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NEW STUDENT ORIENTATION CLASS W. H. Maxwell, James Johnson Nashville State Technical Community College

Abstract

Nashville State Technical Community College has, over the last several years, been working with a group of colleges, called the South East Advanced Technical Education Consortium (SEATEC), in the development of case studies for use in technology programs. The case studies are designed to be used primarily as a teaching tool, integrated into already developed courses. These case studies are available at this time.

In the process of working on the cases, a question arose concerning their applicability to a course under development by NSTCC. The course being developed was to be a first semester course which was to provide orientation to students enrolled in both AAS and AS programs, encompassing a wide spectrum of engineering/engineering technology fields. Nashville State Technical Community College has had courses of this type for the last 30 years, but the courses were specific to a degree program. While each of these courses tried to address such factors as computer familiarization, use of computer utility programs, use of the internet, teamwork, and concepts in problem solving, they varied tremendously in the instructional strategies that used and the overall effectiveness of the courses.

Nashville State Technical Community College has now developed a “New Student Orientation” Course. The course was specifically designed to incorporate all of the computer usage skills which a student would need to function in a current world environment; to learn through application “teamwork”; to develop skills in trouble-shooting and problem solving; to communicate effectively in both written and oral reports; to experience an overview of the various fields within engineering and engineering technology; and to do all of through the innovative and fun case study process. Furthermore, the case study chosen for the course addresses a problem that every student will encounter during his/her lifetime, generating a rich set of reference materials for that eventuality.

Nashville State Technical Community College proposes to present to the ASEE conference this course in detail. A description of the process and content follows.

Background

This paper is being presented to the ASEE conference attendees as a way of introducing an orientation course to the educational community. The course is designed to use the case study approach and to be “general” enough in content to service several technology degree programs. The National Science Foundation has provided funding for projects which generate industrial case studies to be used in higher education. Nashville State Technical Community College has had the opportunity to be involved in several of these projects, and has developed quite an expertise in the field of “case studies”. It seemed logical that the college needed an orientation class for students in the engineering technology arena and case studies would be the choice for

“Proceedings of the 2003 American Society for Engineer Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2003, American Society for Engineering Education”

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Maxwell, W., & Johnson, J. (2003, June), Orientation Paper presented at 2003 Annual Conference, Nashville, Tennessee. 10.18260/1-2--12390