Developing Non-technical Skills in a Technical Course

Session F3B

Developing Non-technical Skills in a Technical Course David López, Fermín Sánchez, Josep-Llorenç Cruz, and Agustín Fernández Computer Architecture Department. Technical University of Catalonia. Jordi Girona, 1 i 3. Campus Nord. Mòduls C6 i D6. 08034 Barcelona, Spain. {david, fermin, cruz, agustin}@ac.upc.edu Abstract - Among their educational objectives, Computer Science courses do not usually aim at developing skills such as the gathering of information, oral and written communication, or teamwork; nor do they seek to heighten students’ awareness in terms of solidarity, the environment, justice or progress. In the subject "PC Architecture" at the Facultat d’informàtica de Barcelona (Spain), the aforementioned items are indeed included in the educational objectives, but without any additional effort to the student. The teaching strategies include the following: (i) students are organized into groups, which prepare a project on a topic related to the objectives of the course, (ii) students are required to make a public presentation of their project and answer questions from their colleagues, and (iii) the lab work is done in collaboration with an NGO. It consists of repairing PCs provided by donars. Once repaired, PCs are destined for projects in solidarity with developing countries. Over the last two years, we have evaluated four courses by means of student surveys, whose results have been very positive. As instructors, we have observed a remarkable improvement in the quality of the presentations throughout the course. Furthermore, some students continue their collaboration with the NGO beyond the end of the course. Index Terms – Critical thinking, long-life learning, oral and written skills, professional outcomes of a engineering degree. INTRODUCTION The European Higher Education Area (EHEA) [1] will bring about great changes in the new Bachelor and Master degrees in Computer Science throughout the European Union. The recommendations for designing the new degree are based on the definition of the professional outcomes that a student should acquire to arrive at the definition of the educational goals of the subject, and from there to design the contents of the subjects. Adaptation of the current degrees to EHEA requires an educational effort to change the educational paradigm: (i) the student not the teacher is the protagonist; (ii) the basis is not the educator's teaching but preparing the student for life-long learning and (iii) evolves from "teaching" to "learning how to learn". Some of the factors to take into account when measuring the student's effort are the following: the attendance rate at

lectures, time spent on personal study, preparation (outside of the classroom) of laboratory exercises and practices, carrying out laboratory exercises and practices, the delivery of written work, the realization of oral presentations, the preparation and realization of debates on interesting topics, and sitting midterm and final exams. Furthermore, the activities to be evaluated should be determined, together with the criteria, always in accordance with the educational objectives of the subject. The approach to follow is to calculate the effort that an average student must make to pass the subject. This is done by using ECTS credits. ECTS [2] is the unit of measurement of the academic activity in the EHEA. It quantifies the student's work, not the teacher‘s. ECTS integrates theoretical and practical studies, tutor-marked academic activities, and the student's personal work. The volume of a student's work during a complete academic year is a maximum of 60 ECTS credits, where one ECTS credit is equivalent to 25-30 student work hours. Developing non-technical skills has become one of the main goals of the new engineering technology programs, and the target of several workshops and papers [3][4][5]. The educational objectives of the subject presented in this paper include the acquisition of non-technical skills without decrerasing the technical content assimilated by students. The rest of the document is organized as follows: first, educational objectives of engineering are classified into categories and PC Architecture (PCA); particular objectives are enumerated according to their categories. Next, teaching strategies designed to obtain the educational objectives are detailed and the number of ECTS credits of PCA is calculated. Finally, results and conclusions are presented. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES

Classification of Educational Objectives According to Nichols [6], the intended educational student outcomes are descriptions of what academic departments wish students to know (cognitive), think (attitudinal), or do (behavioral) when they have completed their degree program. Any given subject must contribute to some of these outcomes. This is done by the use of educational objectives, which have a finer grain than outcomes. The educational objectives of a subject must express clearly what the student should have learned when the subject is finished. According to the educational objectives, contents

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Session F3B are elaborated, the most appropriate methodology and educational strategies for every subject are defined, and the methods of evaluation are established. Bloom’s taxonomy [7] distinguishes six levels of competence in the definition of educational objectives: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. At every level, two classes of educational objectives can be defined: general and specific. General educational objectives refer generically to abilities that the student should develop. Specific educational objectives detail, in a precise way, the knowledge and aptitudes that the student must acquire. Educational objectives can also be classified according to their orientation, as described in [8]. In PCA, we base our goals on this classification: • Technical objectives: Related to the technical contents of the studies. They refer to the characteristics of the area of study; in our case, computer engineering. They are mainly cognitive and behavioral. • Transversal objectives: Related to abilities and aptitudes. They refer to general abilities - necessary for a student of computer engineering but also for many other engineering students. They are mainly attitudinal and behavioral. • Deontological objectives: Related to attitudes, values and regulations. They refer to the personal positioning of the student with regard to society. They are mainly attitudinal. Educational objectives can be described according to different levels. At the degree level, educational objectives must be general. In fact, it is customary to refer to outcomes rather than educational objectives when addressing what is expected from students when finishing their degree. However, at the subject level, some general educational objectives will be described, but specific educational objectives are also required. Granularity becomes much finer the closer we approach the final implementation. Engineering Educational Objectives In [9] a list of eleven core outcomes for engineering is defined, as well as the references used in drawing up the list of attributes. This list contains cognitive, attitudinal, and behavioral outcomes. These outcomes can hardly be acquired in only one subject, and are the following: • Ability to apply knowledge of mathematics, science, and engineering. • Ability to design and conduct experiments, as well as to analyze and interpreter data. • Ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs. • Ability to function in multidisciplinary teams. • Ability to identify, formulate and solve engineering problems . • Understanding of professional and ethical responsibility. • Ability to communicate effectively . • The broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global and social context.

• • •

A recognition of the need for, and an ability to engage in life-long learning. A knowledge of contemporary issues. An ability to use the techniques, skills and modern engineering tools necessary for engineering practice.

A complete list of outcomes for computing engineering based on ABET criteria [10] can be found in the Computing Curricula drawn up by the ACM and IEEE [11]. PCA Educational Objectives PCA is a free configuration subject in the computer science degree at the Facultat d’Informàtica de Barcelona (FIB). Students can select a small percentage (less than 6% of credits) of these kinds of subjects, which are mainly oriented toward the achievement of attitudinal outcomes. Students who enroll for PCA should have previous knowledge of computer structure, and they are recommended to have some previous study on subjects related to operating systems. PCA educational objectives have a finer grain than the outcomes described in the previous section, but they contribute to the achievement of some of these outcomes. Objectives have been proposed by an iterative process. First, the educational strategies have been defined in order to obtain a list of initial objectives. Once the strategies have been established, new educational objectives have been defined without increasing the student school workload or reducing the success attained in the rest of the educational objectives. This has also been done without increasing the teacher workload. For example, student awareness with regard to the environment has been increased through the accomplishment and public presentation of some written projects related to the topic. This has not decreased the quantity of technical contents assimilated by students, and also has positive effects in other educational objectives, such as increasing students’ ability for oral and written communication. PCA educational objectives are described in the next section. They are classified according to the three categories described in [8]. General and specific educational objectives are clearly indicated wherever possible. PCA Technical Objectives The general PCA educational objective is that the student should able to select, from a catalog and from some specific requirements, the different components of a computer, as well as being able to assemble a PC with the best quality-price relationship. As specific educational objectives, the student should: 1. Be able to describe the architecture of a current personal computer. 2. Have a historical vision of the evolution of processors, semiconductor memories, storage devices, motherboards and BIOS. 3. Be able to describe the characteristics of the types of memory that can be found in a PC. 4. Understand how motherboards, busses and chipsets work, and how they influence the performance of the computer.

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Session F3B 5.

Be able to describe the basic principles of the BIOS and how to adjust them to the computer. 6. Be able to describe the components that allow new services to be added to a computer. 7. Be able to explain how graphic cards work and why these devices are necessary. 8. Be able to describe the input/output system and how data transfer is performed between CPU or memory and storage devices. Be able to describe the principles of functioning of these devices and the parameters to be considered when they are incorporated into a computer. 9. Be able to describe and use current tools to evaluate the components in a computer. 10. Have a vision of the possible short-term evolution of all the elements in a computer. PCA Transversal Objectives Students should be able: 11. To improve their critical thinking. 12. To improve their teamwork skills. 13. To increase their ability of oral and written communication. 14. To increase their ability to plan and organize the work and the study. 15. To increase their ability to manage information . 16. To increase their ability of decision making. 17. To increase their ability to gather and integrate information. PCA Deontological Objectives Students should be able: 18. To acquire a real commitment to values such as solidarity, justice and progress. 19. To acquire an active attitude with regard to the learning process, assuming a leading role in their formation. 20. To increase their awareness with regard to the environment. TECHNICAL CONTENTS

• • • • • •

Graphic cards. History, evolution and future trends. 4 hours. Storage: Removable devices, Hard disk, CD, DVD; history, evolution and future trends. 5 hours. Input/output devices. Screen, printer, mouse and others, history, evolution and future trends. 3 hours. Software tools for performance evaluation. 1 hour. Practical advice on assembling a PC: 1 hour. Student’s public presentations: 12 hours. TEACHING STRATEGIES

The activities of our students are divided into: master lectures, developing of a project, public presentation of the project in front of their classmates, a comprehensive exam and the laboratory session. At this point, we will show the influence of these activities on the course educational objectives. Master Lectures PCA has two weekly sessions of contact time, each one being two hours long. About 70% of these hours are devoted to master lectures, imparted by teachers using the course slides [12], more than one thousand at present. Slides are available for students in a four-slides-per-page pdf on the web page of the subject. In the first lecture, the development of the course is explained. The APC educational objectives and how teaching strategies help to obtain them are detailed. It is essential for students to have this information, since it helps them to understand the methodology and the course requirements. It increases student motivation to participate and carrying out work well, helping to develop objective 19. Master lectures directly affect the educational objectives concerning technical contents - objectives 1 to 10. They cover the level of comprehension in Bloom taxonomy [7], but they also bring about improvement in the critical thinking objective 11 – because teachers use the classes to present and compare different alternatives, highlighting the pros and cons of each one. Moreover, some lessons place emphasis on topics such as recycling, pollution, responsible consumption and ergonomics, helping to develop values such as progress, justice, labor rights and environment – objectives 18 and 20.

We have elaborated APC contents according to the technical objectives described above. Below are described the main topics to study and the time devoted to teacher lectures, as well as the time reserved for students’ public project Project presentations. Lectures are not necessarily given in the following order. Students carry out a project selected from a list published at • PCA description: 2 hours. the beginning of course. Students may also suggest their own • How to write a project memory. 1 hour. projects. All the projects are different, tutor-marked • How to make a public project presentation. 1 hour. assignments, and they can be carried out individually or in • PC processors: History and evolution; basic concepts on groups, according to the workload. In order to manage the superscalar architectures; details from Pentium and AMD project assignment and delivery, as well as other tasks, we K5 to current PC processors; future trends. 9 hours . have a moodle-based application [13]. • Semiconductor memories. History, evolution and future The project should consist of between 5,000 and 10,000 trends. 3 hours. words per student. Developing the project affects some of the technical objectives, but since the project is on new topics, • Mother boards, chipsets and form factors; BIOS; Buses: students should gather for information from different sources expansion, disk, serial and multimedia; sockets and in order to integrate, organize and adopt a critical attitude to it, external connectors; history, evolution and future trends. as well as making decisions - objectives 11, 14, 15, 16 and 17. 8 hours. 1-4244-1084-3/07/$25.00 ©2007 IEEE October 10 – 13, 2007, Milwaukee, WI 37th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference F3B-7

Session F3B Objectives 1-10. Technical 11. Critical thinking, analysis and comprehension 12. Teamwork 13 Oral and written communication 14. Planning of work and study 15. Information management 16. Decision making 17. Gathering and integration of information 18. Solidarity, justice and progress 19. Life-long learning 20. Sensitivity for the environment

Master lectures X X

X X X

Project development X X X X X X X X X X X

Project public presentation X X X X

Comprehensive exam X X X X X

Laboratory X X X X

X X X

X X X

TABLE I: RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES AND STRATEGIES

Furthermore, if the project is carried out in a group, it will affect objective 12. Choosing a topic of student interest encourages an active attitude with regard to the learning process - objective 19. The technical contents of the project are evaluated, as well as its organization and clarity. This has a bearing on obectives 11, 13 and 15, by improving critical thinking, ability to manage information and written skills. Guidelines and documentation about how to read [14]and to write [15] documents are offered to the students to assist them in carrying out the project. Two talks about how to write and how to present a project in public are given during the course. Some of the projects are related with topics as social responsibility, justice, environment and solidarity. Our students have analyzed the initiatives of some major companies (e.g. IBM, Intel, AMD, HP, ORACLE) with respect to human rights, sustainable development, recycling policy, labor policy (specially in developing countries) and so on, which bear upon objectives 18 and 20. From the 120 projects proposed to date, 22 have been related with processors, 12 with memories, 16 with I/O devices, 20 with storage, 21 with motherboards, 12 with graphic cards and 19 with social aspects (a project can be related with more than one topic, or cannot be related with any of these general topics: 29 more projects are classified as others). Some examples are: “Quad core PCs”, “IBM, human rights, sustainable development and environment”, “Home Theater PCs”, “The Cell graphic processor”, “Thermal throttle”, “FBDIMMs”, “I/O devices for people with a disability”, “Blu-Ray vs. HDDVD”, “ATI Crossfire vs. NVIDIA SLI”, “SMART”, “Malware”, “Environmentalfriendly PCs”. Project Public Presentation The project is defended in class (almost 30% of the classes are student presentations). The presentations are distributed throughout the entire course and the presentation dates are linked to the projects. This encourages student planning when during the course they will have time to carry out the project and to prepare the presentation. This develops their ability to plan the work and the study - objective 14 - and it encourages them to adopt an active attitude with regard to their own learning - objective 19 - and to make decisions - objective 16.

Students may consult the presentations of previous courses [12] and documentation about how to make a presentation [16]. Every student has 15 minutes to carry out his or her public presentation. Afterwards, a question-and-answer session and discussion are opened. The four teachers sharing the master lectures attend all the presentations, which reinforces the importance of this phase. Students fill in a survey at the end of every presentation, evaluating aspects such as clarity, personal interest in the topic and the points they did or did not like. This information is not used for evaluation: it is given directly to the students who have made the presentation so they can arrive at their own conclusions. Every two or three public presentations, a teacher carries out a constructive critique, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of every presentation and offering indications about how they might be improved. This critique includes the contents of the slides, organization, aesthetic, attitude of the student, body language, etc. Public presentation develops the ability for oral and written communication - objective 13 - critical thinking, information management and time planning. Discussing the presentation with their colleagues and receiving the critique of the teacher improves critical thinking and teamwork, as well as inducing an active attitude in the learning process objectives 11, 12 and 19. Defending the project itself, attending other student presentations and taking part in the discussion that follows the presentation contributes to the same points. Comprehensive Exam A written test takes place towards the end of course. It consists of a list of 16 questions that must be answered on the same sheets where questions are written. The students have a week to deliver their answers. To answer the questions, it is necessary to consult the class slides, the projects undertaken by the students, the recommended bibliography and also the gathering of information on Internet. An average student should devote about 10 hours to completing the exam. Due to its technical content, it affects objectives 1 to 10. The exam affects the gathering, management and integration of the information - objectives 15 and 17. It also

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Session F3B improves the ability to plan work and study - objective 14 -, since it is carried out towards the end of course, when the students have more work on other subjects. Since students can organize their own time and are free to consult any kind of material, we consider that the exam constitutes the last lesson. The exam is printed with watermarks, so students cannot make photocopies and they have just one opportunity to write their answer. The exam must be handwritten, and in addition to the technical contents, concision, clarity and completeness of the answer, spelling, calligraphy and grammar are all evaluated. This affects the students oral and written skills, and contributes towards developing their critical thinking and their ability to organize work and study - objectives 11, 13 and 14. Laboratory There is only one laboratory session. The aim of this session is to assemble and fix up some PCs. The students work in pairs, each pair assembling a computer. Laboratory is carried out in collaboration with TxT (Tecnologia per Tothom – Technology for Everybody) [17], a small NGO whose members are students, teachers and administrative staff of our Faculty. One of the main tasks of the TxT consists in collecting PCs provided by donars and repairing them. Once fixed up, these computers are destined for projects in solidarity with local NGOs or developing countries. To date, the donations have been carried out with other NGOs or schools in Spain, as well as in Algeria, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Morocco, Peru and Senegal. At the beginning of the practical session, a teacher explains briefly how the lab session will be developed. Afterwards, the students start working on assembling computers. These PCs have been checked previously, so if they are assembled correctly, they work properly. When they have finished the assembly, students can voluntarily fix up unchecked PCs. The unservicable hardware components are sent to specialized recycling warehouses. Every fixed PC is immediately assigned to a project, so that students know the final destination of the PC they have repaired. In practice, all the students carries out this voluntary work, and some of them keep up their collaboration with TxT beyond the end of PCA. The laboratory work affects many of the technical objectives as well as the ability for team-work -objective 12-, the planning and work organization -objective 14- and the active attitude in the learning process -objective 19-. Collaborating with an NGO and knowing the destination of the PCs affects in the objectives 18 and 20: to acquire awareness of the environment and to reinforce values such as solidarity, justice and progress. Table I summarizes the relationship between the educational objectives and strategies.

• •

coherence and good written expression), as well as the quality of the public defense. Exam (40%). We evaluate the technical contents as well as spelling, handwriting and grammar. Laboratory (20%). COMPUTING ECTS CREDITS

The duration of one term course is 52 hours, which includes 50 hours for the lectures plus the students’ public presentations, and 2 hours for the mandatory part of the lab. We consider that 40 hours are required for carrying out the project (documentation, study and preparation of the report), and 8 more to prepare the presentation and defense. Activity Attendance at class Carrying out the work Preparing the public presentation Comprehensive exam Lab work Study Management Total

Hours 50 40 8 10 2 13 6.5 129.5

TABLE II: STUDENT WORKLOAD DISTRIBUTION

The comprehensive exam requires at least 10 hours. Finally, we believe that a weekly hour of study is sufficient to reach the comprehension level, and 30 minutes weekly are enough for management (consulting news on the web, printing of the slides, etc.). Table II summarizes this distribution. Altogether they add up to 129.5 hours, equivalent to 4.325.18 ECTS [2] credits. If the number of credits is set to 5, that would mean 26.3 hours of the student's time per credit. ANALYSIS OF RESULTS

A very important factor for improving the quality of the teaching is to obtain information about how students perceive the received formation. The tool used in PCA is an anonymous survey. With this information, we intend to improve the subject and to adapt it to the concerns of students and teachers. The survey is divided into sections related to PCA topics, educational strategies and the perception of the students for each topic. The survey ends with a series of open questions for the comments of the students. Surveys are carried out at the end of the semester and the students have several days to answer them. Although it is voluntary, more than 90% of students answer the survey, Students really like the PCA technical contents, with an average of 4 on a scale of 1 to 5. The results are useful for identifying the topics with minor interest from the student's point of view, as well as those that it is necessary to extend, reduce or eliminate, and even new topics to be incorporated. As for the teaching strategies, the assessment method has Final Mark been very well valuated in general, although many students consider that the effort required to pass the subject is very high The final result of the assessment is divided into: for an optional course. The survey results emphasize the • The project (40%). From this part, half the qualification public presentation of the projects with their corresponding consists of the technical quality, while the remaining half question-and-answer sessions and debates. Carrying out a concerns the quality of the written project report (clarity, public presentation and facing a question-and-answer session 1-4244-1084-3/07/$25.00 ©2007 IEEE October 10 – 13, 2007, Milwaukee, WI 37th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference F3B-9

Session F3B is not to the liking of most students. Even so, the students understand that developing this type of outcome is very important for their careers. Students taking the course are, in general, those close to graduation and who are already thinking of their professional future. One of the most satisfactory results in the survey is the global evaluation of the subject, both in the usefulness of the content and in fulfilled expectations. On corroboration of these results, the vast majority state that they would recommend their colleagues to enroll at PCA. Fulfilled Objectives The goal of the course is not to form experts, but to provide students with basic knowledge to enable them to be critical and selective toward the great volume of information that they receive on this topic. The projects and the answers of the survey indicate that this goal has been achieved to a great extent. The lab work has been one of the activities better valued by the students. The grade of satisfaction is such that once the obligatory part has been carried out (assembly of one PC), almost all the students continue repairing PCs two more hours beyond the class schedule. The first presentations of the course are sluggish and present many deficiencies. The teacher's comments provide an incentive and help to correct common mistakes. The level of student participation in the subsequent debate is very high. Attendance at several presentations helps students to improve their own public presentation, since they learn from the mistakes of their classmates. In consequence, the last presentations of the course are excellent. In general, we consider that the course has been a success. After attending it, the majority of our students are no longer afraid to buy a PC in separate parts (selecting the components in a rational way) and assembling them at home. CONCLUSIONS The design of a new subject based on its educational objectives has been presented. The educational objectives should clearly express what students will have learned when the subject is finished. According to these objectives, contents are drawn up, the methodology and educational strategies are defined and the methods of evaluation are established. In the PCA subject, non-technical skills have been introduced without reducing the acquisition of technical ones, simply by making a correct use of teaching strategies. PCA students increase their non-technical skills such as the ability of oral and written communication, planning and organizing work and study, gathering and managing information, and increasing their awareness with regard to the environment. In addition, they acquire a true commitment to values such as solidarity, justice and progress, as well as an active attitude to the learning process. PCA has become a subject highly regarded by students, both in the usefulness of the content and in fulfilled expectations. Most of the students state that they would recommend their colleagues to enroll at PCA. As educators,

we believe that the course has been a success. The quality of the projects and presentations testify to this, as well as the fact that some students enroll in TxT, the NGO we work with. Finally, we wish to point out that this methodology is not dependent on this subject, but can be applied to other subjects throughout the engineering degree. ACKNOWLEDGMENT We wish to thank our students and specially the TxT organization for their valuable support to improve PCA. This work has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (project TIN2004-07739-C02-01). REFERENCES [1] The Bologna Declaration of 19 June 1999. [On line] < http://www.bologna-berlin2003.de/pdf/bologna_declaration.pdf> [2] European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System [On line] [3] Baillie, C., Sharpe, L., and Catalano G.D. "Engineering and Social Justice, Part II: Looking Inward". Special session at 36th Frontiers in Education Conference, San Diego, CA, oct. 2006. [4] Danielson, S., Hawks, V., and Hartin, J.R. "Engineering Technology Education in an Era of Globalization". 36th Front. in Education, pp. S1C 20-25, San Diego, CA, oct. 2006. [5] Thain, D., and Poellabauer ,C. "Experence With A Literate Approach to Computer Science". 36th Frontiers in Education, pp. M1H 8-13, San Diego, CA, october 2006 [6] Nichols, J.O. “The departamental guide and record book for student outcomes assessment and institutional effectiveness”. New York: Agathon Press; 1991. [7] Bloom B.S. et al., D.R. “Taxonomy of educational objectives”, Handbook I (cognitive domain), New York: Longman 1956. [8] Sánchez, F. and R. Gavaldà, R. “Propuesta de objetivos formativos para el primer curso de las ingenierías informáticas y de algunas estrategias docentes para conseguirlos.”. Novática no 175 June-July 2005, pp 31-35. [9] Besterfield-Sacre, M., Shuman L.J., and Wolfe H., “Defining the outcomes: A framework for EC 2000”, IEEE Transactions on Education, Vol. 43, No2, May 2000, pp 100-110. [10] Engineering Accreditation Comission, “Critera for Accrediting Engineering Programs”, Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), Baltimore, Mariland, 2004. [11] Computing curricula 2005, Sept. 2005, [On line] [12] PCA page [On line] [13] The moodle tool [On line] [14] Hanson M.J., and McNamee D.J. “Efficient Reading of Papers in Science and Technology” [On line], [15] Levin R., and Rendell D.D. “How (and How Not) to Write a Good System Paper”, [On line] [16] Budiu M., “Some Rules to Make a Presentation”, [On line] [17] Tecnology for Everybody

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