Fostering Professional Practice Skills in a Redesigned Materials Science Course for Engineering Students

摘要

There has been an increasing demand for engineering education to include more opportunities in the curriculum for students to develop the professional practice skills necessary for the modern, global workforce. Many engineering programs have included non-technical skills in freshman introduction to engineering courses and design courses such as the capstone design course in the senior year. However, there is a decreased emphasis on these important skills in the middle two years of a typical engineering curriculum, and there is an opportunity to find a place for these skills to be developed in the context of an engineering science course. In an effort to incorporate more professional skills during the middle years, a Materials Science course for Mechanical Engineering majors was redesigned to include specific learning goals that address creativity, teamwork, communication, lifelong learning, environmental impact, and societal impact. The course has for many years been taught using a traditional, lecture based approach, and the new format adopts a student-centered, active learning approach with an emphasis on project-based learning and integrative learning. While including more focus on professional skills, it was also important to ensure sufficient learning of the body of knowledge in materials science necessary for practical application in the Mechanical Engineering profession. An effort was made to align the learning goals with learning activities, assessments, and products. The course changes were also intended to increase student engagement by developing students' intrinsic motivation with a learning environment that promoted competence, relatedness (community and purpose), and autonomy. This paper describes representative activities including projects, in-class activities, homework assignments, and tests. The methods of assessing student work are also discussed. Qualitative student feedback is reported based primarily on student surveys.