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Previous research suggests that there should be a correlation between computational thinking and traditional cognitive and motor skills. At present, academia either considers cognitive skills a part of computational thinking, or investigates the correlation between computational thinking and cognitive skills. Current research on computational thinking focuses on the design of teaching models to improve computational thinking ability and on measures for evaluating computational thinking. The association of computational thinking with motor skills is rarely discussed. From the perspective of embodied cognition theory, an association must exist, but its mechanisms have not been studied. Therefore, this study explores the effect of the teaching model of creative problem solving (CPS) on computational thinking and its internal correlation with technical skills. It was found that CPS can not only improve the computational thinking ability of students majoring in engineering, but also promote their corresponding motor skills. However, the students' previous academic background had a certain influence on their learning outcomes. Students at universities of technology experienced a greater improvement in their computational thinking and motor skills than students at general universities. There is a certain correlation between computational thinking and motor skills, and the interaction between them should be properly considered in future teaching and curriculum design so as to improve students' learning effectiveness.

As mobile learning (ML) becomes more and more popular, teaching methods are gradually adapting to flipped classrooms or micro-flipped classrooms. Many studies have discussed the influence of ML-based flipped classrooms on students' learning in a macroscopic way. However, at the micro-level, the impact of these classrooms on students' emotional learning and cognitive flexibility requires further research--particularly of students of different levels of learning achievement (low, middle, and high). This study, carried out via both qualitative and quantitative methods, shows that in learning emotions, flipped classrooms based on ML had some effect on students' "self-directed learning" and "self-efficacy." Flipped classrooms did more to improve low achievers' intrinsic goals (learning motivation), metacognition (learning strategy), and resource management (learning strategy) than it did that of middle and high achievers. As for cognitive flexibility, results further indicated that flipped classrooms allowed low achievers the freedom to be more self-directed, helping them to feel a higher degree of "cognitive control" or "cognitive flexibility," thus improving their academic achievement. The results of this study lay a theoretical foundation for designing an effective flipped classroom environment with differentiated instruction in the future.

Let F, G and H be graphs. A (G, H)-decomposition of F is a partition of the edge set of F into copies of G and copies of H with at least one copy of G and at least one copy of H. For R ⊆ F, a (G, H)-covering of F with padding R is a (G, H)-decomposition of F + E(R). A (G, H)-covering of F with the smallest cardinality is a minimum (G, H)-covering. This paper gives the solution of finding the minimum (Ck, Sk)-covering of the crown Cn,n−1.

Advancements in information and communication technology (ICT) allowed several tools and systems to be proposed for improving classroom experiences to both instructors and students. However, most of these tools were brand-new and stand-alone programs that require users to invest additional time and effort to become familiar with their use. This requirement could adversely affect the users' motivation on using these particular programs. However, enhancing student learning motivation and participation is crucial for the teaching and learning of new knowledge or skills since motivation would affect how instructors and students interact with learning materials. In the era of Web 2.0, both instructors and students are heavily immersed in various web applications such as SkyDrive, Evernote, DropBox, and Google Apps on a daily basis. These web applications were also well-received by both instructors and students in their daily lives. Therefore, the use of well-known web applications could be a potentially novel method to engage instructors and students in meaningful teaching and learning activities. Bearing this in mind, this study proposed a learning environment supported by well-known web applications to supplement classroom teaching and learning activities, assist instructors in facilitating student learning and participation, and help improve student learning motivation and performance. Experimental results revealed that students had higher learning motivation and participation when using the proposed web application supported learning environment during and after class as it gave them access to adequate learning support. The proposed approach also gave effective assistance to instructors and students in administering and conducting learning activities during and after class. (Contains 4 tables and 5 figures.)

One obstacle to industrial technology education is that the difficulties or problems students encounter during experiments are not easy to detect. Students are often unaware of their flaws, and some will not notify the teacher of these flaws even if they are aware of them. Consequently, many opportunities to rectify these flaws and improve teaching methods are lost, and students who are falling behind are deprived of instant guidance and cannot catch up. Therefore, this paper aims to develop a web-based self-reflective learning system to enhance students' learning of industrial technology. This study applied sensor network technology to develop a web-based self-reflective learning system based on a self-reflective learning approach. The system was integrated into a micro-fabrication technology course for empirical study. Subsequently, the influence of the web-based self-reflective learning system on students' learning performance and technical skills was investigated. Analysis of the data obtained from learning cognition, skill assessment, and learning satisfaction following education indicated that the web-based self-reflective learning system could effectively improve the learning performance of students falling behind, thereby allowing these students to catch up in their cognitive and skill achievements by the end of the semester. (Contains 4 figures and 4 tables.)

With the evolution of the surrounding world market, engineers have to propose innovations in products and processes. Industrial innovation frequently results from an improved understanding of basic physics. In this paper, an approach to accelerate inventive preliminary design is presented. This method combines the main advantages of CBR (Case Based Reasoning) and TRIZ (Russian acronym for Theory of Solving Inventive Problem) to transfer physics to industrial technology. Based on this synergy, interactive web-based environments are developed. These systems are intended not only to enhance students to become familiar with basic physics, but also to support students in building meaningful links between basic physics and industrial technologies. The evaluation was conducted in a "Special Project Design" course requiring students to design a robot that could carry out several functions. Robotics, an interdisciplinary engineering subject, has been a recurring theme in engineering education. Project-based learning provides opportunities for interdisciplinary learning. With project-based learning approaches, planning activities and investigations play a critical role in the project process. Through the web-based environments, students can explore the essence of basic physics, design technologies, and the integration of mechatronics. Further, web-based reasoning and meaningful learning modules are developed to scaffold creative design and to enhance student participation, motivation, and learning effectiveness. Quantitative and qualitative methods such as questionnaires and interviews were used to evaluate the effects of the developed system. Findings showed that inquiry modules were able to facilitate investigation and planning activities in product design stages. The responses obtained were very encouraging. Students in the course were appreciative of these on-going changes and indicated that these were indeed helping them to develop their engineering thinking and design skills, increasing their motivation to study. (Contains 3 tables and 3 figures.)

Previous research suggests that there should be a correlation between computational thinking and traditional cognitive and motor skills. At present, academia either considers cognitive skills a part of computational thinking, or investigates the correlation between computational thinking and cognitive skills. Current research on computational thinking focuses on the design of teaching models to improve computational thinking ability and on measures for evaluating computational thinking. The association of computational thinking with motor skills is rarely discussed. From the perspective of embodied cognition theory, an association must exist, but its mechanisms have not been studied. Therefore, this study explores the effect of the teaching model of creative problem solving (CPS) on computational thinking and its internal correlation with technical skills. It was found that CPS can not only improve the computational thinking ability of students majoring in engineering, but also promote their corresponding motor skills. However, the students' previous academic background had a certain influence on their learning outcomes. Students at universities of technology experienced a greater improvement in their computational thinking and motor skills than students at general universities. There is a certain correlation between computational thinking and motor skills, and the interaction between them should be properly considered in future teaching and curriculum design so as to improve students' learning effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synthesis of Materials is regarded as an important core subject in engineering education. However, many concepts and knowledge in the material synthesis can be rather abstract and difficult to understand by the student learners. Experiments are limited in scope due to lack of equipment, control of toxic materials, and risks of chemical reactions, which often restricts student imagination and student involvement in practical training. These reasons often led to poor learning attitude and learning performance among the students. Rapid developments in Cloud technology and mobile devices have provided new opportunities for developing novel learning tools for material synthesis. This study aims to introduce interest factors as a strategy for promoting learning interest and practical skills among the students. Chemical symbols, experimental themes, texts, and interactive elements were utilized to develop a theme-based Mobile Learning APP for teaching the practical techniques of material synthesis. The Mobile Learning APP was then integrated into a problem-based learning activity. A quasi-experimental design was used to investigate the resulting learning effectiveness from using the developed Mobile Learning APP. Results show that the Mobile Learning APP provided a significant positive effect on learning performance and that most students showed favorable attitudes toward the usage of the mobile learning system.

With the development of information technology and popularization of web applications, students nowadays have grown used to skimming through information provided through the Internet. This reading habit led them to be incapable of analyzing or integrating information they have received. Hence, knowledge management and critical thinking (CT) have, in recent years, become important topics in higher education. However, there are many web applications that may serve as effective teaching and learning tools. This study therefore proposed a blended learning environment that incorporated useful web applications within a knowledge transformation model to create an educational environment capable of improving CT and knowledge transformation for student users. A semester-long experiment was then conducted to evaluate this learning environment. Results revealed that the proposed approach was effective in improving student CT and knowledge transformation. Students were also satisfied with the courses and teaching methods used by the proposed learning environment which also effectively improved their learning motivation.

Practical training and actual application of acquired knowledge and techniques are crucial for the learning of technical skills. We established a wireless sensor network system (WSNS) based on the 5E learning cycle in a practical learning environment to improve students' reflective abilities and to reduce difficulties for the learning of technical skills. Student learning was investigated using a Technical Expertise Assessment Form and Reflective Abilities Investigation Tool that we had developed. Results of the forms showed that the 5E learning cycle-based WSNS helped improve students' reflection and the ease in acquiring technical skills. Students' reflection was also shown to be significantly correlated with the learning of technical skills. We concluded that reflection provided by the sensory functions of the WSNS was able to reduce students' difficulties when learning technical skills.

This study investigated a Ubiquitous Sensor System (USS) that we developed to assess student thought process during practical lessons on a real-time basis and to provide students with a reflective learning environment. Behavioral curves and data obtained by the USS would help students understand where they had made mistakes during practical lessons and the exact times when incorrect process parameters were observed. This research was conducted during a course on manufacturing. The results indicated that the proposed USS was effective in improving student analysis and evaluation skills in manufacturing thinking, as well as the three psychomotor skills of guided response, mechanism and complex overt response. Student psychomotor skills also gained an overall improvement. Results also showed that improvements in student thought process also helped in the learning of psychomotor skills and that the USS helped improve the clarity of student thought process during practical operations. The improved clarity of thought allowed students to understand the reasons behind their thought process for them to make the necessary logical deductions. Through repeated reflection and practice, students would then be able to create works with personal creative elements.

Electronic engineering industries require technical specialists to operate precision electronic instruments. However, limitations in course designs and equipment availability mean that only a few students are able to use the equipment in practical lessons within a limited timeframe. Also, instruction of techniques and skills are still mostly carried out in traditional lecture formats. Student-instructor and student-student interactions are clearly insufficient. When students encounter difficulties in their lesson, they are unable to obtain immediate assistance, resulting in gaps in their understanding. To address this issue, this study aims to create a situated spectrum analyzer learning platform based on situated learning theory. An interactive educational environment is created to instruct on how to operate a spectrum analyzer. A situated-based learning approach was used so that students would not be limited to memorizing concepts. Instead, they would be allowed to integrate and coordinate what they know to strengthen individual concepts and gain better problem solving skills. Additionally, in order to investigate the effect of the approach proposed, an experiment was conducted to evaluate any differences in learning performance, satisfaction, understanding and technical expertise.

Universities in Taiwan can be divided into two major categories of comprehensive universities and technological universities. Students studying engineering majors in comprehensive universities are often recruited from academic high schools while those in technological universities tend to be recruited from vocational high schools. The purpose of this research was to investigate differences in learning efficacy between college students with academic backgrounds and those with vocational backgrounds. Results indicated no significant differences in cognition between the two groups of students. Additionally, students with vocational school backgrounds performed better in comprehension skills compared with those with academic backgrounds and were more able to apply acquired knowledge to practical tasks according to path analysis studies and the Mann-Whitney "U" test.

As mobile learning (ML) becomes more and more popular, teaching methods are gradually adapting to flipped classrooms or micro-flipped classrooms. Many studies have discussed the influence of ML-based flipped classrooms on students' learning in a macroscopic way. However, at the micro-level, the impact of these classrooms on students' emotional learning and cognitive flexibility requires further research–particularly of students of different levels of learning achievement (low, middle, and high). This study, carried out via both qualitative and quantitative methods, shows that in learning emotions, flipped classrooms based on ML had some effect on students' "self-directed learning" and "self-efficacy." Flipped classrooms did more to improve low achievers' intrinsic goals (learning motivation), metacognition (learning strategy), and resource management (learning strategy) than it did that of middle and high achievers. As for cognitive flexibility, results further indicated that flipped classrooms allowed low achievers the freedom to be more self-directed, helping them to feel a higher degree of "cognitive control" or "cognitive flexibility," thus improving their academic achievement. The results of this study lay a theoretical foundation for designing an effective flipped classroom environment with differentiated instruction in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Having engineers in microfabrication technologies educated has become much more difficult than having engineers educated in the traditional technologies, and this may be because of the high cost for acquirement of equipment, materials, and infrastructural means (i.e., cleaning rooms), all in addition to the hands-on practices that are often times time-consuming to perform. These factors pose challenges for improvements to be made in teaching and learning quality. The current study has designed an interactive learning system to support self-directed learning of microfabrication technology with both the technical and the functional viewpoints taken into consideration, along with evaluated results obtained from the end-users. The current study applied technology in virtual-reality in order for interactions to be carried out on the Internet, which permits the students to become familiarized with the techniques used in microfabrication technology as they learn to operate machines. The courses offered in microfabrication technology were incorporated with the developed web-based learning system, where effects of the blended methodology on student learning result were examined. (Contains 10 tables and 3 figures.)