Foundation Coalition first year integrated engineering curriculum at Texas A&M University-Kingsville: development, implementation and assessment

Abstract

This paper presents a first year integrated engineering curriculum that was implemented at Texas A&A4 University-Kingsville in the 1995-96 academic year. The curriculum is the result of the efforts by the Foundation Coalition, a National Science Foundation sponsored engineering coalition of 7 institutions around the United States. The goal of the Colaition is to implement curriculum reform in engineering education. In line with the goals of the Foundation Coalition, this curriculum was designed to incorporate changes in four major thrust areas: curriculum integration, technology enabled learning, human inte$ace development, and assessment, evaluation and dissemination. Traditional first year courses in Science, Engineering, Math, and English, have been modified such that topics are delivered based on a predefined sequence which emphasizes basic skills and thematic concepts rather than discipline boundaries, and problem solving strategies, and design. Active leaming, or collaborative leaming, is also being used in the classroom.

Identification of threshold concepts involved in early electronics: Some new methods and results

“…These inventories typically lead to an assessment tool designed to assess understanding; in TC terminology one might say to assess that the user has passed through the portal with respect to each of a series of concepts considered important to the discipline. The Foundation Coalition project has been associated with a number of the tools (Corleto et al, 1996). Some are developed and maintained more effectively than others.…”

Integrated Curricula: Purpose and Design

“…Other researchers 8 distinguish between textbook problems and realistic problems. Since very few "real world" problems require knowledge drawn from a single discipline, 9,10 integrated curricula have a better chance at providing authentic and realistic problems. This helps establish increased relevance between the material being studied and the student's perception of their career needs.…”

Articulación e integración en el currículum de formación profesional.

“…El currículum está constituido por una serie de unidades temáticas, con objetivos y propósitos formativos generalmente limitados a la propia disciplina más que a la profesión (Corleto, Kimball, Tipton, & MacLauchlan, 1996;Dienstag, 2011). En términos de Bernstein, el currículum universitario estaría conformado por una estructura de códigos elaborados antes que restringidos, pero también con fuertes demarcaciones: se trata de un currículum clasificado, en el que se encuentran límites claros entre las disciplinas.…”