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Title: Concept Maps for Engineering Courses as an Addition to Syllabi.

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Conference

2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

Location

Virtual On line

Publication Date

June 22, 2020

Start Date

June 22, 2020

End Date

June 26, 2021

Conference Session

Mechanical Engineering Technical Session: Curriculum and Education

Tagged Division

Mechanical Engineering

Page Count

8

DOI

10.18260/1-2--35388

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/35388

Download Count

493

Paper Authors

biography

Muthu Govindaraj Thomas Jefferson University

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Muthu Govindaraj received his undergraduate and Master’s degree in mechanical and textile engineering from Madras University in India and his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the Technical University of Liberec in the Czech Republic. Since 1995, he has been with Thomas Jefferson University (formerly Philadelphia University), where he is currently a professor and the director of engineering programs. Earlier, he has had teaching and research appointments at NC State and Cornell Universities. He is a recipient of the Lindback Distinguished Teaching Award in 2001.

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Abstract

Concept maps are visual displays of the relationships between concepts, represented by linkages, that leads a reader through a logical sequence of elements of a knowledge domain. In this paper, concept maps are used to visually describe 'knowledge' that a student gathers from an engineering course. Currently, the course syllabi given to students is a list based approach that does not provide a visualization of the structure, the interconnectivity and, the outcomes of a course's components. Course maps help visualize the beginning to the end of a course structure, the leading of one chapter to the next and, the logic of the structure of the course. On a single page, a course concept map helps students understand the reason for the course in the curriculum and the importance of the various chapters to the outcomes of the course. This paper provides concept maps for three engineering courses, including senior design. Simple methods are also explained to develop concept maps for engineering courses using the freely available Camp software. It has been pointed out by many users of concept maps that the process of creating them is as beneficial as the final result. Thus, this paper details the process the author used to arrive at the representations of the knowledge domains.

Govindaraj, M. (2020, June), Title: Concept Maps for Engineering Courses as an Addition to Syllabi. Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--35388

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