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The expansion of online learning in higher education has both contributed to researchers exploring innovative ways to develop learning environments and created challenges in identifying student interactions with course material. Learning analytics is an emerging field that can identify student interactions and help make data-informed course design decisions. In this case study, learning analytics were collected from 113 students in three course sections of an online construction management course in the Canvas learning management system (LMS). Surveys were used to collect students' perceptions of the course design and materials to correlate with the students' interactions with the course materials. The survey findings showed the students found watching the lecture videos and reading the lecture slides to be the most helpful aspects of the course materials in their learning. Findings from the learning analytics showed that students' interactions with the course decreased after the midterm exam. Based on the results, online course instructors can leverage their learning analytics to understand student interactions and make data-informed course design changes to improve their online learning environments.

Civil engineers and architects are both trained in design thinking, but they approach the process of design from differing perspectives largely due to the divergence in their educational curriculums. With an interest in the effect of differing educational perspectives on design thinking outcomes, comparisons were made between the self-identified design thinking abilities of students in their final year of undergraduate civil engineering or architecture programs. Perceived design thinking ability was evaluated through a survey that was distributed to students enrolled in 4-year institutions across the United States. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) test was used to compare responses between the civil engineering (n=356) and architecture (n=335) student samples. There is a significant difference in perceived design thinking ability between the groups. Architecture students score higher than civil engineering students on all design thinking traits. Based on these results, the civil engineering curriculum may benefit from the incorporation of pedagogy that emphasizes design thinking, like studio-based learning.