Goals, Project Objectives and Student Learning Outcomes

LITRE Goals:
This project will specifically address two LITRE goals:

• Problem solving, including determining and evaluating possible solutions, and applying an appropriate solution to the problem.This project will explore how use of advanced computational tools, including Microsoft Access and Excel, both with Visual Basic for Applications, Matlab, and other simulation modeling packages can be used to support problem solving within several engineering disciplines, and across programs. 

• Performance, or discipline-specific implementation. As a result of the course, and the extension to upper level courses, students will become more prolific problem solvers and their performance in the discipline will be greatly enhanced. We will track students’ performance over time within successive engineering courses. 

Project Objectives:

• Develop problem solving skills through technology applications early in the student’s course of study to enable them to be better problem solvers later in their curricula.

• Increase the computational and analytical capabilities of students by building upon critical computing concepts semester after semester in a series of courses in the curriculum (“computing thread”), thereby increasing their depth of knowledge of the discipline.

• Use interactive pedagogies, including feedback to students through in-class technology activities and through feedback from the instructor (e.g. using IM), to improve students’ performance.

• Use an alternative design of classroom instruction in which lab and lecture are integrated to increase student motivation, foster an engagement with the material as they work on their laptops and enhance performance in the discipline. [We have other data available from computer science CSC 116 (the course that ISE/TE 110 replaced) to demonstrate that students in small classes with integrated lab perform better (by at least one letter grade) than students in large classes with a separate lab.]

• Faculty involved in the project will use technology in innovative ways to support student learning, including using active learning methods, problem-based learning and collaborative learning processes.

• Faculty will explore alternative ways for using Tablet PCs to engage interactive student learning.

Student Learning Outcomes:

Students across a range of engineering disciplines will be able to:

• Use various software programs to enhance visualization of engineering problems and their solutions,

• Use programming (irrespective of programming language/syntax) and computational tools for modeling of complex engineering problems,

• Use programming and computational tools to solve engineering problems relevant to specific engineering disciplines,

• Use advanced features of Excel (e.g. functions, GoalseekTM, SolverTM, pivot tables, lists, named ranges, etc.) to model and solve problems,

• Use advanced features of VBA (e.g. recording macros, write functions and subroutines, create loops, write event handlers, develop decision support systems) to model and solve problems,

• Use advanced features of other relevant software programs, such as Matlab and Access, to model and solve problems,

• Analyze problem solutions through decision support,

• Articulate problem solving strategies and processes,

• Increase their performance in the discipline over time.