Designing a Senior Capstone Course to Satisfy Industrial Customers

Todd, Robert H.; Sorensen, Carl D.; Magleby, Spencer P.

doi:10.1002/j.2168-9830.1993.tb00082.x

Cited by 144 publications

(111 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…In the 1970s and 1980s, engineering education programs in North America were essentially left unchanged, despite a growing trend towards competencydriven curricula in higher education. In the early 1990s, the profession stressed gaps between the readiness of young engineers to confront the challenges of the market and their background education (Todd, Sorensen, & Magleby, 1993;Tooker, 1992). Among the most common weaknesses noted was a lack of capacity to synthesize, to create, or to design, as well as poor communication skills.…”

Section: Context and Curricular Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Problem-based and Project-based Learning in Engineering and Medicine: Determinants of Students’ Engagement and Persistance

Bédard¹,

Lison²,

Dalle³

et al. 2012

Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning

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This paper presents results of a study conducted with undergraduate students involved in either problem-or project-based curricula (Medicine and Engineering, respectively) at the Université de Sherbrooke, Canada. The objective of the present research was to measure the impact of these innovative curricula on students' engagement and persistence in higher education. Our research question was: What determinants better predict students' engagement and persistence in innovative curricula such as PBL? Nine variables were examined as potential predictors of both factors (engagement and persistence). Results showed a variation in variables predicting engagement and persistence, with the most significant predictor being stress related.

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Section: Context and Curricular Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Problem-based and Project-based Learning in Engineering and Medicine: Determinants of Students’ Engagement and Persistance

Bédard¹,

Lison²,

Dalle³

et al. 2012

Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning

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“…These include the ability to: 1) Function on a multidisciplinary team 2) Communicate effectively 3) Design and conduct experiments 4) Analyze and interpret data 5) Design a system that is within realistic constraints Engineering educators across the U.S. have recognized the power of this approach. For example, the number of team-based and multidisciplinary team-based capstone classes across the U.S. has increased 15 since 1995, likely due to the influence of ABET on U.S. engineering programs. 16 Similarly, the number of "Cornerstone" freshmen engineering design project classes has increased, although by no means are they universal in U.S. engineering curricula 4 .…”

Section: Service Learning and Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development and Implementation of a Long-term Freshmen Service Project: The Design and Deployment of an Engineering Outreach Experience for Underserved Populations

Widdmann

Self

Schuster

2015 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition Proceedings

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Freshmen year programs in engineering have received recent and growing attention as a method to engage first year students in their profession and start them on a path to success. Service learning is a well-known pedagogical method that has been shown to improve retention, especially of underrepresented groups in engineering, and to promote deeper learning through reflection. This paper describes the implementation of a new long-term (full year) service learning project where 240 freshmen mechanical engineering students worked together in small teams to design and deploy an engineering outreach experience for a designated age-group of 4 th -11 th grade students. This educational experience is designed to expose the freshmen engineering students to a variety of concepts and skills necessary for successful negotiation of their engineering careers. The project encourages the freshmen to challenge their assumptions and conceptions of what an engineer is and does. Other knowledge and skills gained include understanding and using the engineering design process, effectively working on engineering teams, effectively communicating, planning and making decisions, all while solving an openended problem. The experience also asks the freshmen to consider diverse perspectives as they design for the targeted populations. The paper describes the project implementation and presents results from student reflections and from a survey. Lessons learned and recommendations for best practices are also presented. Freshmen Year Context and ObjectivesDuring the 2010-2011 academic year the department of Mechanical Engineering at California Polytechnic State University -San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly) began a process of redesigning the freshmen year experience for its incoming Mechanical Engineering students. At Cal Poly students enter the university with a declared major and begin taking major courses their first quarter. The department is large, with 180-240 incoming freshmen each year and a total of 1177 students. The previous freshmen year was somewhat traditional in approach and consisted of several classes on design communication, a broad introductory course including a lecture that provided an overview of various Mechanical Engineering subjects (e.g. mechanics, thermodynamics, mechatronics, and design) and supported those with a three hour/ week handson laboratory. There was a strong feeling among the faculty that the freshmen year could be redesigned to better support the overall program goals. One often cited goal of the redesign of freshmen engineering programs is to increase retention through discipline-specific design activities.1-3 At Cal Poly, the one-year retention rate of Mechanical Engineering students is currently over 95% and the two-year retention rates are above 80% and generally rising over the last decade. These percentages are roughly the same when sorted by gender and ethnicity, making retention only a minor concern in this redesign. A bigger goal for the curriculum designers was to steer students not interested...

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“…This is a relevant and important area of research in engineering education particularly, as it is sometimes forgotten that industry is the destination of most of the world's engineers, not academia 7 . On the other hand, more recent papers suggest that academia and industry are more aligned than in the past in terms of secondary institution's development of students' preparatory skills for practice, and industry's approval of their appropriate level of readiness 8 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Systematized Literature Review: Defining and Developing Engineering Competencies

Ebrahiminejad¹

2017 ASEE Annual Conference &Amp; Exposition Proceedings

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Essential competencies have been identified for engineers working in industry. These competencies include (but are not limited to) critical thinking, problem-solving, teamwork, and communication. Engineering education research has shown however, that engineering undergraduate students often fail to develop these crucial competencies. Industry has also noted that recent graduates exhibit competency gaps. To address these gaps, it is important for higher education institutions to seek to understand the competencies identified as necessary in industry. Moreover, one could argue educational institutions should develop and assess students' competencies based on these professional demands.This research systematically reviews literature related to this topic. This review seeks to answer two questions: 1) What are the competencies engineering students must have to be successful in the world of practice? 2) How can engineering education help students to develop these competencies? A total of 30 articles were identified as relevant and reviewed. Two themes were applied: 1) Identification of engineering competencies 2) Approaches to address competency shortfalls. Review of the literature suggests that while educational institutions are mostly aligned with engineering competencies hailed as important to ABET, there is still room to improve. The most frequent competencies mentioned in the literature include communication skills, teamwork, and problem-solving skills. Results suggest developing a continuous improvement mindset will encourage both educators and their institutions to include stakeholders such as industry into account as they systematically assess and review their graduating engineering students and undergraduate programs. Further, to date there does not appear to be a single accepted approach or best practice for incorporating targeted competencies into engineering curricula.

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Designing a Senior Capstone Course to Satisfy Industrial Customers

Cited by 144 publications

References 2 publications

Problem-based and Project-based Learning in Engineering and Medicine: Determinants of Students’ Engagement and Persistance

Problem-based and Project-based Learning in Engineering and Medicine: Determinants of Students’ Engagement and Persistance

Development and Implementation of a Long-term Freshmen Service Project: The Design and Deployment of an Engineering Outreach Experience for Underserved Populations

A Systematized Literature Review: Defining and Developing Engineering Competencies

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