Instructors of engineering have published articles on pedagogical strategies that support engineering design processes such as active learning and problem- and case-based learning. Other topics include flipped classrooms, inductive teaching, and student populations in the engineering major.
Journals and Websites
- Advances in Engineering Education
- American Society for Engineering Education
- Chemical Engineering Education
- Engineering Education
- European Journal of Engineering Education
- Journal of Engineering Education
- IEEE Transactions on Education
- International Journal of Engineering Education
- Re(Thinking) Higher Engineering Education
Articles and Papers
“Background and Context: Faculty at Rice University are creating instructional resources to support teaching first-year engineering design using a flipped classroom model. This implementation of flipped pedagogy is unusual because content-driven, lecture courses are usually targeted for flipping, not project-based design courses that already incorporate an abundance of active learning. However, during the first five semesters in which first-year engineering design was offered at Rice, almost 30% of class time conformed to the traditional lecture model. In fall 2014 a partially flipped model that placed greater emphasis on higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy during class time was introduced to facilitate student development in design topics. To achieve this goal, lecture time was replaced with in-class exercises that require students to analyze and evaluate design situations or problems, many of which were carefully crafted to expose common pitfalls that occur during the design process.
To date, the team has produced flipped classroom resources for ten modules of the engineering design process and professional skills: design criteria, user-defined scales, pairwise comparison charts, brainstorming, decomposition, morphological charts, Pugh screening matrix, Pugh scoring matrix, Gantt charts, and presenting a design proposal. Each module includes three components: topical videos, summative quizzes, and in-class exercises.
Work is ongoing to examine the impact of using a flipped classroom model in this first-year engineering design course. Two assessment methods have been deployed, and a third one is underway. One assessment method uses a pre- and post-course assignment to measure students’ application of the design process. A second method focuses on student exam scores. A direct comparison of student learning in the partially flipped model versus the lecture model shows no statistically significant differences, which is consistent with some implementations reported in the literature.”
Abstract: “To test the hypothesis that lecturing maximizes learning and course performance, we metaanalyzed 225 studies that reported data on examination scores or failure rates when comparing student performance in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses under traditional lecturing versus active learning. The effect sizes indicate that on average, student performance on examinations and concept inventories increased by 0.47 SDs under active learning (n = 158 studies), and that the odds ratio for failing was 1.95 under traditional lecturing (n = 67 studies). These results indicate that average examination scores improved by about 6% in active learning sections, and that students in classes with traditional lecturing were 1.5 times more likely to fail than were students in classes with active learning. Heterogeneity analyses indicated that both results hold across the STEM disciplines, that active learning increases scores on concept inventories more than on course examinations, and that active learning appears effective across all class sizes—although the greatest effects are in small (n ≤ 50) classes. Trim and fill analyses and fail-safe n calculations suggest that the results are not due to publication bias. The results also appear robust to variation in the methodological rigor of the included studies, based on the quality of controls over student quality and instructor identity. This is the largest and most comprehensive metaanalysis of undergraduate STEM education published to date. The results raise questions about the continued use of traditional lecturing as a control in research studies, and support active learning as the preferred, empirically validated teaching practice in regular classrooms.”
Abstract: “Traditional engineering instruction is deductive, beginning with theories and progressing to the applications of those theories. Alternative teaching approaches are more inductive. Topics are introduced by presenting specific observations, case studies or problems, and theories are taught or the students are helped to discover them only after the need to know them has been established. This study reviews several of the most commonly used inductive teaching methods, including inquiry learning, problem-based learning, project-based learning, case-based teaching, discovery learning, and just-in-time teaching. The paper defines each method, highlights commonalities and specific differences, and reviews research on the effectiveness of the methods. While the strength of the evidence varies from one method to another, inductive methods are consistently found to be at least equal to, and in general more effective than, traditional deductive methods for achieving a broad range of learning outcomes.”
The function of the engineering profession is to manipulate materials, energy, and information, thereby creating benefit for humankind. To do this successfully, engineers must have a knowledge of nature that goes beyond mere theory—knowledge that is traditionally gained in educational laboratories. Over the years, however, the nature of these laboratories has changed. This paper describes the history of some of these changes and explores in some depth a few of the major factors influencing laboratories today. In particular, the paper considers the lack of coherent learning objectives for laboratories and how this lack has limited the effectiveness of laboratories and hampered meaningful research in the area. A list of fundamental objectives is presented along with suggestions for possible future research.
Abstract: “This paper is based on the premises that the purpose of engineering education is to graduate engineers who can design, and that design thinking is complex. The paper begins by briefly reviewing the history and role of design in the engineering curriculum. Several dimensions of design thinking are then detailed, explaining why design is hard to learn and harder still to teach, and outlining the research available on how well design thinking skills are learned. The currently most-favored pedagogical model for teaching design, project-based learning (PBL), is explored next, along with available assessment data on its success. Two contexts for PBL are emphasized: first-year cornerstone courses and globally dispersed PBL courses. Finally, the paper lists some of the open research questions that must be answered to identify the best pedagogical practices of improving design learning, after which it closes by making recommendations for research aimed at enhancing design learning.”
Abstract: “This paper is based on the premises that the purpose of engineering education is to graduate engineers who can design, and that design thinking is complex. The paper begins by briefly reviewing the history and role of design in the engineering curriculum. Several dimensions of design thinking are then detailed, explaining why design is hard to learn and harder still to teach, and outlining the research available on how well design thinking skills are learned. The currently most-favored pedagogical model for teaching design, project-based learning (PBL), is explored next, along with available assessment data on its success. Two contexts for PBL are emphasized: first-year cornerstone courses and globally dispersed PBL courses. Finally, the paper lists some of the open research questions that must be answered to identify the best pedagogical practices of improving design learning, after which it closes by making recommendations for research aimed at enhancing design learning.”
Abstract: “Students have different levels of motivation, different attitudes about teaching and learning, and different responses to specific classroom environments and instructional practices. The more thoroughly instructors understand the differences, the better chance they have of meeting the diverse learning needs of all of their students. Three categories of diversity that have been shown to have important implications for teaching and learning are differences in students’ learning styles (characteristic ways of taking in and processing information), approaches to learning (surface, deep, and strategic), and intellectual development levels (attitudes about the nature of knowledge and how it should be acquired and evaluated). This article reviews models that have been developed for each of these categories, outlines their pedagogical implications, and suggests areas for further study.”
Abstract: “This study examines the evidence for the effectiveness of active learning. It defines the common forms of active learning most relevant for engineering faculty and critically examines the core element of each method. It is found that there is broad but uneven support for the core elements of active, collaborative, cooperative and problem-based learning.”
Educators, researchers, and policy makers have advocated student involvement for some time as an essential aspect of meaningful learning. In the past twenty years engineering educators have implemented several means of better engaging their undergraduate students, including active and cooperative learning, learning communities, service learning, cooperative education, inquiry and problem-based learning, and team projects. This paper focuses on classroom-based pedagogies of engagement, particularly cooperative and problem-based learning. It includes a brief history, theoretical roots, research support, summary of practices, and suggestions for redesigning engineering classes and programs to include more student engagement. The paper also lays out the research ahead for advancing pedagogies aimed at more fully enhancing students’ involvement in their learning.
