Introducing Network Design to Students via a Dance Activity

Abstract

Computer communication networking is a very important topic in computer, electronics and communication education around the globe. Many students appear to think the subject technical and complex and this result in a low student engagement in these classes. Innovative teaching and learning strategies are needed to get the students interested in the subject. In this paper an activity based teaching and learning strategy is used to make the subject easy for understanding, to make the class interactive and increase student's interest in the topic. A dance activity was designed as an analogy to the OSI model of a communications system. To identify student perceptions of the activity, a survey was conducted of all students. The obtained results confirm that the students agree that this activity enables understanding and makes the learning process interesting. This perception is also confirmed by the attendance of students and the understanding demonstrated by them on classroom quizzes.