Assessment of providing in-class, hands-on, activities to virginia tech's first year engineering students

Abstract

Historically, engineering has been a practical outgrowth of the need to solve physical problems. Engineering education was initially based in practical laboratory and shop experiences, as well as traditional instruction in science and mathematics. Following World War II, engineering education in the United States began emphasizing theoretical sciences and mathematics. Though a justified response at the time, this approach has evolved to one of less and less practical instruction. Today, there is a strong need to supplement traditional teaching with activities that give practical meaning to the equations presented in the lecture 1. To partially address this problem, we presented several hands-on collaborative experiences in eight of the 36 Introduction to Engineering (EF1015) lecture classes during the 2000 fall semester.This paper will discuss the impact of these activities on student learning and perception of learning. A questionnaire to assess student perceptions of learning was given at mid-semester and at the end of the semester to eight hands-on (HO) sections and ten traditional (TR) sections. We first compare HO versus TR mid-semester responses and final responses to see if there is any difference in the students' perception of their learning. We then compare HO mid-semester perceptions versus HO end semester perceptions to see if hands-on activities were more beneficial to latter subjects. The results of these surveys and comparisons are presented as are our conclusions concerning using hands-on activities in class.