Teaching Software Using the Interactive Tutorials-based Lab and Individual Project (ITLIP) Method

With fast-changing technology, students' software skills are crucial for their career development and success.However, learning new software is always very challenging for students especially if they are first users.With the new teaching method, the Interactive Tutorials-based Lab and Individual Project (ITLIP) method, students showed very good progress in learning software.With this interactive tutorials-based learning, students effectively learned new functions in the software and quickly applied them to their own designed practical problems throughout labs and individual projects.The uniqueness of this teaching pedagogy is to expand students' learning from tutorial-based labs to individual projects.Throughout individual projects, each student has ownership of their own project and enhances their software skills and perspectives by applying what they have learned.The ITLIP method was used in multiple courses including Applications of Composite Materials.The class integrates computer simulation for students to work on diverse engineering technology problems using composite and polymers materials.This study shows how the ITLIP method would be an effective teaching method according to the Bloom's Taxonomy.The study also shows three main advantages of the ITLIP method: 1) interactive learning, 2) balancing students' learning speed, 3) applying and creating new things based on what students have learned.