Facts:

• Course: Engineering Methods and Graphical Communications

  • Course Objectives: To develop a strong conceptual understanding of basic engineering principles (fluid dynamics, electricity, force)

  • Hands-on learning lab

• Professor Hernandez is a first-year assistant professor

  • 10 years experience as an aerospace engineer

  • Numerous teaching awards as a graduate student (has never really had her own class before); regarded as a “super teacher”

  • Students are forced to hurry through the experiments so the next classes can get in

  • No one else wants to teach this course

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Relevant Information:

• Hernandez is the only professor teaching the course

• Classes are very large (8 sections of 30 students)

• Students practice developing hypothesis, setting up experiments, collecting data, presenting results

• Hernandez has a time issue- p. 125

  • Not enough class time for students

  • Told Spaulding “I don’t have much time…”

• Little budget/Unknown budget

• Spaulding hasn’t worked in an academic setting previously

• Students are not completing experiments or obtaining enough data for analysis

• “Few incoming college students have a strong conceptual understanding of the basic principles.”

• Hernandez feels that her way of teaching is the “right way”(pg125)

• Spaulding has only been at his job for 6 months and he feels like working with faculty is like “herding cats”

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Key Players:

• Sandra Hernandez

• College freshmen

• 3 Graduate engineering students (this strikes me as somewhat immaterial)

• Jake Spaulding (instructional designer, IDC – has little/no experience working in the educational field)

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Context of Engineering Course:

• Basic engineering problems presented in class

• Course requirements of the students

• Lab is 3 hours

Context of Case Study:

• Large College (2000 faculty members)

• Intro. Engineering Course

  • Required introductory course

  • Undesirable course to teach

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Resources:

• IDC (14 persons on staff)

  • Instructional designers

  • Programmers

  • Graphic artists

  • Evaluation experts

  • Publication designers

• Graduate engineering students

• Students

• Past “Engineering Methods and Graphical Communications” Instructors

• Other engineering faculty

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Constraints of Teaching the Course:

• Lack of lab equipment

• Large number of students enrolled

• Lack of hands-on and real-world approach

• Lack of time to complete experiments

• Lack of materials for large scope experiments

• Lack of suitable environment for large scope experiments

• Difficulty of creating flexible experiment apparatus – changeable valves, meters, etc.

• Amount of support from engineering faculty

• Does she have unlimited funds?

• Inexperience of teacher may be a constraint as well – has she had experience working with freshmen?

• Students background knowledge

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Key Issues:

• Hernandez is frustrated with students, time issue, and Jake Spaulding’s summary of key elements. (126)

• Jake Spaulding finds it difficult to deal with faculty-faculty priorities more focused on research than teaching (125)

• Hernandez feels students are not getting the full benefit of the class nor is the goal of the class being met because of the other issues.  Hernandez thinks time should be used more effectively.

• Students’ inability to transfer knowledge gained from experiments, “they have trouble applying what is learned in the classroom to producing engineering design solutions.” and “unable to ‘envision’ other factors of fluid dynamics.” (125)

• Student’s perspective is missing in data obtained thus far.

• Spaulding’s unfamiliarity with fluid dynamics

• Students lack the conceptual understanding; it could be attributed to poor academic preparation of few hands-on experiences  (where is the hard data? — is this just teacher perception? How did other instructors manage to teach this in the past?)

• Spaulding and Hernandez do not appear to be listening to each other

• Spaulding and Hernandez inexperience could factor into the solutions

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Hernandez’s Perspective:

• Students do not have enough hands on and real world experience.

• She thinks her goal of learning key concepts is valid

• She feels she needs to find new ways to teach class

• She feels there is not adequate time for students to perform experiments

• She also is in a rush to resolve her problem

• She thinks the students waste time

• She thinks it’s hard to provide realistic examples

• She is frustrated with Spaulding

• She thinks the students lack conceptual understanding

  • Students need to develop a better conceptual understanding of fluid dynamics. “The ultimate pedagogical goal is to help students develop a better conceptual understanding of these relationships within fluid systems.”

  • Students need to learn the expected range of correct answers. “Students have difficulty in the laboratory distinguishing correct answers from those that are “unlikely” or “way off.”

  • Students need to be able to transfer knowledge gained in coursework to real world engineering situations. “They have trouble applying what is learned in the classroom to producing engineering design solutions.”

  • Lessons need to be designed to allow students to complete the learning cycle – develop a hypothesis, experiment, collect data, and evaluate results.

  • The course needs to prepare students for more advanced engineering courses.

  • Lab equipment may be inadequate – it would be valuable if they could use different types and sizes of pipes and fluids (top126) also pumps, etc. – see info. in three additional problems she would like the students to solve.

Spaulding’s Perspective:

• He feels Hernandez doesn’t know what she wants

• He feels that working with faculty is like herding cats

• He feels faculty priorities are on research and not instruction

• He is puzzled (because he doesn’t understand fluid dynamics)

• He becomes more and more puzzled as he talks to Hernandez

• He tried to provide information for the “perfect lab”

• He feels it is important to analyze the real need and answer the questions:

  • What skills do the students need upon completion of this course?

  • What is the best means of achieving that goal?

• He needs to determine the knowledge level of students at the outset of the course.

• He needs to determine if there is a gap between what the students know at the beginning of the course and what they need to know to tackle the intended content of the course.

• He needs to determine the best method of creating an environment that supports the learning objectives.

• He need to determine the best method of evaluating achievement of learning objectives

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Secondary Perspectives

• Freshmen

  • Freshman are required to take the course

  • Students are rushed for time to complete experiments which forces the next section to be late starting

• Graduate students:

  • What’s their responsibility?

  • Are they compensated for their time/work?

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