This Instrumentation and Laboratory Improvement project involves the
revision of an undergraduate database course to include a laboratory
project that allows students to acquire practical experience using a
commercial database product. A unique aspect of the work is the way in
which cooperative learning techniques are used in administration of the
group projects.
Each project is divided into different phases corresponding to different
functional aspects of database development.
Those phases include
requirements analysis,
conceptual modeling,
relational database design and view modeling,
forms/report design, and
application programming.
Students assume different roles
during the course of the project, such as phase leader
for leading group activities,
phase recorder for organizing
documentation activities,
phase checker for evaluating group
members on the concepts that they
have learned, and
phase technical advisor
for leading the technical activities of each phase.
The advantage of this approach is that it not
only allow students to become more active participants in the learning
process but it also allows students to develop good leadership and
communication skills while learning the practical use of database
system software. This project is therefore establishing a teaching
environment that provides a well-balanced mix of theory and practice
with emphasis on cooperative learning.
This project uses cooperative learning concepts to introduce practical
group projects into an introductory database management course that
emphasizes theory, resulting in the integration of the theoretical
and practical aspects of database application development.
The cooperative, semester-long group projects are structured to
promote positive interdependence among group members.
Each group is responsible for identifying the specific application
to be developed and for identifying the expert in the application
area to provide input in the design and development of the database.
The course project is divided into three main phases, involving
requirements analysis and conceptual design, relational database
mapping and prototyping, and database system implementation using
Microsoft Access. Students are required to actively participate in
each phase, with students assuming different roles in each phase to
allow them to experience different leadership responsibilities. As
with the entire project experience, introduction to the use of a
database product is performed using cooperative learning, where
students help other students learn the system. To assist in the
process, we have developed a complete database implementation example
with several associated out-of-class group activities. The
introduction of the cooperative group projects has increased overall
student performance in the course, giving students a sound
understanding of the database concepts and providing them with a
practical database and group experience.
