A case study of a college-wide first year undergraduate engineering course

TLDR: The course consists of lectures, labs, recitation sessions, and a competition as mentioned in this paper, where students are introduced to the major responsibilities of engineers, presentation skills, documentation, teamwork, problem solving, design process, ethics, and the basic concepts in each of the six engineering disciplines offered in the College of Engineering.

Abstract: A discipline-specific first year introductory course has been the norm in engineering education. Most of these courses are often theme-based and use engineering design as a device to emphasize the relationship between the various components of a field like Electrical and Computer Engineering. Online learning has also been incorporated in such common courses to enhance student experiences. As an alternative to a first year discipline-specific engineering course, there have been recent efforts to develop common first year engineering courses that target all engineering disciplines. One rationale for such a common courses has been an early instillation of common engineering education elements like ethical and social dimension of engineering design. A problem-based curriculum is often used in such first year introductory engineering courses to also ensure that students find relevance in the Physics and Math course being taken in the first two years of engineering. Students are also challenged to work on a design project in a multi-disciplinary team. A college wide engineering course allows students to learn about various engineering disciplines and wisely choose an engineering discipline. In this paper, we introduce the “Introduction to Engineering” freshman course offered to all students enrolled in the College of Engineering. The course consists of lectures, labs, recitation sessions, and a competition. Students are introduced to the major responsibilities of engineers, presentation skills, documentation, teamwork, problem solving, design process, ethics, and the basic concepts in each of the six engineering disciplines offered in the College. We evaluate the course outcomes by collecting and analyzing the student's feedback over 2 years. The results are very encouraging and reflect a positive learning experience. We share some of the challenging multidisciplinary project ideas offered to the students. We also discuss the topics covered in the course and the relationship of each topic to the ABET criteria.

Figures

Table 11. Sample rubric used to assess ABET Criterion (c) from the course design project.

Table 16. Median and 95% confidence intervals for ABET Criterion (f).

Table 15. Median and 95% confidence intervals for ABET Criterion (e).

Table 14. Median and 95% confidence intervals for ABET Criterion (d).

Figure 4. Sample of student work showing criteria they developed for the Q-tip bridge project.

Table 5. Pedagogical approaches.

Frequently asked questions

Q1. What is the current accreditation status of the College of Engineering?

The College of Engineering currently has six Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET)-accredited undergraduate engineering programmes. 

Q2. What are the requirements for the common lectures and recitation sessions?

In addition to the common lectures and recitation sessions, students are required to conduct six laboratory experiments; one in each engineering programme being taught at the College of Engineering. 

Q3. What is the importance of a laboratory?

These laboratories are of paramount importance since students gain a practical experience in the different engineering disciplines, which in turn may help them to decide on their prospective majors. 

Q4. What is the main lesson from the evaluation of the course?

A key lesson learnt from evaluating the course over multiple semesters is that it is possible to provide a meaningful and well-rounded design experience to undergraduate engineering students with minimal conceptual foundation in their own engineering disciplines. 

Q5. how many questions are maintained on the midterm and the final exams?

In order to maintain consistency across semesters, the majority of questions (> 80%) on the midterm and the final exams are maintained. 

Q6. What did the students think of the class project?

Table 10 also shows that students thought the class project helped them most with achieving ABET objectives (c), (d) and (i), dealing with design skills, the ability to work in multi-disciplinary teams, and recognising the importance of life-long learning. 

Q7. What is the recent example of a common engineering course?

An interdisciplinary form of such a design course that goes beyond engineering disciplines and involves first-year engineering and second-year graphic design students has also been successfully piloted (Goff et al. 2004). 

Q8. What is the goal of the ENG course?

The goal of the course is to help students to:• Develop an understanding of the major responsibilities of engineers and computer scientists. 

Q9. What is the effect of different semesters on the direct assessments?

The fact that different design projects were used in different semesters adds a certain amount of noise to the direct assessments.