STRATEGIES FOR INTEGRATING SERVICE-LEARNING INTO THE ENGINEERING CORE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL AND THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

摘要

While the pedagogy of Service-Learning (S-L) has been applied beneficially in a variety of disciplines, only recently have engineering departments begun to adopt the practice of integrating academically-relevant community service projects into classes and, in doing so, it is most common to offer service-oriented projects in elective classes. However, the University of Massachusetts Lowell and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have independently begun to develop S-L programs in engineering fields that work specifically to use the pedagogy in the core curriculum of the discipline. While the two universities and educational programs are distinct, the approach to S-L has been reasonably similar, and faculty and staff from each school have used common tools and methods to assess certain aspects of the integration from student and faculty perspectives. From surveys used at both of the schools (almost 760 pre-surveys and 680 post-surveys administered in the 04-05 academic year), a key finding was that student opinion changed significantly regarding the relationship between engineering and societal problems; students developed the belief that engineers should apply their skills to solve social problems. Additionally, both institutions surveyed the engineering faculty about their attitudes toward S-L and found the majority of faculty showed considerable interest in the concept. Overall, these findings show promise for integrating S-L into core engineering curriculums.