This “lessons learned” paper will present the results on our course transformation efforts in our university’s undergraduate engineering courses. Over the past four years, the College of Engineering has been engaged in a multi-institutional grant project aimed at improving student success in STEM through course redesigns and transforming teaching practices to include more active learning approaches. This project paired education experts with undergraduate engineering faculty from four engineering department to transform the design and teaching practices in courses that have historically been found to have high dropout, withdraw, and failure rates and/or are important gateway courses to the next level of the degree program. This project prepared faculty members to integrate more learner-centered and active learning strategies to improve student achievement and success. Ultimately, these transformative approaches would lead to a change in these faculty’s teaching practices in and conceptions of future iterations of the course while also expanding to other instructors of the same course. All course transformation projects were completed in Fall 2018, and our final year of evaluation to examine the efficacy of the intervention is in progress. Observations were conducted to identify the extent of active learning integrated into these courses before and after the initial transformation project. Data suggest that participating faculty members were generally successful in integrating active learning in their classrooms, but more effort was needed to support faculty in increasing and sustaining active learning opportunities within these courses, and encouraging them to share materials and strategies from these transformed courses with other faculty of the same course. The lessons learned from our course transformation efforts may benefit other engineering programs interested in course redesign.
Emily Bonner is an Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction specializing in mathematics education. Her research interests focus on professional development and equity in schools.
http://orcid.org/https://0000-0002-0412-4989
The University of Texas at San Antonio
[biography]
Vittorio Marone is an Associate Professor of Instructional Technology in the Department of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching at The University of Texas at San Antonio. He earned his doctorate in Education in a dual-degree program between the University of Padua and The University of Tennessee. He also holds a doctorate in Languages, Cultures, and Societies from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. His research interests include new literacies, youth cultures, games and learning, music technology, and multimodality. He presented his work at national and international conferences such as GLS (Games + Learning + Society) and G4C (Games for Change). He is the author of the book La Quotidianità dell’Assurdo (The Everyday Absurd, Archetipolibri, Bologna, 2010).
Timothy T. Yuen is an Associate Professor and Assistant Chair in the Department of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching with a joint appointment in the Department of Computer Science and a courtesy appointment in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Texas at San Antonio. His research investigates how learning technologies and transformative practices can improve learning, engage students, and broaden participation in computer science and engineering.
Robin Nelson is a doctoral student in the Department of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching and is pursuing a cognate in Instructional Technology at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Her research interests include the development of TPACK in preservice teachers, evidence-based teaching strategies, and the use of gaming in education. She is a Graduate Research Assistant for the TRESTLE project at UTSA.
Dr. Browning was named Dean and David and Jennifer Spencer Distinguished Chair of the UTSA College of Engineering in August 2014. Previously she was a faculty member at the University of Kansas for 16 years, and served 2 years as Associate Dean of Administration. While at KU, Dr. Browning twice was awarded the Miller Award for Distinguished Professional Service (2004 and 2011) and was the 2012 recipient of the Henry E. Gould Award for Distinguished Service to Undergraduate Education. In 2015 she was name a Purdue Distinguished Woman Scholar. In 2016 INSIGHT into Diversity magazine presented her with an Inspiring Women in STEM award.
Dr. Browning's research interests include structural engineering, earthquake engineering, engineering materials, and reinforced concrete design and analysis. She has conducted research to improve the durability of concrete bridge decks through studies of corrosion protection systems and low-cracking high performance bridge decks. She also is active in research to improve the design and performance of concrete buildings and bridges subjected to earthquake motion. She received the American Concrete Institute’s Young Member Award for Professional Achievement in 2008 and was named an ACI Fellow in 2009.
Browning is a Co-PI with 6 other institutions in an NSF IUSE grant to develop procedures to affect cultural transformations in engineering education. She also is Co-PI of the leadership team (Network Coordination Office) for the NSF Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI).
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