The present research refers to the assigning of a hands-on group project to freshman engineering students, evaluating their performance, and deriving conclusions on student benefits and educational advances. The research procedure included action plans for the instructor and the students, instructions to the students on performing the work, organizational instructions to the teams and reporting guidelines, and evaluation of the success of the project. The main outcomes refer to the team cooperation, the performance of tasks, the quality of results and the reporting effectiveness. The 'paper beam' project benefited the student's learning and proved the need of complementary learning styles in teams, of the appreciation of quality performance and results, as well as of the accuracy in project details.
This paper considers an introductory engineering course that surveys engineering success, engineering design and ethics, EXCEL and MATLAB. Concerns and comments of students who took the course are addressed by employing existing successful theories of learning applied in similar situations and observing the students' characteristics and performance. The course improvements include early lectures by the instructor on engineering design and design tools and stressing the need for EXCEL and MATLAB. The improvements also include the assignment of problems in calculus and physics to be solved with EXCEL and MATLAB, the focus on issues according to the interests of students in the different engineering disciplines, and the emphasis on oral and writing presentation skills. Further, the improvements include the motivation of students in understanding the ABET engineering criteria and in developing enthusiasm towards their engineering studies.
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