Lessons Learned Adapting a First-Year-Engineering Project-Based Course to an Online Format

Juan David Ortega-Alvarez; Matthew James; Catherine Twyman; Benjamin Chambers; Tahsin Chowdhury

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Conference: 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Publication Date: August 23, 2022
Start Date: June 26, 2022
End Date: June 29, 2022
Conference Session: Faculty Development Division Technical Session 5
Page Count: 7
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--41407
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/41407
Download Count: 288

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Paper Authors

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Juan David Ortega-Alvarez Virginia Tech (primary) and Universidad EAFIT (secondary)

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For several years after earning my engineering degree in 2001, my professional duties included working full-time as a process engineer at a chemical company and teaching engineering courses as an adjunct instructor. In 2009 I left a seven-year long career in industry—interrupted only by my time abroad earning a master’s in engineering—to become a full-time faculty member, mostly in pursuit of one goal: professional and personal fulfillment. To be sure, the most gratifying experience I have had in my career is participating in the intellectual development of students and earning their gratitude. Propelled by this motivation, I chose an academic life focused on quality engineering teaching, which ultimately led me to pursue a Ph.D degree in Engineering Education. Teaching engineering and scholarly exploring ways to excel at the job are my professional passions.

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Matthew James Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

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Matthew James is an Associate Professor of Practice in Engineering Education at Virginia Tech. After working in the Civil/Site Development engineering field for a number of years, he returned to Virginia Tech to pursue teaching. His primary role is teaching within the first-year general engineering undergraduate program. He also is interested in study abroad, expanding service learning opportunities for students, and serves as the faculty advisor for the Engineers in Action student design team.

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Catherine Twyman Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

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Catherine Twyman has been an Instructor in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech since 2019, teaching ENGE 1215 and 1216. Ms. Twyman also taught the first-year engineering classes at New River Community College from 2016-2019. Prior to this, she completed a M.Eng. in Mechanical Engineering in 2015 and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering in 2011 at Virginia Tech.

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Benjamin Chambers Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

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Dr. Ben Chambers is an Associate Professor of Practice in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech, and Director of the Frith First Year Makers program and of the Minecraft Museum of Engineering. His research focuses include creativity-based pedagogy, the interactions of non-humans with the built environment, and the built environment as a tool for teaching at the nexus of biology and engineering. He earned his graduate degrees from Virginia Tech, including an M.S. Civil Infrastructure Engineering, M.S. LFS Entomology, and a Ph.D. in Environmental Design and Planning.

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Tahsin Chowdhury Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

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Tahsin Chowdhury is an Engineering Education Doctoral candidate who focuses on engineering in the 21st century. He is passionate about enhancing professional competencies for engineering workforce development in academia and beyond. He is trained in Industrial and Systems Engineering and has a combined 6 years experience spanning both academia as well as lean manufacturing at Fortune 500 companies. Tahsin’s long term goal is to bridge the engineering competency gap between industry demand and academic fulfillment. A global engineer and researcher, Tahsin is an advocate and ally for better inclusion in STEM and beyond.

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Abstract

In this paper, we provide a brief account of the decisions made and lessons learned by a group of instructors of the first-year engineering program at a large mid-Atlantic university, when adapting a traditional project-based course to an online learning format. Project-based learning (PjBL) is a widely adopted active learning pedagogical approach, which promotes student critical thinking and problem-solving skills. PjBL has been proven to be effective among engineering students, especially in the development of both technical and professional competencies among first-year engineering students. Therefore, we deem it important to examine strategies used to implement PjBL in an online format.

Prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the transition from in-person to online PjBL required some significant changes, though many aspects of the existing infrastructure and program coordination were useful. In this paper we describe the changes and innovative practices that were implemented to make the online version of the course possible, such as new ways of dividing up team roles to accommodate social distancing guidelines, virtual analysis where in-person testing was no longer possible, and prepared video presentations in lieu of in-class poster sessions. Lessons learned during this experience include administrative and pedagogical practices our team first implemented for online learning, some of which have been maintained to enhance the in-person PjBL experiences. These practices, we believe, are the major contribution of this paper to the engineering education community as we return to learning in the physical classroom.

In addition to introducing different strategies used by the group of instructors who made the online PjBL class possible, we also explored students' perceptions of their learning about engineering design in this online class. These perceptions, collected through class survey assignments, will be further described and analyzed in a separate study. Future work will explore individual instructors’ approaches in a more nuanced way to identify differences with potential impact on student learning and class experience, namely the level of autonomy versus structure built into students’ projects. This study would be preferably presented to the ASEE community as a lightning talk.

Citation
Format

Ortega-Alvarez, J. D., & James, M., & Twyman, C., & Chambers, B., & Chowdhury, T. (2022, August), Lessons Learned Adapting a First-Year-Engineering Project-Based Course to an Online Format Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41407

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - In this paper, we provide a brief account of the decisions made and lessons learned by a group of instructors of the first-year engineering program at a large mid-Atlantic university, when adapting a traditional project-based course to an online learning format. Project-based learning (PjBL) is a widely adopted active learning pedagogical approach, which promotes student critical thinking and problem-solving skills. PjBL has been proven to be effective among engineering students, especially in the development of both technical and professional competencies among first-year engineering students. Therefore, we deem it important to examine strategies used to implement PjBL in an online format.

Prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the transition from in-person to online PjBL required some significant changes, though many aspects of the existing infrastructure and program coordination were useful. In this paper we describe the changes and innovative practices that were implemented to make the online version of the course possible, such as new ways of dividing up team roles to accommodate social distancing guidelines, virtual analysis where in-person testing was no longer possible, and prepared video presentations in lieu of in-class poster sessions. Lessons learned during this experience include administrative and pedagogical practices our team first implemented for online learning, some of which have been maintained to enhance the in-person PjBL experiences. These practices, we believe, are the major contribution of this paper to the engineering education community as we return to learning in the physical classroom.

In addition to introducing different strategies used by the group of instructors who made the online PjBL class possible, we also explored students' perceptions of their learning about engineering design in this online class. These perceptions, collected through class survey assignments, will be further described and analyzed in a separate study. Future work will explore individual instructors’ approaches in a more nuanced way to identify differences with potential impact on student learning and class experience, namely the level of autonomy versus structure built into students’ projects. This study would be preferably presented to the ASEE community as a lightning talk.
AU  - Juan David Ortega-Alvarez
AU  - Matthew James
AU  - Catherine Twyman
AU  - Benjamin Chambers
AU  - Tahsin Chowdhury
CY  - Minneapolis, MN
DA  - 2022/08/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Lessons Learned Adapting a First-Year-Engineering Project-Based Course to an Online Format
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/41407
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--41407
ER  -