Effects on Students of a Freshman Engineering Design Course
Effects on Students of a Freshman Engineering Design Course Sandra Shaw C ourter, Susan B. M illar and L yman Lyons
Learning through Evaluation, Adaptation, and Dissemination (LEAD) Center
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Abstract
University of Wisconsin-Madison engineering professors piloted a freshman introduction to engineering course with 67 students in fall 1994. Several departments now require the course, and the fall 1995 enrollment was increased to 224 students. The three-credit course concentrates on having students work in teams to identify customer needs, find solutions, and design a final product. Students in lab sections of twelve to eighteen first work in small groups of three or four to create proposed solutions, then meet as a lab section to decide on a solution and design and test it. Students conclude the course with formal presentations to students, faculty, and customers. Qualitative evaluation information based on observations and interviews with students and faculty, plus open-ended surveys completed by students, indicates that the students experienced engineering in a personal, supportive team-oriented environment. The course helped students make informed career decisions, understand the context for courses within an engineering curricula, and develop a sense of professional identity as engineers. Retention data indicates that students who took the course are staying in engineering into the second semester of their sophomore year at a higher rate than other students.
The Emerging Course Goals and Methods The development of the new freshman introduction to engineering course was part of the effort by the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering to improve its engineering education program in order to better meet the expectations of employers. A group of seven engineering faculty who were engaged in a teaching improvement program were given the opportunity to design and teach the new course in fall 1994 through funding from an Advanced Research Projects Agency-funded Technology Reinvestment Project grant awarded to the Engineering Research Center for Plasma-Aided Manufacturing. Based on input from business, industry, colleagues and students, the seven faculty articulated the goals for the course during their summer 1994 planning sessions and decided that the basic structure for the course would be a hands-on design project for a real customer: designing access to buildings at a historical site for physically handicapped people [1]. The faculty designed the course around the following goals and presented them to students in the fall semester's student handbook:
C work constructively in a design team
C learn some engineering principles and engineering
language
C seek out, digest, and use information from diverse
sources
C learn from and teach your colleagues
C get to know your customers: wheelchair users and
building staff
C communicate your designs effectively
C understand the design environment (business,
legal, social)
C keep a personal record of your design process and
your learning
Through discussion among themselves and with other colleagues during the initial semester of fall 1994, and with the aid of formative feedback discussions with the third party evaluators from the University of Wisconsin-Madison=s Learning through Evaluation, Adaptation, and Dissemination (LEAD) Center, the faculty continued to develop the philosophical framework for the course that described learning goals for students. These goals were grouped into "process" and "product" categories. The process goals include design methodology, team interaction, communication, and confidence-building. The product goals focus on engineering science topics and tools. A comparison of the following goals for the second semester, spring 1995, with the initial goals listed above demonstrates how the faculty modified the course goals.
C allow students to learn how to form and work in
teams (team dynamics)
C provide the opportunity for a sequence of
successful experiences for the student
C have students acquire a feeling (hands-on) of what
engineering entails and might encompass
C develop design process skills on a "real" design
project with "real" customers
C develop skills for hardware and software usage in
the projects in an as-needed basis
C develop context for engineering curriculum, so
students see connections among math, science, and
technology classes
C develop confidence in engineering as a career,
particularly for students with little prior knowledge or experience in engineering-type activities
The faculty anticipate that the goals and philosophy that emerged during 1994-95 will continue to evolve as they strive to meet the need of the students and various stakeholders. As the following comment makes clear, the faculty believe that although they laid a strong foundation for the course during the pilot year, additional improvements will be made.
"I think [our discussion] has made all of us more curious about assessment of student learning, and provided us with a lot of questions. We're very much aware that where we are is kind of neat, but we're probably going to end up in a different place--[although] not substantially different, philosophically different. What we've got now is a good start, but it's not the finished product yet."
The Course Structure
1. Lectures: Faculty took turns giving one 50-minute lecture per week.
2. Labs: Students worked for one three-hour period each week in small laboratory groups of seven to twelve students, with each lab guided by a faculty member and a senior student assistant. Within each lab, students worked in smaller teams of three or four. During the first half of the semester, the each small team created a proposed solution to the "real-world problem." The laboratory group selected one solution for further development, and during the last half of the semester, the entire lab functioned as a team, with students again creating smaller teams to accomplish the task of designing and testing their proposed solution.
3. Project: A "real" engineering project with "real" customers is the cornerstone of the course and sets this first-year design course apart from similar courses across the nation. The fall 1994 design project was to provide access for wheelchair users for historic buildings at Old World Wisconsin. The spring 1995 project was a counter system to determine the number of people who enter the Kurt F. Wendt Engineering Library and the city=s Olbrich Gardens. The fall 1995 project involved recycling corrugated cardboard at various organizations including a large supermarket, the zoo, a restaurant, and a hospital. Students evaluated customer requirements, brain stormed solutions, selected the best solution, designed the product, and constructed and tested it.
4. Homework: Students completed several homework assignments early in the semester. Topics included computer software for word processing and drawing, stress analysis, and a library search at the Kurt F. Wendt Engineering Library.
5. Journals: Students kept a personal design journal to track both the design process and class learning throughout the semester. Faculty reviewed the journals periodically and incorporated them into the course grade.
6. Notes: A handbook prepared by the faculty constituted the textbook. Additional notes were often distributed during lectures and labs throughout the semester. The handbook continues to evolve.
7. Presentations: Students prepared and delivered two presentations during the semester. The first was within their own lab when each team of three or four students presented their team design. The second was each lab=s presentation of their design using the multimedia facilities of a high tech classroom to the course=s students, instructors and customers, and interested College of Engineering faculty and administrators.
8. Assessments: Students participated in peer and self assessments after both presentations. Faculty used the results to help in their assessment of student learning. Students also wrote an end-of-semester essay to reflect their engineering experience in the spring 1995 semester. 9. Office hours, Email dialogue, and weekly updates: Both faculty and senior assistants held regular office hours and encouraged open communication by electronic mail throughout the semester. A large number of email messages were exchanged, with the weekly number received ranging from two to ten per faculty member. Often faculty shared their replies by forwarding them to all students and instructors because the answer to one student=s question would benefit everyone involved in the course.
The Course Evaluation Process
The pilot fall 1994 and spring 1995 course offerings were evaluated by the University of Wisconsin-Madison=s Learning through Evaluation, Adaptation and Dissemination (LEAD) Center [2]. The purpose of the evaluation was to understand the effects of the new course on students and faculty, and the primary research question was formally stated as: What are the effects on students and faculty of a curriculum innovation aimed at enhancing and modifying the teaching and learning experience in an engineering college?
In conducting the evaluation, we used multiple data
sources including: interviews with students, faculty, and administrators; classroom observations; a written questionnaire survey; and written documents including the course notes, assignment sheets, and handouts. We were primarily concerned with understanding and representing the perspectives of students and faculty, and were flexible in allowing questions and ideas to evolve during the evaluation process.
Interviews provided the primary source of data. Eighty-two students completed the course during the 1994-95 academic year: 67 in the fall semester and 15 in the spring semester. From a total population of 67 students during first semester, we interviewed 28 students. We selected two males and two females from each lab whenever possible, and interviewed them individually at the beginning and the end of the semester. We also organized two focus groups, one for females and one for males, and listened to all the otherwise "silent voices" through a written survey. Nine spring semester students were interviewed in two focus groups. We conducted individual interviews with faculty and senior assistants at the beginning and the end of each semester.
Evaluation Feedback to Faculty
We organized and led "formative feedback" meetings with faculty, administrators, and senior assistants after each phase of the data collection process: initial interviews, survey, focus group discussions, and end-of-semester interviews. At each of these meetings, "work-in-progress" reports were distributed and discussed. The faculty developed a set of "action items" at each meeting which emerged from their analysis of the feedback. We followed up each meeting with a summary of the discussion and action items. In sum, the LEAD Center evaluation provided faculty with feedback in "real-time." Faculty used this feedback to make mid-course corrections and revisions within the semester and for subsequent semesters. The data were helpful to faculty as they communicated to others about the processes and outcomes associated with their curricular reform project. Faculty used the information to revise the course for fall 1995, and plan further strategies to assess student learning and course effectiveness. Evaluation Results
Drawing principally upon interview data, we found that the student teams became small learning communities in which students made connections among themselves by working together to design and test solutions to real-world problems. Moreover, the students made connections among the various components of the course, becoming increasingly aware during the course of how these different components worked together in support of the learning process.
Students identified many aspects of the course which helped them learn and gave them a positive engineering experience. These positive attributes of the learning process from the students' point of view include:
1)teamwork
2)hands-on activities
3) a cooperative teaching and learning environment for
both interdependent and independent learning
4) a real project and a focus on process
5)interaction among peers and faculty
6) strategies for varying learning styles
7) student self-assessments.
Students also discussed what they felt they had learned
in the course. Some aspects of their discussions went beyond the area of subject matter content. These learning outcomes include:
1)Students experience engineering in a supportive
environment and get background to make
informed career decisions.
2) Students acquire knowledge of the engineering
design process.
3)Students experience context which gives them a) an
understanding of why they need math and science
courses, and b) motivation to pursue an
engineering career.
4)Students develop a real-life appreciation of the need
for excellent communication skills, and work to
develop these skills.
5) Students build confidence and self-esteem.
6)Students experience engineering through the
teamwork that revolves around real-world,
customer- based projects.
7)Students perceive the faculty and senior assistants as a
team working together to provide instruction to meet
each student's learning style.
8)Students connect with engineering by building
common experiences that lead to strong friendships and, therefore, increased motivation to
learn.
9)Students discover that they can succeed in
engineering if they choose to follow that direction. Retention of Students
The figures in Table 1 compare retention data at the beginning of the second semester of their sophomore year for the 67 fall 1994 engineering freshmen who took the course with the 625 fall 1994 freshmen who did not take the course. The students who were not retained either switched from engineering to other fields or left the university.
Course students Other students
49/67 = 73% overall412/625 = 66% overall
38/50 = 76% males334/487 = 69% males
11/17 = 65% females78/138 = 57% females Table 1. Retention of students in engineering at the beginning of second semester of sophomore year
Examining the student records in detail reveals that only 3 of the 67 course students (4%) left the university as compared to 70 of the 625 other students (11%). Furthermore, of the students retained in engineering, 82% of the course students had selected an engineering field as compared to 70 % of the other students.
Discussion
The retention data indicates that students who took the course are staying in engineering at a higher rate, and more of them in engineering have decided on a field by the end of their third semester. Students= interviews suggest that their experience of going through a design process as a team built their confidence and self-esteem, and the faculty and senior assistants provided contact with a variety of engineering disciplines. The experience of a real design project provided them with a context in which they could make decisions about pursuing an engineering career. These freshmen will be tracked until they graduate to confirm whether these initial trends persist. Acknowledgments
The course evaluation was sponsored by the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Technology Reinvestment Project grant "Diversity and Cultural Change: Manufacturing Engineering Education for the Future" to the Engineering Research Center for Plasma-Aided Manufacturing, under grant #ECD-8721545 (administered by the National Science Foundation). Additional support was provided by the University of Wisconsin-Madison's College of Engineering (through an IBM Quality Award), Graduate School, and LEAD Center (through a Hilldale Foundation grant from the Chancellor).References
1. For a detailed description of the course see Corradini, M., Farrell, P., Mitchell, J., Marleau, R., Moskwa, J., Sanders, K., and Webster, J., "A Team-Based Design Course For Freshmen," Proceedings, 1995 ASEE Annual conference, ASEE, 1995.
2. Courter, Sandra Shaw, "A Grounded Theory of the Positive Attributes of a TQM Curriculum Innovation: A Multi-Case Study of a Cross-Disciplinary Course in Engineering." A Dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison, May, 1996.