Technology Supported Learning Applied to an Innovative, Integrated Curriculum for First-Year Engineering Majors

In September of 1998, the College of Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth piloted an innovative, integrated, first-year curriculum. It dramatically changed 31 credits across two semesters. Preliminary assessment data was very encouraging after the first semester of operation and the college of engineering adopted a modified program for most freshman, engineering students in the Fall of 1999. This paper outlines teaching and learning pedagogy and technology strategies that brought the new curriculum efficiently into being and helped to assure its success. Many of these concepts were learned by studying work done in the NSF-sponsored Foundation Coalition as well as at other schools. Where possible, we have built on the best work of those who have already developed successful, innovative teaching methods and curricula. The new program at UMD includes • integrating the introductory sequences in physics, calculus, and engineering • teaching and using teamwork among students and faculty • using a specially designed technology oriented studio classroom • using active and cooperative learning methods • encouraging formation of a learning community of students by block-scheduling classes and grouping students in the dorms • reducing the cost of delivering courses by making more efficient use of instructional time • using careful assessment to evaluate performance. The paper briefly outlines the curriculum, teaching methodology, innovative technologies used in the new integrated curriculum and program assessment. It also describes the studio classroom and equipment that have been optimized for hands-on, technology-assisted learning, and describes assessment aimed at determining the benefits of the technology to student learning. 0-7695-1435-9/02 $1 waii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-35’02)