Active Distance Learning of Embedded Systems

The move from face-to-face to distance learning poses a challenge for courses that rely on hands-on experience such as embedded systems. In this course, students need to work with hardware and software to achieve various learning objectives. For full advantage, the hands-on experience should be aligned with the acquisition of related concepts and procedural knowledge. The alignment of conceptual learning with hands-on experience is a big challenge, in general, and for distance learning, in particular. This article describes how different learning technologies can be integrated to achieve such alignment for embedded systems in a distance learning mode. A framework for active, lecture-free learning was established using a learning management system, YouTube, various web resources, a hardware kit, and a software development environment. The learning activities were implemented as ungraded quizzes on Moodle with different types of questions. These include review questions, conceptual questions, procedural questions, brainstorming questions, code analysis questions, and code creation questions. Our students used the provided hardware kit and the software development environment to complete the learning activities throughout the semester without listening to any live or recorded lecture from our end. This instructional design was evaluated by analyzing learning data generated by Moodle as well as self-report data. The results show high student engagement and positive perceptions of the course content and the learning method. We believe that the proposed pedagogical framework of this design is of general value and can be adopted in other engineering courses with similar requirements of hands-on experience in distance learning.