Exploring engineering at bucknell university: A seminar approach to the first-year engineering experience

Abstract

Bucknell University requires all incoming engineering students to take an introductory engineering course. The course is typically taught by a team of six faculty and has an enrollment of over 200, while the size of a typical class at Bucknell is below 35. While this course has been successful at achieving its objectives in the past, it was felt that it could be improved in terms of class size and depth of coverage. This year the class was taught in four segments. The first segment was not altered - lectures were delivered to the whole class in the traditional manner, combined with smaller laboratory segments. Lectures included: engineering as a profession, the engineering design process, information on each engineering discipline, teamwork and learning styles. This was complemented by a team project in which students used the engineering design process to design a park. For the second and third segment, students were able to choose two of six quasi-major-specific seminars. Each three-week seminar had a class size around 33 students, a lab size of about 16 students, and featured a team-based hands-on project. Seminar titles included: Engineering Athletics, Programming a Computer, Green Engineering, Flinging Things, Pasta Towers and Digital Logic Design. Not only did these seminars allow a smaller classroom setting and more in-depth study, we found that it provided an opportunity for both students and faculty to take ownership of the course. The final section was also taught in the large classroom setting and centered on ethics and professional responsibility. This segment included laboratory discussions of ethics and discussions of books focused on engineering and society. It is our observation that this course structure resulted in a more optimal mix of breadth and depth, while giving students in a large course a small class experience.