Development of Assessment Plan for Online Thermo-Fluid Science Courses

Abstract

Due to the flexibility and accessibility aspects, online learning is in high demand.  Many higher education institutions offer courses, certificates, and degree programs partially or fully online.  Educators have been redesigning their courses for the online learning environment.  Course management systems such as Blackboard, Moodle, and many others are adopted by higher education institutions to provide a platform to teach online courses. Transforming course contents from a traditional course to an online course can be challenging, as courses do have hands-on components such as laboratories, projects, and in-class exercises.  Many educators shared their experiences in designing and developing online courses and provided approaches they employed when transforming an in-class course to an online course. However, it is also important to measure the effectiveness of the online courses and determine the proper learning activities for the online environment. Although using only course grades to assess the effectiveness of online courses may be adequate, it may not necessarily provide an in-depth assessment of each chapter/topic. The authors suggest to collected and assessed homework and exam grades for both in-class and online settings over multiple semesters. This will help the instructors to identify the topics, chapters, or modules students may have difficulty in general. This paper provides the development of an assessment plan to measure the effectiveness of online Applied Fluid Mechanics and Applied Thermodynamics courses that are offered in the Mechanical Engineering Technology Department at Farmingdale State College.

Keywords: Fluid Mechanics, Online Education, Thermodynamics, Thermo-Fluid Sciences