Implementation of an on-line asynchronous tools to facilitate problem-based learning in Water Resources Engineering

Student feedback from past semesters for the courses Water Resources Engineering and Urban Hydrology and Hydraulics has indicated that out-of-class guidance or coaching from the instructor in solving problems related to the course content was the most effective tool for learning the material from these courses. However, this proved to be an inefficient teaching tool. While similar guidance was commonly repeated to different groups of students, because the student groups progressed through problems at different rates and often all students could not schedule simultaneous time with the instructor. Furthermore, out-of-class coaching is also an inefficient learning tool because the instructor often is not available at the times when the students are working on the problems. The tools described in this paper addressed these inefficiencies by providing asynchronous access to help and guidance on the difficulties that the students commonly encounter while working on out-of-class problems for these courses. The three tools that will be discussed are: (1) a bulletin board that allows students to respond to each other's queries and to see the instructor's responses to the posted queries, (2) a set of daily on-line quizzes that provide feedback and suggestions to the student about their individual results and provide feedback to the instructor about problem areas, and (3) an on-line, help library providing coaching for the most frequently asked questions. This library contains video clips of actual help sessions, and links to additional help tools. These additional tools include animations illustrating the calculations and procedures, reference materials, and solved example problems.