Six Years of Living with the Lab

Abstract

This paper is a report on evidence-based practice in a first year engineering program for Mechanical Engineering Students. We adapted a year-long curriculum called Living with the Lab (LWTL) that uses a project-based, hands-on instruction to introduce students to engineering fundamentals, programming, sensors, controls and engineering design. While adhering to the spirit and much of the content of the original curriculum, we added material, created new hands-on projects, introduced a flipped instructional model for the first course in the sequence, and experimented with an alternative final project model. We briefly describe our key innovations to the LWTL curriculum.Introduction of this curriculum has coincided with a sharp rise in enrollment in our Mechanical Engineering program. Retention at the end of the three-term sequence is approximately 60%. After six years of implementation the curriculum continues to evolve. We report on a survey of student opinion that spans all cohorts of students passing through the program. Overall there is strong student satisfaction with the curriculum, especially the hands-on approach. Students describe the courses as both "fun" and "challenging". Survey responses show female students are more positive than males about the hands-on pedagogy despite having less prior hands-on experience. Both male and female respondents think the pedagogical approach is appropriate for the course material and beneficial to their learning.

Introducing Cornerstone Courses into Electrical and Computer Engineering Curriculum

“…We used ideas from the first approach when designing our freshman sequence, which starts with a gentle introduction to engineering and gradually ramps up requirements and expectations from students [7] [8]. Another way to design a holistic approach to freshman introduction to engineering is "Living with the lab", which was initially developed at Louisiana Tech [9] and implemented in mechanical engineering at PSU [10].…”

Work in Progress: Transitioning to Two Semesters: The Development of a Full-Year Cornerstone

“…The survey was developed using questions derived from survey questions in formative literature on the cornerstone model [10]. Students were asked both qualitative and quantitative questions.…”

Adding Hardware Experiments to a First-Year Engineering Computing Course

“…Recktenwald recently completed a comprehensive six year study of a one year sequence of courses called Living with the Lab (LWTL) offered to first year engineering students interest in Mechanical Engineering. 5 Students felt the course improved their interest in and confidence in their ability to succeed in engineering. Interestingly, although female students indicated less previous experience with hands on experiments, they rated the hands-on work in the sequence higher than their male counterparts did.…”