Evaluating engineering thinking in undergraduate engineering and liberal arts students

Work in progress - Teaching engineering concepts to liberal arts students

Lafayette College, with strong programs in engineering and the liberal arts, requires sophomore students to enroll in a “VaST” (Values and Science/Technology) course. These courses incorporate approaches from the engineering viewpoint and ideas from the social sciences and humanities. As a result of taking a VaST course, students should be better able to see and understand engineering and scien...

Enabling Sustainable Thinking in Undergraduate Engineering Education*

In this paper we address the need for curricular changes that foster sustainable thinking and review a number of engineering curricular changes at selected universities, drawing comparisons to medical and other fields. For each engineering program, we examined the level at which sustainability concepts and active-learning methods were integrated into its curricula. A majority of the universitie...

Critical Thinking for Engineering Students

Nondestructive Evaluation Courses for Undergraduate Engineering and Engineering Technology Students

Two nondestructive evaluation (NDE) laboratory-based courses were developed for Engineering and Engineering Technology (ET) students of Drexel University. The ultrasound NDE laboratory allows for participation in laboratory activities in two modes: the traditional face-to-face classroom mode for students on Drexel’s campus, and a real-time, Internet-based mode for those at remote locations. Dur...

Excellence in Engineering Education: Views of Undergraduate Engineering Students

The purpose of this study was to understand the views and perceptions of engineering undergraduate students on engineering education. The method of content analysis was used to analyze the language used by engineering undergraduate students, and to extract the underlying common factors or perceived characteristics of “Excellence in Engineering Education.” These common factors were then used to ...