The 2nd Scientific workshop for students “Computational physics of DNA”

This Innovative Practice Work in Progress Paper describes a summer physical computing workshop for underserved and under-exposed students. This study performs a novel collaborative art-based engineering project for 5th-8th grade students in Sacramento to introduce engineering design principles. Our goal in providing this workshop is to explore the following question: Does exposure to engineering design through a collaborative workshop which utilizes art and physical computing increase affinity toward engineering professional practice among 5th-8th graders in an under-served community? Physical computing projects encourage students to imagine, design, and build in the intersection of creative exploration and engineering. Such involvement with physical computing increases motivation and self-efficacy in primary school students. Utilizing familiar craft-based materials such as paper with coding and circuits can bridge the gap between the known world of arts and crafts and the unknown world of engineering-based design. Since students enroll into the workshop to create a collaborative digital art display versus enrolling into a strictly “coding” workshop, their unfamiliar or intimidating feelings towards engineering may be alleviated. Developing self-efficacy in engineering activities can play a vital role in developing engineering affinity for youth. Likewise, the development of engineering affinity is a crucial first step toward developing engineering identity. During the summer workshop, students utilize arts and crafts with Arduino, sensors, LEDs, and servos. They are tasked with incorporating agile engineering principles to code, apply electronic fundamentals, and basic craft designs to create the final art display. Through this process, students develop a greater understanding of engineering design process. The cumulative resulting art installation is an immersive, interactive pixel light show display. We examine the students' development of self-efficacy and engineering affinity by surveying the students before and after the workshop. We perform analytics to see if their responses to the survey questions and prompts increase in using engineering terms and principles and how their confidence rating changes in various categories. We brainstorm how under-served students' interests can be captured, maintained and expanded to include engineering. We present our current progress including our basis for survey design and methodology to examine our driving questions.

Broadening Participation through Physical Computing: Replicating Sensor-Based Programming Workshops for Rural Students in Sri Lanka

Background: Research is an important part of the clinical practice. In recent years, several workshops are held to teach research skills to medical students. Evaluating workshops determine that workshop content can lead to higher performance in individuals. The present study aimed to evaluate effectiveness of writing scientific papers workshop for medical students using Kirkpatrick’s model. Materials and Methods: This was a quasi-experimental study using pretest-posttest design and face to face communication to assess the learning effect of the training intervention. Immediately after workshop, the partici­pants filled out a satisfaction ques­tionnaire for evaluation of level one. To assess level two, pretest and posttest questionnaire was used. To assess level three and four, number of students who started their first research project and who published their first research articles were considered for a 6 months’ period after workshop. Results: Based on our results, contributors’ gender and semester had no efficacy on knowledge improvement of the participants. Results of four levels of Kirkpatrick’s model showed all participants were satisfied from workshop and participation in this workshop has had a positive effect on participants’ knowledge about writing articles. Obviously, the workshop affect on transfer of knowledge to contributors and it leads to maintenance of change over time. Conclusion: Impressively the authors found strong evidence to validate that the training effect on students’ understanding of the research process, positively. Such courses enable medical students to investigate properly and improve their knowledge in their field. Therefore, universities must encourage medical students to participate in these workshops.