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One of the significant transformations in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) is the implementation of the Bologna process. This alteration of the traditional system to the Bologna process system has also impacted the assessment schemes. More weight has been given to formative assessment that can help improve students' grades and ease success in the courses. Nonetheless, the final exam still carries most of the grades. Therefore, setting appropriate questions that can meet all the cognition levels represented in Bloom's taxonomy assists in raising students' cognition to higher levels rather than only assessing bookish knowledge that is located on the baseline of Bloom's taxonomy. To this intent, the present study endeavored to identify if instructors at colleges of Nursing and Science adhere to the various dimensions of Bloom's taxonomy that are central to the Bologna process. More importantly, the association of each of the demographic variables to the level of the final examination questions was also examined. The study employed a quantitative method to tackle the topic. Totally, a sample of 75 final examination papers was collected from instructors, including 524 individual questions. The findings revealed that most of the examination papers revolved around low-order thinking questions and the association of the rate of success to the level of the questions was highly statistically significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is the first segment of a two-part article detailing the transition process of Northeastern State University Library's migration from OCLC's interlibrary loan automation system, ILLiad to its first cloud-based ILL management system, Tipasa. The transition planning process began in the fall of 2018 with the transition period beginning in early 2019. This article provides a framework for the successful implementation process of shift to a new interlibrary system in one semester. The authors explore the challenges and lessons learned while providing a structure that may be beneficial for other libraries preparing for a similar transition process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There are opportunities to enrich procurement and supply management classes to be more international and to engage with industry more deeply. Methods: Using a design science method this paper develops a course design for teaching procurement that enriches existing approaches to company engagement in courses. Results: Beyond the use of stand-alone guest lectures, case studies, or in-company projects, the design involved semester-long collaboration around core topics for the course, involving company lectures and multiple student projects aligned with the course topics, engaging multiple levels of managers from around the globe. Based upon an evaluation of the first-year collaboration, improvements were identified that were implemented in year two of the collaboration. Conclsuions: The design brings course learning into a real-world context and supports student skill development through project work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the biggest challenges students face in any undergraduate methods course is a lack of confidence in their mathematical abilities, leading to a struggle for both retention of information and for continued involvement in research-based courses. In my article, I present a new approach to improving self-efficacy in undergraduate methods students and show that self-reported measures of learning improved as well as the completion of senior theses and directed research opportunities increased in the subsequent semester over previous years. Specifically, instead of teaching the course through academic articles and lessons from a textbook, I used a paper from the same course written by a former student as an exemplar of how to write a research paper. The peer-modeling approach improved student evaluations of the course immediately following the semester, increased the number of students involved in independent research subsequent to the course, and showed a high self-reported level of retention and use of research methods over a year after the course was completed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Student drop-outs continue to be one of the perineal problems of educational institutions. Accordingly, institution managers are trying to find ways and means to curb impending issues on drop-outs to satisfy quality education. In this paper, the researcher delved into the different time series modeling methods in order to forecast the rate of college dropouts at King's College of the Philippines-Benguet. The method considered was the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model. The data used in this paper was the number of school dropouts from 2005 to 2018 obtained from the school registrar which shows more dropout during the first semester than the second semester. Initial result obtained from using ARIMA reveals that the best model used is the model ARIMA which is the auto regression (AR 1), then the moving average (MA 1), with first differencing on the second semester. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning Design (LD) research accounts for several design support tools, or LD tools, employing representations for learning designs to facilitate the "teachers as designers" thinking while preparing learning experiences. In contrast to existing studies having followed mainly a specialist/researcher (as opposed to a teacher) perspective, our quest to develop an LD tool follows a Design-Based Research (DBR) approach involving practitioners. Specifically, in this paper, we attempt to give voice to teachers as designers and investigate how they prefer having their learning designs represented by LD tools. Aiming to create a principled account of how to represent learning designs in an LD tool, we first conducted an integrative literature review to formulate a representational framework that drove our research. Subsequently, we addressed the following LD representational dimensions: (i) format, (ii) organisation, (iii) guidance and support, and (iv) contextualisation. We are reporting on a case study conducted with 16 participants in a teacher education context. Although previous research typically reported findings based on a single LD tool's evaluation over a short period, we have opted for eliciting feedback based on a rich LD experience. To this end, we acquainted participants in LD projects with two LD tools (Learning Designer and WebCollage) during an academic semester. Furthermore, we followed a mixed-method explanatory sequential design applied through a survey questionnaire and semi-structured interviews to achieve a more profound consideration of the teachers' preferences for LD representations. Our findings indicate that the teachers strongly endorse an LD tool supporting a visual format and a global organisation in the form of a table that provides a global overview of a learning design while focusing on its specific elements. Teachers seem to prefer an LD tool that balances providing guidance and flexibility, as they opt for (i) a non-restrictive taxonomy for articulating learning objectives, (ii) some form of standardisation for formatting learning units, along with allowing free formation, (iii) a flexible pedagogical framework for modelling the learning activities' pedagogy so that it can be adjusted to particular designers' needs, and (iv) a typology of technologies that can be utilised or not. In addition, they seemed to favour an LD tool supporting high contextualisation, as they prefer to describe contextual details for a learning design's units and activities. These findings constitute design principles for our ongoing DBR and may stimulate momentum for researchers developing LD tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes and assesses the implementation of online homework in a first-semester calculus course. Comparing sections of the course before implementation to those after, we find statistically significant improvements in retention rates, measures of student engagement, and participation on homework. We do not, however, find statistically significant changes in the proportions of students passing the common final exam or earning a C grade or better for the course. We conclude with a discussion of qualitative aspects and implications of our implementation of online homework. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents results from a randomized experimental design replicated over four semesters that compared students' performance in understanding landform evolution processes as measured by the pretest to posttest score growth between two treatment methods: an online interactive simulation tool and a paper‐based exercise. While both methods were shown to be effective at enhancing students' learning of the landform concepts and processes, there was no statistically significant difference in score growth between the two instructional methods. However, the attitudinal survey indicated that students consistently favored the simulation approach over the paper‐based exercise. With the simulation method, female students showed greater score growth than males, especially for test items requiring higher level thinking. This indicates that the visually rich interactive simulation tool may be integrated to better support female students' learning in geoscience. Science major students generally outperformed non‐science major students in terms of score growth, which suggests that background knowledge played an important role in realizing the potential of computer modeling in enhancing students' learning. Sufficient scaffolding is necessary to maximize the effect of interactive earth surface modeling in geoscience education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forming university exam schedules in Southern Africa has always been difficult. It is a scheduling problem with strict rules (hard constraints) and flexible ones (soft constraints). Students must take a final exam for most courses they are enrolled in each semester, held in a supervised setting. Therefore, finding a suitable time and location for each student is a common challenge. This paper proposes a solution to this scheduling problem based on the behaviour of bees, using a model called BSet, which uses simulated robotic devices to find and schedule courses. The results show that this approach is efficient and effective in creating exam schedules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is generally a known fact that as students come to the final year of their degree programme, they get involved in many other activities which are required for defining their future career. This sometimes lead to lesser attention in teaching-learning which has adverse affects when some unavoidable important course are to be taught only in the final semester after completing all the prerequisite requirements in the preceding semesters. This paper recommends the use of a set of innovative evaluation methods like technical quiz, seminar, mini-project and research based article writing with their appropriate weightage for calculating the internal continuous assessment instead of having only single mode of written test as practiced in conventional system. A study was carried out involving 80 students of IV year Civil Engineering in the course 'Earthquake Resistant Design of Structures'. Students were asked to give seminars in which they were tested on ability to comprehensively present and communicate the technical details. The published research articles were analysed by the students to identify the newer methods and software used. Students also got to work on a mini project at a lab scale level. The slow learners and medium learners did a much better performance in conducting projects showing increased interest in the course. The study reveals that student involvement should be retained in innovative ways till the last semester of their degree programme which has many tangible and intangible advantages in enhancing the competence of the students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses how I design and teach an Interculturality in Language and Literary Studies (ILLS) Course. In doing this, I am very much influenced by the post-structural and post-colonial and interdisciplinary nature of my PhD study. The course itself is for sixth semester undergraduate students, after they have passed Skilled Courses, Introduction to Literature and Introduction to Linguistics, etc. In these reflections, I utilise a post-structural approach, in which I consider such a practice to never be final. It is always in process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects on the problems faced by refugee students during the COVID-19 pandemic (summer semester 2020) as calouros, i.e. freshmen during their first year, in a public university in Brazil. Through a content analysis of their personal accounts, collected electronically by their teacher of Portuguese for academic purposes (the first author), we describe how five students (a Syrian, two Haitians, a Venezuelan and a Togolese refugees) (re)visit their experiences, in which several dynamics intersect: being 'calouro', being refugee students, learning the shelter language in loco, and experiencing social distancing due to the closing of universities. Because learning the language of the host country is not the only factor affected by the pandemic, we also observe how language learning (settings) intersect with other aspects characterising the refugee status: housing conditions, availability of learning materials, and the uncertainty attached to the present and future of their own lives and of other family members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standards based grading is a formal assessment mechanism that tests for student achievement of specified learning objectives, or standards. Standards-Based-Grading has been gaining in popularity in K-12 education, and also has been seeing increased use in higher education, though it has only recently been used in engineering education. This paper describes how Standards-Based Grading was implemented in a second-semester Thermodynamics course. A total of eleven learning objectives were specified for the course. In this implementation of Standards-Based Grading, all assessments are done on a pass-fail basis. That is to say, there is no partial credit given. Once a student passes an assessment, usually given in the form of a quiz, on a given learning objective, it is assumed the student has mastered that concept and is not tested on it again. Students are allowed to re-test on particular objectives if they do not pass them on the first try. The final exam serves as a last chance for students to pass any objectives they did not complete earlier in the semester. The learning objectives can be mapped to student outcomes such as those required for accreditation without having to generate a separate set of data outside the normal course grading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of students’ critical and creative thinking skills is at the core of the firstsemester basic design studio. Students’ perceptual experiences of their environment form the key references of abstraction in this beginning phase. This paper inquires studio approach based on abstraction and mapping as tools for intertwining visual reasoning and bodily experiences in the design process. Focusing on the case study of a basic design studio assignment, the authors analyze the structure, application, and products of the “Urban Abstraction and Mapping” project. The study adopted the case-study method as part of qualitative research approach and dwelled on researchers’ first-hand interaction with a phenomenon within its real-life context, ARCH/MIM101 studios. The findings showed that abstraction and mapping strategies based on students’ bodily experiences in urban contexts raised awareness of design as a generative and iterative research process. Students who were able to reveal and reconstruct the relationship between different forms of knowledge through experiential and conceptual levels of the design process managed to develop heuristic 2D and 3D design strategies. The findings of this study provide a ground for discussions on the effectiveness of teaching/learning methods applied in the introductory level of design education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aimed to investigate the measures required for the effective implementation of a semester system for undergraduate education in graduate and post-graduate colleges affiliated with the University of Malakand. The study mainly focused on physical requirements (lecture rooms, laboratories, library), human resource requirements (faculty members, staff), issues in the curriculum, and major issues in the assessment system from the perspectives of teachers of public sector colleges affiliated with the University of Malakand. A mixed-method research design was used for data collection. First, qualitative data was collected, and analyzed through thematic analysis, and then a questionnaire was developed for quantitative data analysis. The findings of the study showed that there were several issues in the implementation of the semester system in the affiliated colleges. These included lengthy courses, outdated content, irrelevant content, lack of space such as classrooms, science labs, etc, need for curriculum improvement, poor assessment system, lack of training for teachers, and lack of regular monitoring from management and the university side. Based on the results it is suggested that the implementation of the semester system in the colleges needs to be reviewed and improved for the affiliated colleges and to ensure quality education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of the recent emphasis on globalization and technological skills in business education, this paper provides an example of how Global Awareness can be accessed in a finance course required of every undergraduate business student. International aspects of the financial management are likely not covered in detail (or not covered at all) in an introductory business finance course among most business programs nationwide. In the meantime, this course itself may be the only required finance course in most business schools' core curricula. The method described in this paper offers an alternative to assess students' global awareness with a Wall Street Journal reading assignment without allocating much of the seat time in a semester. In addition, the implementation of the assessment activities is not complex either. Overall, the results of this assessment have indicated that the level of students' global awareness is satisfactory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have shown that students who have completed differential and integral calculus often accept and employ empirical arguments as proofs, but this is not the case for students who have had at least one upper-level proof course; these students tend toward the use of deductive proofs. This paper finds that a majority of the students surveyed preferred deductive arguments at the beginning of a transition-to-proof course, though there was a sizeable minority who preferred empirical arguments. However, most of the students who initially preferred empirical arguments shifted their positions and preferred deductive arguments by the end of the semester. Finally, the paper shows that by the end of the semester students are more consistent in choosing deductive arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the conclusion of each university semester, students are asked to complete surveys evaluating their educators and subjects. Research indicates that online student evaluation of teaching is a preferred means to paper-based surveys. The primary drawback of online evaluation is that the student response rates are usually low, leading to concerns that the reliability, validity and qualitative feedback may be compromised. This paper presents a case study of a small, not-for-profit private university that achieved response rates of nearly 90% on the Likert scale items of online student evaluation of teaching in the first semester of whole-of-university implementation. These response rates were achieved through a collaborative staff/student design and marketing program. One of the main factors heightening participation rates was a student-recommended customisation of the EvaluationKIT system, whereby students had to either complete their surveys or provide a reason for non-participation in order to access their subjects' Blackboard learning management subject sites.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Determining the impact of student mobility on students' achievements is not a simple matter. Quite the contrary, it is a very complex issue and is related to a number of factors. This paper seeks to determine the effects of student mobility on Macedonian students, i.e. on their academic achievements and the development of their competencies as well as on boosting their future career prospects. The Republic of Macedonia has access to many programs related to student mobility. The common agreement among the members of the academic community is that mobility, unfortunately, is not used enough by Macedonian students. Research findings point out that there are many contributing facts that influence this situation: students' lack of interest; their fear of going abroad; insufficient knowledge of foreign languages; lack of information concerning the advantages of spending one semester abroad; etc. The results presented in this paper rest on a comparative study that focused on two small groups of students from 'St. Kliment Ohridski' University in Bitola: the former composed of students who have spent one semester at a foreign university and the control group that included students who have not been involved in such activities. The findings are quite significant and reveal that, unlike students who have never realised mobility, mobile students demonstrate that their entire approach to the learning process, career advancement and life in general changes considerably due to the value able experience they have gained in the process of experiencing student mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There exists different parameters that act as influencing factors to measure the quality of technical education. Nature of examination with its process and activities has direct and indirect relationship towards quality product and result status in any academic institution. Institute of Engineering (IOE) is continuously enhancing the examination process with the objective to increase the quality and pass rate in the semester examination. Being to conduct several bi-annual exams, Examination Control Division (ECD) of Institute of Engineering (IOE) is mostly the busy organization that has to manage examinations for bachelor, masters and PhD degree programs throughout the year. ECD conducts by-annual semester exams for regular and back exam of bachelor of engineering students having 10 streams (Civil, Computer, Electronics, Electrical, Mechanical, Geomatics, Agriculture, Industrial, Architecture and Automobile) in its four constituent campuses and ten affiliated colleges. Similarly, ECD also conducts bi-annual exams for masters of engineering programs having seven streams and 24 sub-streams. There are more than 16,000 examinees in the bachelor exam including regular and back. Additionally, successful conduction of BE/BArch/ M.Sc. entrance examinations is also an integral duty of ECD. The student pass rate in the semester exams of IOE is below expectations. This study is mostly focused on finding the factors affecting the quality results and approaches of optimizations for better education at IOE. After reviewing several factors, we proposed "restructuring of regular and back paper examinations" as one of the major approach that will help to increase the quality of education and consequently increase the pass rate in the semester examination system of IOE [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the basis of self-determination theory, we aimed to identify students' perceptions of interpersonal teaching style profiles (i.e. within-teacher combinations of six dimensions of need-supportive and need-thwarting behaviours of autonomy, competence and relatedness) and to examine, through a cross-sectional design, the possible associations between these teaching profiles and students' behavioural and emotional engagement. Participants were 2065 students (n teachers = 38) of Physical Education (PE) (M age = 11.96 ± 1.95; range = 10–16 years; 1042 girls) nested in 98 classrooms from elementary (n = 915) and secondary (n = 1150) Spanish schools. Students filled out questionnaires in a paper and pencil format during the last semester of the school year. A four-cluster solution was found to be the most suitable: (a) a high-low group (i.e. high in perceived need-support and low in need-thwarting), (b) a low-high group (i.e. low in perceived need-support and relatively high in need-thwarting), (c) a low-low group (i.e. low in both need-support and need-thwarting) and (d) a mixed group (i.e. low in autonomy support, high in autonomy-thwarting and relatively modest-to-high in competence and relatedness support and thwarting). A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) indicated significant differences in students' behavioural and emotional engagement as a function of cluster membership. Post hoc comparisons showed that the high-low group reported the highest levels of engagement and the low-high group the lowest ones. Furthermore, the mixed group scored the second highest level of engagement – higher than the low-low and the low-high group. These results suggest that teachers who fail to support students' needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness – either by using or not using need-thwarting instructional practices – might undermine students' engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study employs a collaborative autoethnographic research design, connecting three autoethnographies to create a better understanding of the process of transformative learning during the global pandemic. The goal of this paper is to expand our understanding of transformative learning experiences from women's perspectives and share our lessons learned from this process. In this study, an assistant professor and two graduate students (all women, age range 30-45) from a midwestern university engage in a dialogue about their transformative learning experience during the global pandemic. For the data collection process, we chose photographs, personal narratives, and ongoing dialogues for an extended period. Our data also includes reflections from the authors at different times in their learning process throughout and after the semester. These reflections and dialogues present personalized accounts of moments of vulnerability and the challenges of transformative learning. We hope this paper will be helpful for educators who intend to use transformative learning theory as a foundation of their pedagogical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In calibration tasks students assess exemplar texts using criteria against which their own work will be assessed. Typically, these tasks are used in the context of training for peer assessment. Little research has been conducted on the benefits of calibration tasks, such as benchmarking, as learning opportunities in their own right. This paper examines a dataset from a long-running benchmarking task (∼500 students per semester, for four semesters). We investigate the relationship of benchmarking performance to other student outcomes, including ability to self-assess accurately. We show that students who complete the benchmarking perform better, that there is a relationship between benchmarking performance and self-assessment performance, and that students appreciate the support for learning that benchmarking tasks provide. We discuss implications for teaching and learning flagging the potential of calibration tasks as an under-explored tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conflicts between young immigrants and older native populations are widely recognized as a challenge in different parts of the world. In the European context, the following paper focuses on presenting the research results of a community-based project entitled "ICT Guides" conducted in Gothenburg (Sweden), Sheffield (the United Kingdom), Madrid (Spain), and Berlin (Germany), in which we investigated the features and functions of the intergenerational learning of immigrant youth and unrelated seniors using ICT tools. We claim that both groups perceive intergenerational learning with the use of ICT as a chance to get to know the other group despite the age and cultural differences. Through the use of ICT tools in intergenerational learning, digital tools can help those who lack a good command of language when communication problems occur. ICT facilitates mutual understanding and contributes to breaking down the polarization that can occur between immigrant youths and unrelated seniors, to the mutual benefit of both parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the effect of using a personal response system (PRS) on students' academic performance and attitude towards science and technology. The study is conducted during the spring semester of the 2018-2019 academic year in a secondary school in northwestern Turkey. The study is designed as a pre-test and post-test control group design, with 21 in the control group and 23 in the experimental group. The Science Achievement Scale and the PRS Attitude Scale were administered to 92 students in the pilot study during the scale development process. The study is conducted on one unit in the course syllabus called "The World of living things and indispensable part of our lives: electricity." The researcher worked with the group two hours a week for six weeks. Every week after the lecture, the class teacher made their students solve multiple-choice questions with PRS in the experimental group and paper-based in the control group. The quantitative section of this study included three tools: the Achievement Test, the Attitude Toward Science Scale, and the Attitude Toward PRS Scale. Although results showed no difference in achievement between pre-test and post-test scores in both groups, the experimental group showed a promising difference in their attitudes toward science. In addition, boys were more positive about PRS than girls based on the PRS attitude scale. The qualitative component involved focus group discussion with a random sample of six surveyed students and an interview with the class teacher. Students provided positive feedback regarding the use of PRS. They appreciated peer discussions that instructors facilitated while using PRS. The teacher was likewise enthusiastic about implementing Research Article PRS in his class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the development and validation of a digital application (Assessment Scale of Oral Language at School - Decision Support System, EVALOE-DSS) for the professional development of teachers aiming to improve their students' linguistic competence. We performed a multiple case study involving seven teachers and their students from seven different schools. Over a six–month period, the teachers used the digital application to self-assess their classes, make decisions and introduce changes into their teaching practices. The researchers observed four class sessions of each teacher and assessed them with the same digital application. Each teacher-researcher dyad discussed the tool and its use over three meetings during the semester. Despite some differences between the teachers, use of the digital application produced progress in the competences of both the teachers and the students. Thus, the digital application can be used for professional development in teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussion boards can provide a glimpse into the regular and substantive interaction required in online courses. Advances in technology and an increased interest in learning analytics now provides researchers with billions of data points about instructor and student interaction within a learning management system (LMS). This study used LMS data to explore the frequency of interaction between instructors and students in discussion boards in online courses at one institution. Overall, 415 courses were analyzed spanning two semesters. Results from the study found that the average number of posts by an instructor was 32.9. The average instructor interaction was 1.49 instructor posts per student. 23% of courses had no instructor posts. Student posts averaged 470 per course and the average posts per student was 19.9. Based on the discussion board activity, the most discussion interaction occurred during the first two weeks of the semester. Results also suggested that there is no relationship between student satisfaction and the number of total posts in a course. The paper concludes with implications for research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Huber (2002) noted, striving to understand how leadership is taught and learned is both a challenge and an opportunity facing leadership educators. This article describes the Leadership Aha! Moment assignment used in a leadership theory course to help students recognize the intersection of leadership theories and their daily lives while practicing their written communication skills. The assignment requires a paper in which students describe when they experienced something outside of class during the semester that made them understand something from the course on a deeper level. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the assignment is helping students connect with course content on a more personal level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes how business faculty can adapt to curriculum changes while simultaneously improving student learning in the business statistics course. The particular curriculum change discussed here is a reduction in the number of required business statistics courses for majors to one course from a sequence of two. Of course, this move to one course from two has created challenges in finding time to cover the material. In addition, when teaching the two-semester sequence, the authors organized group projects for students that address issues for local non-profit organizations as well as some for-profit businesses. The good news is that this reduction took place at a time when the authors were considering the adoption of publishers' software to introduce students to the content of the course on a weekly basis and to provide students a platform to complete and check their homework problems, as well as access online tutorials when needed. One author used Aplia from Cengage and the other used the Connect platform from McGraw-Hill. We have collected evidence of effectiveness and student attitudes over two semesters that is provided later in this paper. The bottom line is that the adoption of Aplia and Connect has allowed students to engage the content at their own pace outside of class with the benefit of having instructors reallocate class time in order to preserve the group projects. Our intention is to provide readers with 1) encouragement to consider adopting an electronic platform and/or group projects, 2) the associated potential benefits, and 3) guidance on how to effectively do so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using elements of games in non-gaming systems is known as gamification. It has recently been used in many areas to improve some processes, for example, it facilitates the teaching and learning. Students understand some learning objectives more easily when they play games in which they are challenged with rivalry factors and can collaborate more with one another. This paper presents a new approach of gamifying the practical project in the hardware-based course "Microprocessors and Micro-controllers" for computer science students. This change has significantly improved the course - not only that it has improved the average grade of the passed students, but it provoked the students to enroll in other hardware courses of the upper semesters. Even more so, some diploma theses involving microcontrollers were developed for the first time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]