| Title | A Cross-Disciplinary Approach to First-Year Engineering Education: Teaching Engineering in the Context of Society’s Grand Challenges |
| Publication Type | Poster |
| Authors | Azarin S, Ferrier N, Kennedy SM, Klingenbert D, Masters K, McMahon K, Russel J, Hagness SC |
| Year of Publication | 2008 |
| Abstract | Throughout the U.S., many engineering departments are facing declining enrollments at a time when the world faces many problems that must be addressed by engineers. In response to this decline, various institutions are beginning to realize that engineering education must change to meet the interests and needs of a more diverse population of students, particularly women and minorities. The present study focuses on the development of an alternative to the traditional freshman-level introductory engineering courses. A new cross-disciplinary engineering course, developed by a University of Wisconsin-Madison team, places an emphasis on humanitarian applications of engineering by focusing on the role of engineering in tackling society’s grand challenges such as sustainable energy and pandemics. Our hypothesis is that this new approach to teaching freshmen about engineering will engage and inspire students who have typically been turned off by the traditional introductory engineering experience. Additionally, we believe that this course will better prepare a new generation of engineers to address major societal problems while maintaining an awareness of political, economic, ethical and social constraints on engineering. This poster presents an overview of the course, including the expected course outcomes and results from the preliminary survey-based assessment aimed at evaluating changes in students’ perceptions of engineering after completion of the course. We expect that teaching engineering content in a societal context will be a powerful tool for increasing the interest and retention of women in engineering. In addition, we hope that our preliminary data will encourage others to adopt a similar approach in their own introductory courses. |
| Keywords | Forum 2008, Forum 2008 poster, poster, poster abstract, Presentation |
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