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Teaching First-Year Engineering Design Using a Flipped Classroom Model

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Conference

2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

New Orleans, Louisiana

Publication Date

June 26, 2016

Start Date

June 26, 2016

End Date

June 29, 2016

ISBN

978-0-692-68565-5

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

NSF Grantees Poster Session II

Tagged Topic

NSF Grantees Poster Session

Page Count

12

DOI

10.18260/p.26033

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/26033

Download Count

551

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Paper Authors

biography

Ann Saterbak Rice University

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Ann Saterbak is Professor in the Practice in the Bioengineering Department and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education in the School of Engineering at Rice University. Saterbak was responsible for developing the laboratory program in Bioengineering. Saterbak introduced problem-based learning in the School of Engineering and more recently launched a successful first-year engineering design course taught in the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen. Saterbak is the lead author of the textbook, Bioengineering Fundamentals. Saterbak’s outstanding teaching was recognized through university-wide and departmental teaching awards. In 2013, Saterbak received the ASEE Biomedical Engineering Division Theo C. Pilkington Outstanding Educator Award. For her contribution to education within biomedical engineering, she was elected Fellow in the Biomedical Engineering Society and the American Society of Engineering Education.

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biography

Matthew Wettergreen Rice University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-9966-1540

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Matthew Wettergreen is a lecturer at the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen. He teaches engineering design courses, including first-year engineering design and their follow on engineering design courses. Additionally he provides education via hands-on workshops and formal courses that teach students how to manufacture prototypes via low fidelity prototyping, iterative design, and the use of advanced manufacturing tools to produce high quality functioning devices.  Matthew received his Ph.D. from Rice University in Bioengineering.

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Zoe Roberts Rice University

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Zoe Roberts is in her third year of studying mechanical engineering at Rice University. She plans to graduate in May of 2017 and work in the field to gain first-hand experience before heading to graduate school. Zoe is interested in education, product design, and sustainability. Zoe became involved with the Flipped Classroom teaching model last summer and is currently helping to implement it at Rice University.

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Abstract

A team of faculty at Rice University and other institutions has created instructional resources to support a flipped classroom model for first-year engineering design. Gone is the traditional ‘class’ in which faculty lecture on the design process and other professional skills. These ‘lectures’ are now delivered on video, essentially shifting low cognitive load work to videos that students watch outside of class. In class, students complete active learning exercises focused on the engineering design process. Afterwards, student teams also apply the engineering design process to their specific projects.

The authors have created the following educational materials to flip the first-year multidisciplinary engineering design classroom: • Sixty web-based videos featuring student teams and faculty at Rice University as well as three other institutions that focus on steps of the engineering design process and professional skills. Topics include defining the problem, researching the design problem, framing design criteria, brainstorming solutions, selecting solutions with Pugh matrices, project planning using Gantt charts, prototyping, and testing. • Twenty-one online quizzes (with 10-25 questions each) that cover information discussed in the videos. Quizzes are multiple choice and true/false and test students’ knowledge and application of the technical content in the videos. • Thirty in-class exercises that support active learning in the classroom. The in-class exercises typically require students to apply a specific step in the design process to a new problem, critique a completed design step, or synthesize knowledge.

During the 2015-2016 academic year, all engineering design and professional skills lectures were flipped. The focus of this poster is to qualitatively and quantitatively evaluate students’ use of the videos, quizzes, and in-class exercises during the fall 2015 semester. Using analytics from YouTube and our course management software, we evaluated the percent of students who watched the videos, the number of students who started the videos, the average watch time, the percent of students who completed the quiz, and their grades. From this we learned that >80% of the students started the instructor videos, and that the number of student starts and average video watch time declined during a given playlist. Also, students performed well on quizzes, with an average score of 90%.

These materials are available for others to use. The team is seeking feedback on developing materials that will be helpful for the academic community teaching engineering design.

Saterbak, A., & Wettergreen, M., & Roberts, Z. (2016, June), Teaching First-Year Engineering Design Using a Flipped Classroom Model Paper presented at 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana. 10.18260/p.26033

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2016 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015