Trials And Tribulations Of A Freshman Design Course
- Conference
- Location
-
Montreal, Canada
- Publication Date
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June 16, 2002
- Start Date
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June 16, 2002
- End Date
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June 19, 2002
- ISSN
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2153-5965
- Conference Session
- Page Count
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10
- Page Numbers
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7.1214.1 - 7.1214.10
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--10413
- Permanent URL
-
https://peer.asee.org/10413
- Download Count
-
315
Abstract
NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract
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Session 2793
Trials and Tribulations of a Freshmen Design Course
Elizabeth J. Orwin, Ph.D, Ronald J. Bennett, Ph.D.
Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA/University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN
Abstract
This paper describes the issues confronting the engineering faculty at the University of St.
Thomas arising out of the second semester of a freshman engineering design course. It was the
goal of the department to instill excitement for engineering in its students in their first year of
study, with the added benefits of retaining interested students and enticing those who might have
been wavering into the major. The hands-on engineering design course that was developed was
offered in addition to the introductory engineering course, which had focused on giving the
students a feel for engineering through a series of guest speakers and other activities. The revised
second semester course had a team-based approach to learning about engineering. Mini-lectures
were given on the engineering design experience and students were given hands-on tasks as well
as an overall design project. The course culminated in a team design competition. We found that
student attitude had a significant impact on the course outcome. Students were resistant to the
new approach to varying degrees and indicated that they felt overworked. This paper describes
our analysis of the reasons why the students reacted in this fashion. We hypothesize that the
Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright ã2002, American Society for Engineering Education
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Bennett, R., & Orwin, E. (2002, June), Trials And Tribulations Of A Freshman Design Course Paper presented at 2002 Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada. 10.18260/1-2--10413
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