training were the

same. The selection was made taking into account

preferences of students and their plans of the further

career growth: those students who have already se-

lected the future direction of activities were included

in experimental group. Their teaching program in-

volves solution of real production tasks.

5.1 Blended Learning of Engineers,

Working in Transport Sphere

When teaching specialists in this field, students get a

material to study the specialized transportation soft-

ware (e.g. AnyLogic, PTV Vision), as well as mod-

els of problem areas of city road network. As a re-

sult, students come to a classroom lessons with sug-

gestions for optimizing parameters of the street-road

network, discuss them, check various options which

can be used to obtain optimal solution to the prob-

lem. The purpose of optimization may be: reduction

the possibility of road accidents in this area, increas-

ing the road network’s capacity, reduction of the

environmental load, etc. (Tosa, C. et. al, 2013). As

an example of student’s project Figure 1a presents a

model of the existing intersection configuration,

which is needed to be optimized and Figure 1b pre-

sents a model proposed by students during the clas-

ses.

Figure 1: Configuration optimization of the road network.

5.2 Blended Learning of Engineers

Who Design the Production Process

When teaching students-technologists for solving

problems to improve production processes special-

ized software tools, such as Siemens PLM Plant

Simulation and Tecnomatix are used. These soft and

used in production and allow improving technologi-

cal processes by using virtual mannequins. The

teacher creates learning content and highlights haz-

ardous and complex processes. To classroom lessons

students come with theoretical knowledge on the

organization of technological processes, studied

software environment, as well as got acquainted with

the real problems of manufacturer. During classroom

sessions, students explore production processes and

choose the most traumatic or time-consuming. Thus,

in the educational process student not only creates

2D and 3D models of production system and per-

forms engineering analysis, but also can understand

what consequences can cause each process.

a) workpiece from outside

of the frame

b) workpiece from inner

side of the frame

Figure 2: Optimisation of technological process “Rear

wing’s holder installation”.

For example, students have modeled the activi-

ties of operators of assembly production and have

checked technological process if it is ergonomic and

safe. The results of observing the performing of par-

ticular work type in a real production system, ob-

tained during the internship at the enterprise, were

used for simulation. For modeling an interactive

three-dimensional environment Tecnomatix Jack,

where a two-dimensional layout of work areas were

reproduced in an interactive form was used.

Various methods, such as tool selection, the

change of technological process, the creation of aux-

iliary equipment were used for optimization. Figure

An Integrated Platform for Blended Learning in Engineering Education

175

2 presents two variants of technological operation’s

performing.

5.3 Analysis of the Proposed Training

Methodology’s Effectiveness

To assess the effectiveness the comparison of aca-

demic performance and the quality of graduation

projects of the last 5 years have been conducted. The

analysis shows, that the quality of graduation projects

in experimental groups is higher (Figure 3). This can

be explained by the higher motivation of students, as

well as by the focus on creativity development.

Comparison of academic performance of master-

students and experimental groups was performed.

Groups were formed from students of experimental

and traditional groups, who wanted to study master

course. The quality of learning was assessed by the

results of two examination periods for 2015/2016

academic year. The results are presented in Figure 4.

Figure 3: Comparing of aggregated data.

Figure 4: The academic performance of students.

6 CONCLUSIONS

Currently applied education methods do not meet the

requirements for the quality of specialists training

for the real sector of the economics. An effective

solution is application of blended learning, that ena-

bles to use advanced educational technologies (mod-

eling, virtual and augmented reality) allowing in-

creasing efficiency of training.

Existing platforms for course development and

organization of e-learning do not have got full func-

tionality, that are required for high-quality training

of highly qualified specialists. Proposed educational

platform will allow increasing quality of the learning

process of engineers. This platform also will provide

opportunities for student to choose individual educa-

tional trajectory. As for a teacher, it will improve the

learning process and increase its quality through data

analysis of the learning process’s monitoring.

The advantage of proposed platform is that mod-

ular open multi-user architecture of developed con-

trol system of blended learning is the basis of relia-

bility and stability of its work, as it allows quickly

identifying and eliminating causes of failures, ex-

cluding their influence on other modules, and also

increasing the speed and quality of technical sup-

port. This approach allows implementing all neces-

sary functionalities and supplementing them when it

is necessary.

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