In 2020, the School of Engineering (SEG) at Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) partnered with Arm Education on the delivery of our first co-certified course on “Rapid Embedded Systems Design and Programming”. The course used elements from Arm Education’s online courses along with hands-on teaching from the SEG staff to create a unique blended learning environment. With this partnership, NYP are aiming to play a strategic role in training Singapore-based engineers to upskill their proficiency in Arm-based technologies. Arm Education caught up the course coordinator at SEG - Chee Chein Wong, to discuss his experiences in running the first instance of our co-certified course.
We debuted a co-branded, five-day course “Rapid Embedded Systems Design and Programming” in early October. This course came with a comprehensive online learning content which included lecture videos and slides, quizzes, and lab activities. To provide our learners with hands-on experience on the lab activities, we adopted a hybrid training model with two days of online self-directed learning and three days of hands-on lab session.
'The course started off on Friday and ended on the following Tuesday. The first day was an introductory session, where I introduced the learners to the aims, syllabus, and delivery structure of the course. Many learners welcomed this approach, and one even mentioned that the two days of online self-directed learning allowed him to bridge the knowledge gap needed in the hands-on lab session. They were then guided on how to access the online learning content from Arm Education. A short lecture introducing embedded system was conducted before they went for their lunch break.'
'In the afternoon session, I initiated basic hands-on lab activities. Learners were introduced to Arm’s Keil MDK toolkit and Mbed online compiler. A set of Microcontroller Development Kits were also handed out to learners, who were delighted to receive the hardware. They spent the rest of the first day in familiarizing themselves with the software and hardware used in this course.'
'During the next two days (which fell into the weekend) learners were instructed to complete their self-directed learning using the Rapid Embedded Systems Design and Programming online course. Arm Education’s content covered all the necessary knowledge required to equip learners with the skills to rapidly design, program, and prototype embedded systems applications using Arm-based microcontrollers. Learners were expected to go through the lecture videos, slides, and quizzes. The lab activities would be conducted during the hands-on lab sessions in the last two days of the course.'
'On the following Monday and Tuesday, the learners returned to the lab to complete their hands-on lab sessions. I went through most of the lab activities with the learners and kept some for them to complete themselves. Most of them were able to complete the lab activities by following the instructions given. A few were handheld for the first few steps before they were able to do it on their own. In general, I observed that the learners were able to see how the knowledge learned from Arm Education’s online content were applied into their lab activities.'
'On the last day of the course, I conducted an online quiz for all the learners as part of the process to ensure they had completed the online content from Arm Education. I shared with them that the online quiz was not meant to be a summative assessment. Rather, it would be used as a self-assessment tools for them to assess their learning journey during the course. I observed that they were serious about the online quiz and tried their best to achieve a good score. Most of them took about 90mins to complete the online quiz. As they completed the online quiz, they were deemed to have completed the course.'
'At the end of the course all learners were awarded a joint certificate of completion from Arm Education and NYP (SEG). As part of the effort to improve our future Arm Education course, all learners were asked to provide feedback at the end of the course. Overall, the course received favorable feedback, with one learner commenting that it was a good entry point into embedded systems design. Many were appreciative of the effort that went into designing and preparing the course and looked forward to the next Arm-based blended learning course.'
We have a range of educational resources to help in the teaching and learning of core subjects in computer engineering and informatics. For academic staff, we have our Education kits, online courses, and textbooks that can support your teaching. For students, we have a range of online courses on edX. If you would like further information on our resources, or if your institution is interested in exploring co-certification opportunities, please email us at edumedia@arm.com.