ADAPTING CDIO FRAMEWORK TO CULTIVATE SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC

One of the goals of the School of EEE is to cultivate self-directed learning (SDL) mind-set in all its graduates with its holistic SDL eco-system, whatever the situation. The coronavirus pandemic required changes to its implementation of curriculum delivery. Campus closure in April to June 2020 forced the switch to full Home-based Learning (HBL) in the form of online asynchronous lectures, synchronous online tutorials, e-practical lessons, and e-proctoring assessments to enable students’ learning to continue. This paper discusses how the cultivation of SDL continued to be the main focus of the School through the effective deployment of HBL and guided by the various CDIO Standards despite the ravages brought about by the pandemic. This resulted in the transformation from the traditional learner-centric classroom delivery to learner-centric HBL, minimising the impact on learning outcomes (Standard 2) and yet cultivating the SDL mind-set for 2400 full-time and 650 part-time students. Previously developed learning contents for face-to-face delivery were converted to asynchronous form, with close follow-up by the teaching staff of their students during the synchronous online tutorial lessons for active learning (Standard 8). The School also capitalised on the free trial of add-in for PowerPoint, enabling increase student interactivity through their inputs and feedback on a single platform during synchronous online tutorial lessons. The use of learning analytics to provide teaching staff with real-time visual feedback on the students’ learning ability was also carried out. Lab practical videos, together with the deployment of appropriate simulation software where available, were used so that students could learn the practical experiments/projects although the lab venues were not accessible (Standard 6). Regular learning assessments (Standard 11) were conducted online with e-proctoring to ensure students were progressing and coping well despite campus closure. Training of teaching staff to enable them to conduct online synchronous lessons effectively (Standard 10) was conducted as the majority had previous little experience in online teaching. Various survey results are shared in this paper, and these affirm that student learning can continue in the new norm of engineering teaching and learning, with on-going improvements. The changes necessitated by the curriculum transformation needed to ensure that student learning continues in the face of restrictions brought about by the coronavirus pandemic, though overwhelmingly challenging at times, are catalytic to help shape our students to become self-directed learners. It drives home the point, that this need for SDL is even more urgent in the new norm of teaching and learning.