Increasing Student Engagement in a Discover-e Tablet Based Course in Engineering

Geotechnical Engineering Design is an upper division technical area course designated as ‘Design Course’ offered to the undergraduate students in Civil Engineering at California State University, Fresno. The course has suddenly seen a jump in failure rate after tablet computers were inducted in the classroom instructions. It was felt that main reasons behind high DFW grades were i) Students motivation to get a free tablet computer without being accountable for their learning; and ii) Disengagement with the classroom instructional materials. While ‘free tablet’ motivation issue is already being addressed by making systemic policy changes at the university level; the disengagement issue can be addressed on the instructional level. Therefore, the aim of course redesign is to increase student engagement level and use the technology (tablet computers) more efficiently. It is planned to include short instructional videos in a partially flipped classroom setup.