Paper ID #33987The Growth of Interdisciplinarity in Engineering Education in the 21stCenturyDr. Mousumi Roy P.E., University of Connecticut Dr. Roy earned her Doctoral degree from Columbia University, NY, MS from The Cooper Union, NY, and BS from Jadavpur University, India. She has a joint appointment in Civil and Environmental Engineering Department and Management & Engineering for Manufacturing Program (a collaboration between School of Engineering and Business) as an Assistant Professor in Residence in University of Connecticut. Her research interests include interdisciplinarity in Automation, Industry 4.0
weeks. • Flexibility in curricula. The difficulties in integrating the iCubed experience as a legitimate course into participants' programs of study points to the need for added flexibility in curriculum design. An additional problem was that some courses in which we were forced to embed the iCubed experience required specific deliverables in some specific format; these were often incompatible with the deliverables planned for iCubed subteams, creating extra work for the unfortunate students. A more ideal solution would be to reserve an upper division elective for a team-based project course (whether interdisciplinary or not), defining the required deliverables for the course as generally as
assessment practices in their curriculum through an online surveygiven to the same cohort of students in third year and fourth year undergraduate engineering.Keywords: Assessment practices, Design based learning, Students’ perceptions.IntroductionAssessment in higher education is a process of evaluating students curricular performancebased on learning outcomes using limited context of standardized rubrics. In this 21st century,students need to acquire career focused knowledge and skills expected by the industry. Tomeet those industry requirements and societal needs as a graduate, student’s level ofachievements have to be assessed appropriately. Academia has to develop changing qualityof assessment methods, which will fulfil the demand of new
theories and techniques of an engineer’s disciplinespecialization. Small projects may only involve one area of engineering specialization, but largerprojects will be multidisciplinary, not only involving engineers from different specializations, butother professional and non-professional personnel and teams. Successful completion of projects inpractice requires the integration of all areas of an engineer’s undergraduate training.7Project based learning is a teaching and learning model (curriculum development and instructionalapproach) that emphasizes student-centered instruction by assigning projects. It allows students towork more autonomously to construct their own learning, and culminates in realistic student-generated products.8Although
executing the process (Atman et al., 2014). Crismondand Adams (2012) suggest that assessing design can be done through the use of design diariesand portfolios.Design courses are very often in the senior year of a curriculum, called capstone courses, andfrequently in the freshman year, called cornerstone courses (Atman et al., 2014). However,researchers have found that the single capstone and cornerstone model is insufficient. Rather,an integrated and sequential design approach is considered the best practice, where studentshave design experiences and opportunities throughout their engineering curriculum (Atman etal., 2014). This move toward an integrated model is largely based on emphasizing conceptionsof the engineering design process that focus
Paper ID #33170Work in Progress: Exploring the Nature of Students’ CollaborativeInteractions in a Hands-on, Ill-structured Engineering Design TaskMiss Taylor Tucker, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Taylor Tucker graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a Bachelor’s degree in engineering mechanics. She is now pursuing a master’s degree at UIUC through the Digital Environments for Learning, Teaching, and Agency program in the department of Curriculum and Instruction. She is interested in design thinking as it applies to engineering settings and lends her technical background to her
. Page 13.303.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2008 Communication in a project based learning design courseAbstractSophomores in the College of Engineering at Rowan University take a two-semestersequence where they are taught design and communication in a project-based-learningsetting. In the fall and spring semesters, communication instruction focuses on technicalwriting and public speaking, respectively. The fall semester has developed into a highly-integrated technical writing and design course, allowing students to comprehend howwriting informs the design process as much as the designing informs the writing. Likewriting, public speaking is an essential aspect of engineering practice. However,integrating public speaking
arts college. She received an NSF CAREER award in 1998 and the VT College of Engineering Outstanding New Assistant Professor Award in 2000.Brenda Brand, Virginia Tech Dr. Brenda R. Brand is an assistant professor of Science Education at Virginia Tech. She received her Masters and Doctorate degrees in Curriculum in Science Education from Virginia Tech. Prior to joining Virginia Tech, Dr. Brand was the science supervisor for Montgomery County Public Schools. As the science supervisor, Dr. Brand co-developed a year-long robotics program, working with the lead teacher to develop a course description and syllabus that incorporated participation for the FIRST robotics competition. Currently, Dr. Brand
gainedthrough design projects. As project based learning shifts the focus from an instructor-centeredteaching model to a student-centered learning model, students’ motivation becomes critical to thesuccess of this type of learning activities. The projects in our curriculum have a positive impacton student learning in terms of motivation, knowledge integration and self-learning skills. Webelieve the positive impact is attributed to the following strategies such as involving students indecision making, role play in class, increasing student-faculty interaction and providing studentswith hands-on experience.Project criteria and constraints, the availability of materials and tools and students’ prerequisiteknowledge and skills play significant roles on the
ruralearthen block housing. Hand tampered cores were dried, cured, and tested for compressivestrength. Thermal tests were also conducted on the cores. The students also developed a designfor mechanically compressing earth blocks, an improvement over the hand tamping process usedby the rural South African community.How the service learning projects integrated into the curriculumLSU. The first-year course BE 1252 is one of two courses in the core curriculum that involvesservice-learning. A junior level service-learning course in biomaterials requires students to workwith a middle or high school teacher to develop a grade-appropriate interactive lesson on anengineering property. Students work in groups to create an interactive lesson, with
professional skillsin the curriculum, the CE Department at Brigham Young University (BYU) has revamped itscapstone class to provide experience in communication, project management, mentoring,leadership, and teamwork through real-world, hands-on projects. This evolving programengages graduate students as mentors and facilitators of industry sponsored projects.Undergraduate student teams have the opportunity to practice important collaboration skillswhile completing their design project independently as an on-campus internship.Since the program was first piloted in 2010, fifteen different agencies and companies havesponsored more than thirty projects. This article describes the evolution of this innovativecapstone experience and outlines the current
modeling, project based engineering design, and robotics in manufacturing.James R. McCusker, Wentworth Institute of Technology James R. McCusker is an Associate Professor at Wentworth Institute of Technology in the Department of Electrical Engineering. Since joining Wentworth in 2010, he has been heavily involved with an array of interdisciplinary design courses that range from introductory to capstone courses.Prof. Lynette Panarelli, Wentworth Institute of Technology Lynette Panarelli is an Associate Professor of Interior Design at Wentworth Institute of Technology. She teaches across the curriculum with a special interest in technology and healthcare design. Before arriving at Wentworth ten years ago, Lynette
systemarchitecture and integration. These roles were supported by developing a separate gradingsystem for these two roles; the impact of these roles on supporting the spiral conception ofdesign is discussed. The paper discusses the impact of these modifications on student learningand the impact the changes had on providing actionable assessment for the ABET accreditationprocess. Documentation of team roles, the format of the archive, and scoring rubrics arediscussed.BackgroundDesign as an activity has undergone a resurgence in undergraduate engineering programs in thelast decades 1. While engineering analysis courses focus on narrow, domain-specific knowledge,design courses emphasize application of a broad spectrum of knowledge in narrow contexts
Schmidt, University of Texas-Austin KATHY J. SCHMIDT is the director of the Faculty Innovation Center for the College of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. In this position, she promotes the College of Engineering's commitment to enriched teaching and learning. Dr. Schmidt works in all aspects of education including curriculum design, faculty development, learner support, and evaluation.Matthew Green, LeTourneau University MATTHEW G. GREEN is an assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering at LeTourneau University, Longview. His objective is to practice and promote engineering as a serving profession, with special recognition of opportunities to improve the quality of life for
anessential facet of the second level curriculum. This new focus encourages students tobecome enterprising, creative and empowered during their learning experience.This paper centres on defining an innovative pedagogical framework to facilitate thefluidity, dynamics and personalisation of educational interventions within an initialtechnology teacher education programme. Focusing on the teacher as the primaryagents for change, this study explores the effect of forming the norms and practices ofpre-service teachers in effectively achieving the desired outcomes of the newcurriculum at second level.The approach taken, explores the novel use of personal assessable technologies thatenable the collection, synthesis, and narrative capabilities essential to
Page 25.372.4In China, discipline-based education tends to cultivate specialists who are extremely deep andconfined to one aspect, rather than T-shaped professions, who are, on the contrary,knowledgeable, comprehensive or interdisciplinary and thus well-equipped to both a first joband a final career. In some colleges, the engineering curriculum is limited, withoutconsideration for the integrity of different disciplines; the so-called general education turnsout to be some superficial electives, which fail to attract students and faculty as well. The Whole T is not Solid Enough: Restrained Open InnovationEducation patterns in Chinese colleges tend to cultivate talent experts in studying the worldas it is rather than creating the world that
designing cars which are truly green (i.e. produces zeropolluting emission). After discussing in their small groups they were to present their findings tothe class. The class got an opportunity to critic each group’s presentation and offer suggestionsfor overcoming the challenges which would be faced by the engineers doing the actual design.Their approach had to account for the integration of electronics. In the first phase of the caseanalysis, the integration of electronics in the design was emphasized. As each group presentedtheir analysis, other groups were allowed to critic the presentations, provide support for theissues they identified and present their suggestions for improvement. In the second phase, thegeneral class discussion, students
accomplish this objective.AcknowledgementsThe author would like to thank LTC(P) Bobby Crawford for his instruction, mentorship, andguidance, during both his time as an undergraduate student, and as an instructor; MAJ TonyJones for his support and tireless dedication to excellence; and, most of all, the students whoseenthusiasm and efforts have been the inspiration for the constant improvement of ME450.References1. Lawrence, Thomas Edward, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Random House, Inc., New York, 1935, p. 22.2. Butz, Brian P., “Integrating Engineering and Technology in to a Core Curriculum,” 1997 Frontiers in EducationConference, Session T3G.3. Lowman, Joseph, Mastering the Techniques of Teaching, second edition, Wiley, San Fransisco, 1995, pp. 195
keytechnologies: design software, manufacturing tools, and integrated control systems. Intuitivecomputer-aided design software programs provide users with an ability to quickly master basicfunctions and design sophisticated systems. Once designed, components can be manufactured(and some automatically) with a variety of traditional and modern machines including 3Dprinters; laser, water and plasma cutters; and computer controlled mills, lathes and routers.Sensors that measure nearly any physical parameter can then be readily integrated with systemsto monitor and control functions.Access to manufacturing technology has been made easier due to a convergence of factors,including the ease of use of tools, reductions in the cost of manufacturing equipment
seven-weekcourse that is required for freshman-engineering students. An integral part of this new course isan interdisciplinary project-based experience, which according to the literature, has shown to bean effective way to improve learning in freshman as well as upper level courses[4-10]. Previouswork in project-based, hands-on learning experiences shows that restructuring of the freshman ASEE 2017 Conference year can allow for education of the freshman students so that engineering analytical tools canquantify what is already understood in a qualitative sense. Since the course is by nature multi-disciplinary, we found it to be well suited for aneducational experience on entrepreneurial minded
globalcollaborative projects, frequently in an ad-hoc manner. Therefore, we have not been able toestablish a systematic framework to effectively guide the multidisciplinary teams to maximizetheir learning experience. Hopefully, this pilot project and the subsequent long-termdevelopment can better prepare engineering educators to integrate the concepts of virtual teamand global design process into the core design curriculum so that more students can be benefittedfrom the training.III. Cross-Institutional Collaborative Program OverviewDepartment of Mechanical Engineering’s international program experience11 at FAMU-FSUCollege of Engineering, while working with several international universities on capstone designprocess collaboration has been quite valuable
anundergraduate-only, project-focused curriculum. Students are given instruction and mustdemonstrate their abilities to execute team-based design and to build projects in all of their fouryears of study. The pedagogical basis for their required design classes is governed by aProfessional Plan, assuring that by graduation all ME students experience key areas of theengineering profession and show the ability to perform at an acceptable professional level.The authors of this paper have delivered the freshman and sophomore design classes at WKU formore than a decade. The courses are stable; student performance in all aspects of design havebeen consistently assessed and deemed successful. The stability of this aspect of the curriculumwas thrown into
criteria to an outcomes-based model is now complete. The onus for defining curricular content has shifted from ABET(‘one size fits all’) to the program’s faculty (‘stakeholder-driven continuous improvement’). Thisnew-found autonomy in determining curricular content has created varied ‘localized’interpretations and implementations. It comes with its own set of challenges. Heightenedemphasis has been placed on development and documentation of professional skills (aka ‘soft’skills) such as oral and written communication, team work, lifelong learning, and global andsocietal issues. Teaching, assessing and documenting soft skills necessitates a new synthesis oftopics. In this paper, we describe our experiences in a capstone design course for
an Assistant Professor of Writing Arts at Rowan University and has been a part of Rowan’s Sophomore Clinic team since 1998. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Page 11.281.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2006 BOTTLE ROCKETS AND PARAMETRIC DESIGN IN A DIVERGING-CONVERGING DESIGN STRATEGYAbstractThe Sophomore Engineering Clinic covers two semesters in an eight-semester design sequence.The course integrates engineering with writing and public speaking. In the past the course hasused two semester-long design projects to teach design through a series of
features (force and weight), and then it maps genericinventive principles to specific solutions (the counter weight principle yields the solution ofspoilers.) Obviously, creating more examples will help users understand the mapping processand help them to work on their own problems.TRIZ in Teaching Engineering Design Page 12.483.2There is a definite need to provide students with helpful strategies and guidelines to solve designproblems. The ultimate student design experience in an engineering curriculum is the seniorcapstone design course. Some of our senior capstone projects like SAE Mini Baja and SAE AeroDesign are annual competitions, and
include first-year engineering curriculum, engineering ethics instruction, and student diversity.Tamara Knott, Virginia Tech Tamara Knott is an Associate Professor in Engineering Education at Virginia Tech. She focuses on pedagogical issues associated with teaching freshman engineering. She is the course coordinator for the second semester Exploration of Engineering Design course taken by approximately 900 freshman engineering students each spring.Karen Gilbert, Virginia Tech Karen Gilbert is the Assistant Director of the Center for Student Engagement and Community Partnerships and the Coordinator of VT-ENGAGE at Virginia Tech. The Center is devoted to being a hub for student engagement
-disciplinary relationshipsDeveloping an IT system is a resource intensive effort and is many times cost prohibitivefor a single university department. The relationship between the engineering andbusiness schools at Auburn University allowed for the development of the KSS to occurwhile simultaneously benefiting the students and faculty of each department. MISstudents were able to experience their own Capstone experience by applying theirclassroom skills to a real world problem.Integration with Design Curriculum: Constantly Involve StudentsA key to the development of the KSS was the involvement of students, both business andengineering at all levels. Students participated in weekly meetings, talking with potentialusers of the system, and presenting
Foundation’s Course, Curriculum andLaboratory Improvement program, takes a new approach to investigating the problem anddevising instructional materials because it is based on a large-scale investigation of theorganization, grammar, and vocabulary in texts written by numerous students and practitioners.It uses computer-assisted analysis techniques from the field of applied linguistics and involvescollaboration among applied linguists, engineering faculty, and engineering practitioners.Although school tasks are produced for different purposes and audiences than workplace writing,the multiple perspectives brought to the study allow us to identify aspects of student writing thatare counter to practitioner concerns and are not the result of a class
AC 2011-822: ENGINEERING AND INDUSTRIAL DESIGN EDUCATIONCOLLABORATIONJames M Leake, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign James M. Leake joined the Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems (formerly General) Engi- neering in August 1999. His educational background includes an MS in Mechanical Engineering (1993) from the University of Washington, a BS in Ocean Engineering (1980) from Florida Atlantic University, and a BA in Art History (1974) from Indiana University. His current research interests include engineer- ing education, integration of CAD/CAE software in the engineering curriculum, spatial visualization, and reverse engineering. Professor Leake’s publications include two books, Engineering Design
for industries to attract and recruittalented graduates, offering students potential employment opportunities [6]. Acknowledgingits numerous advantages, UIC is labeled as a strategic approach to enhance innovationefficiency and encourage the practical use of technological advancements in various tertiaryeducation systems worldwide [7] [8].As extensively studied in academic literature, universities employ a comprehensive range ofstrategies to prepare students for successful engagement in industrial collaboration. Thisapproach includes curriculum design wherein universities intricately integrate industry-relevant courses and practical training into their curricula [9]. Study reveals that embeddedand extra-curricular internships, as well as