Redesigning an Introduction to Engineering Course as an Interdisciplinary Project-Based Course
- Conference
- Location
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East Lansing, Michigan
- Publication Date
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July 31, 2022
- Start Date
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July 31, 2022
- End Date
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August 2, 2022
- Conference Session
- Tagged Topic
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Full Papers
- Page Count
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7
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--42246
- Permanent URL
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https://strategy.asee.org/42246
- Download Count
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208
Paper Authors
Kelly Salyards P.E. Bucknell University
Dr. Salyards is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Bucknell University. She has BAE, MAE, and PhD degrees in Architectural Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University. She joined Bucknell in 2007 and is a registered Professional Engineer in Pennsylvania. Her teaching interests range from fundamental engineering mechanics to structural design in both steel and concrete. She is serving on ASCE's Committee on Faculty Development and is active with ASCE's ExCEEd Workshop.
Benjamin B Wheatley Bucknell University
Benjamin Wheatley was awarded a B.Sc. degree in Engineering from Trinity College (Hartford, CT, USA) in 2011 and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Colorado State University (Fort Collins, CO, USA) in 2017. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Bucknell University (Lewisburg, PA, USA). His pedagogical areas of interest include active learning approaches, ethics, and best practices as they relate to computational modeling. He runs the Mechanics and Modeling of Orthopaedic Tissues Laboratory at Bucknell, where they use computational and experimental techniques to better understand the mechanics of musculoskeletal soft tissues and human movement.
Katsuyuki Wakabayashi
Bucknell University
orcid.org/0000-0002-0112-1846
Kat received his bachelor of science in both chemical engineering and materials science and engineering from University of Pennsylvania, and he has a PhD in chemical and materials engineering from Princeton University. After a Postdoc position at Northwestern University, he joined the faculty at Bucknell University in 2007, where he is currently an associate professor of chemical engineering.
His teaching interests range from first-year introductory engineering courses to industry-sponsored design courses. His research interests center around the application of a novel processing technique for polymers, composites, and nanocomposites. He has collaboration with several universities as well as many regional and global corporations to develop cutting-edge polymer-based hybrid materials. He is also a developing coffee expert.
Abstract
All first-year engineering students at Bucknell University are introduced to Engineering through a first-semester, required course taught by faculty members representing six departments and ten degree programs. In 2021, this cornerstone course was re-envisioned with modern and emerging pedagogical approaches and greater consistency across course sections. The new version also focuses on transferable skills for all curricula and programs within the College. The course was redesigned to focus on learning and applying the engineering design process through a variety of projects with a common theme of sustainability. While the engineering design process is key, the redesign integrated concepts and activities to address teamwork, written and oral communication, information literacy, engineering ethics, local and global sustainability, and inclusion into the projects. The redesigned course enables each student to apply the engineering design process to two projects with different teams and different engineering instructors over the fourteen week semester. While each instructor has academic freedom to deliver their section in their own style, consistency across all sections and instructors was improved through common learning objectives and storyboards, which provided sample classroom activities and points of discussion. Consistency across each project was achieved through three common benchmark assignments and a culminating Design Expo. This paper describes the redesign process and the intentions behind the redesign itself, the common theme of sustainability integrated through all projects, and the scaffolding structure that was established across all sections. The challenges and opportunities that arose in the first iteration of the redesign course are highlighted along with the next phase of continuous improvement.
Salyards, K., & Wheatley, B. B., & Wakabayashi, K. (2022, July), Redesigning an Introduction to Engineering Course as an Interdisciplinary Project-Based Course Paper presented at 2022 First-Year Engineering Experience, East Lansing, Michigan. 10.18260/1-2--42246
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