Collaborative Modeling Lab to Increase Learning Engagement; Comparing Manual modeling with Interactive Whiteboards

In engineering education, modeling is one of the critical skills that students need to acquire. Modeling is a critical step in support of the design and analysis of multi actor systems. In this study we evaluate a semi-structured interactive lab exercise in which students work in groups on large whiteboards. We compared the used of electronic, interactive whiteboards, with traditional whiteboards using sticky cards as modeling blocks. We evaluated the method using a questionnaire to see whether electronic whiteboards are more engaging, and better support learning. Additionally we performed a qualitative case study to further analyze the effect of electronic whiteboards on engagement.