scholarly journals AN EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING ACTIVITY TO PROMOTE SKILL DEVELOPMENT IN FIRST YEAR ENGINEERING STUDENTS

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Bishop ◽  
A. Hurst ◽  
B. Mantin ◽  
S. Bedi
Keyword(s):  
Remote Control ◽  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Skill Development ◽  
Learning Activity ◽  
First Year ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Clinic Experience

This paper describes an experientiallearning activity to promote skill development infirst year engineering students. The exercise involvesthe assembly of a remote-control car using readilyavailable part kits. Students work in small teamsunder the mentorship of experienced faculty membersfrom a variety of engineering backgrounds. The goalof the exercise is to introduce engineering design intofirst year engineering by providing students with anengaging, hands-on experience. The exercise is oneof several new activities being incorporated into theIdeas Clinic Experience for engineering students atthe University of Waterloo.

scholarly journals FIRST YEAR ENGINEERING DESIGN – GUELPH’S TEDDY BEAR WHEEL CHAIR EXPERIENCE

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Warren Stiver
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Education ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
First Year ◽  
Teddy Bear ◽  
Design Project ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Wheel Chair ◽  
Do So

First year engineering design courses arenow common across Canadian engineering schools.These courses can be challenging to develop and deliver.They are often stuck in the chicken versus egg problem.Can I teach design with no engineering? Can I teachengineering with no design? How does one introducefour years of engineering education and an engineeringcareer in one course? How to do so across many or allengineering disciplines? How to do so in a foundationalmanner? Can it be done in a meaningful way? Can it beengaging and fun? A Teddy Bear Wheel Chair (TBWC)design project is the focal point of Guelph’s first yearengineering design course. The TBWC integratescomputers, mechanics, biomechanics (Teddy Bear style),environment, safety, sustainability, materials, costing,hands-on, perseverance, ethics and DESIGN. The TBWCparticipates in curling, sprinting and scoring goals. Theresult is a challenging and fun competition thatintroduces all of Guelph’s engineering students to theirengineering design careers. This paper and presentationwill share one instructor’s efforts to make all of this work.

scholarly journals A tanulási folyamat időbeli eloszlásának és eredményességének vizsgálata a kalkulustanulásban

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Szabolcs Berezvai ◽  
Tibor Oláh ◽  
Zsófia Pálya ◽  
Bence Sipos ◽  
Brigitta Szilágyi
Keyword(s):  
Online Education ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Learning Activity ◽  
First Year ◽  
Continuous Learning ◽  
Spring Semester ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Education Platform

A műszaki- és gazdasági felsőoktatásban folyó kalkulusoktatás komoly kihívás elé állítja a tanárokat: viszonylag rövid idő alatt, nagy mennyiségű anyagot kell megtanítaniuk úgy, hogy a hallgató a matematika kurzusokon elsajátított ismereteket a szaktárgyakban, akár több félév csúszással is hasznosítani tudja. Olyan módszert kell kidolgozni, ami egy tudásában és képességeiben eltérő, nagy létszámú hallgatói közösségben is jól alkalmazható. A teszthatás, bár megfelel ezen követelményeknek, mégsem tartozik a gyakran alkalmazott metódusok közé. A módszer, amely a tanulás középpontjába az előhívást helyezi, sem a pedagógusok, sem a diákok között nem örvend nagy népszerűségnek. A teszthatás a többi tanulási-, tanítási metódushoz képest sokkal inkább gátat tud szabni a felejtésnek, de a hallgatónak ki kell mozdulnia a passzív befogadó szerepből, ami többeknek lehet kevésbé komfortos. Ezt a módszert találtuk alkalmasnak arra is, hogy a számonkérés előtti rövid időszakra koncentrálódó, úgynevezett kampányszerű tanulás helyett hallgatóinkat a folytonos tanulásra bírjuk. Ez azért volt fontos számunkra, mert bár rövid távon a megmérettetés előtti intenzív tanulás is eredményes, ennél a felejtés rendkívül gyors.A BME Gépészmérnöki Karának elsőéves mechatronikus és energetikus hallgatói számára az EduBase Online Oktatási Platform segítségével olyan könnyen kivitelezhető kalkulusoktatást valósítottunk meg, ami a teszthatás szempontjait szem előtt tartotta, kihasználta annak előnyös tulajdonságait. Jelen cikkben bemutatjuk a 2018/2019. tanév tavaszi szemeszterében, a Matematika G2 kurzuson végzett kutatásunk eredményeit. Hétről hétre, napi bontásban követjük a hallgatók tanulási aktivitását, vizsgáljuk a kampányszerű és a folytonos tanulással elért eredményeiket. Calculus education in engineering and economic higher education programmes poses a severe challenge for teachers: in a relatively short period of time, they have to teach a large amount of material so that the students can build on the acquired knowledge in further subjects even after several semesters. A method needs to be developed that can be applied well among large, heterogeneous students with different knowledge and skills. Test effect meets these requirements, although is not one of the most commonly used methods, since this approach that puts development at the centre of learning is not very popular among educators or students. The test effect can be a much more effective tool to reduce forgetting than other learning and teaching methods, but the student must move out of their passive, receptive role, which may be less comfortable for many. We also found this method to be suitable for continuous learning instead of so-called campaign-like learning, which focuses only on a short period before the examination. This was important to us since intensive learning before the exams is often effective in short term, but forgetting is also extremely rapid afterwards.For the first-year mechatronics and energy engineering students at BME Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, with the help of the EduBase Online Education Platform, we completed an easy-to-implement calculus course that took into account the aspects of the test effect and took advantage of its benefits. In this article, we present the results of our research in the spring semester of the academic year 2018/2019 in the Mathematics G2 course. From week to week, we followed the learning activity of the students on a daily basis, examining their results achieved through campaign-like and continuous learning.

Enhancing Engineering Learning Experience at UTB by Freshmen iHOP

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nazmul Islam
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Real World ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Project Based Learning ◽  
Senior Design ◽  
Team Selection ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Lower Division

Most of the engineering courses focus more on theory and very little on hands-on, project-based learning in the classroom. Integration of real-world engineering problems and applications in lower division engineering courses will produce engineering students, who will be technically sound and be able to execute and manage real-world projects, when they will do senior design projects in their final year of engineering study. To overcome the engineering design challenges we have developed iHOP (Ingenieŕia Hands on Project) and integrate it with our lower division engineering courses. iHOP has been developed to emphasis the design component at the University of Texas at Brownsville (UTB) Engineering Physics curriculum and the project is now an integral part of Introduction to Engineering class. The iHOP project is one that is challenging, fun, requires teamwork, associated with the engineering material being studied, low cost, and doable in a limited amount of time. The experience from iHOP project motivates our freshman students to choose a better senior design project in senior year of their college career. The objectives of the iHOP projects are — to have students develop teamwork skills, and to teach students basic engineering design concepts in a complementary format to the traditional lecture. Various techniques related to team selection, encouraging teamwork, incorporation of engineering topics, keeping costs down, project results presentations, and gathering feedback from students will also be presented in this paper. Integrating iHOP Project with Introduction to Engineering class helped us to improve our retention effort in the engineering department.

scholarly journals TEACHING THE FUNDAMENTALS OF CIVIL ENGINEERING MATERIALS THROUGH EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Woods ◽  
Natalie Mazur ◽  
John Gales
Keyword(s):  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Civil Engineering ◽  
Experimental Testing ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Reinforced Concrete Beam ◽  
Learning Activity ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Hands On Learning ◽  
Engineering Materials

This study presents an overview of a civil engineering materials course curriculum at Carleton University developed by the authors. The curriculum aims to move away from traditional civil engineering materials courses, which focus heavily on concepts related to material science, and instead concentrate on concepts that are more relevant to today’s practicing civil engineers. The rationale, application, and analysis of the integration of these concepts through an advanced application of case-based and experiential learning is discussed. Central to this new course curriculum is a hands-on experiential learning activity on the construction and experimental testing of reinforced concrete beam specimens in lab sections of approximately 25 students. The goal of the lab is to provide students with a hands-on learning experience and use this as a tool to cover advanced topics related to civil engineering; for example, environmental sustainability and resilience. The assessment of the students’ understanding of the concepts taught in class were performed through the use of an anonymous questionnaire distributed at the end of the course and through traditional examination and assignments. Results of the survey were compared between classes who engaged in the advanced experiential learning laboratory and those who did not. The results demonstrate that after introducing experiential learning into the course curriculum, students were more likely to form an educated opinion on the potential sustainability of a material. Experiential learning is shown to be a valuable tool for engineering education that, when used efficiently, can seamlessly incorporate newly emerging engineering concepts to ensure that graduating students are equipped with the knowledge and tools they require to be competitive in the job market. The relation of the course to contemporary accreditation of Graduate attributes is discussed at length along with critical information regarding the effectiveness of balancing student engagement in STEM subjects.

scholarly journals Teaching Design to First-Year Engineering Students

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael McGuire ◽  
Kin Fun Li ◽  
Fayez Gebali
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
First Year ◽  
Considerable Effort ◽  
Student Teams ◽  
Product Engineering ◽  
Teaching Design ◽  
Integrated Communication ◽  
The University

Design is associated with the invention,planning and building a product. Engineering design, inparticular, takes considerable effort, skills, andintegration of knowledge; hence, it is difficult to teachfreshmen this subject since they have not possessed ordeveloped the proper skill set yet. The Faculty ofEngineering at the University of Victoria has beenteaching engineering design (in two successive courses)to all first-year engineering students. In addition toattending plenary lectures, student teams are working oncompetitive projects in the laboratory, while participatingin highly integrated communication modules. In thiswork, we discuss the curricula of these design courses,model of delivery and share our experience for the pastthree years.

scholarly journals Design Practica as Authentic Assessments in First-year Engineering Design Courses

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher McComb ◽  
Catherine Berdanier ◽  
Jessica Menold
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Skill Level ◽  
First Year ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Entry Level ◽  
Learning Attitudes ◽  
Perceived Change ◽  
Common Learning

This paper describes the design and evaluation of a novel assessment for first-year engineering design courses that is rooted in an authentic design challenge. This approach modifies the traditional written-exam approach typically found in engineering courses, which is inherently inauthentic and cannot easily capture the exploratory nature of engineering design. Our assessment improves alignment with common learning objectives found in first-year engineering design courses and additionally prepares students for the type of case study interviews that are increasingly common for entry-level engineering jobs. To evaluate our assessment, 50 first-year students completed the engineering design self-efficacy instrument once before beginning the assessment and a second time approximately 48 hours later upon completion of a reflection assignment. In addition, students retrospectively reported their perceived change in self-efficacy during the assessment. Analysis shows that students perceived a large retrospective increase in skill level, despite only a small increase in directly measured self-efficacy. These results are analyzed in light of the Dunning-Kruger effect and we posit that the assessment helps to align students’ self-efficacy with their actual skill level. Increased alignment of self-efficacy with skill level may minimize student frustration when encountering challenging tasks in the future, potentially increasing retention of engineering students as well as facilitating the development of lifelong learning attitudes.

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