As engineering programs have begun to infuse sustainability into their undergraduate curricula, assessment tools are needed to further inform these reform efforts. The goal of this project was to demonstrate the use of a new rubric to examine students' abilities to engage in sustainable design. The rubric includes 16 sustainable design criteria…

For many years, educators have been developing tools and techniques to improve the learning process in higher education; however, the vast majority of these do not focus directly on deep learning. In this work, an innovative teaching/learning tool is presented which focuses on deep learning of some engineering skills and principles. The tool is…

In Biosystems Engineering at Oklahoma State University, senior design is a two semester course in which students work on real-world projects provided by clients. First-year (freshmen and trans­fer) students enroll in an introductory engineering course. Historically, these students worked on a team-based analysis project, and the engineering design…

Microcontrollers is a required course in most Electrical, Computer, and Mechanic Engineering (Technology) programs at U.S. universities. Most engineering courses (e.g., microcontrollers), by nature, introduce abstract concepts, definitions, and models, and use primarily lectures and readings (words, symbols) to transmit information. This…

Increasingly, first-year engineering curricula incorporate design projects. However, the faculty and staff effort and physical resources required for the number of students enrolled can be daunting and affect the quality of instruction. To reduce these costs, ensure a high quality educational experience, and reduce variability in student outcomes…

The increasingly interdisciplinary nature of today's scientific research is leading to the transformation of undergraduate education. In addressing these needs, the University of Houston's College of Technology has developed a new interdisciplinary research-based biotechnology laboratory curriculum. Using the pesticide degrading bacterium,…

Compared to the learning that occurs in most engineering courses, the learning that occurs in design courses is more dependent on students, and less dependent on instructors. Because typical course evaluations are instructor-centric and do not provide information about students' contributions to their learning, we developed a supplemental…

An integrated technical writing and design course has been developed at Rowan University. This course was developed using aspects of project-based learning and recent discussions about design education, as well as pedagogical approaches from the write-to-learn and the writing in the disciplines (WID) movements. The result is a course where the…

Problem Based Learning (PBL) has proven to be a highly successful pedagogical model in many educational fields, although it is comparatively uncommon in technical education. It goes beyond the typical teaching methodology by promoting student interaction. This paper presents a PBL trial applied to an undergraduate Digital Electronics course in the…