OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
Open search box
This project is boosting the dissemination of findings from education research through collaboration of 20 educational researchers and engineering instructors at different colleges and universities in the Pacific Northwest, who are creating and implementing new approaches to teaching the engineering course Mechanics of Materials.Specifically, this project is focusing on deeper understanding of fundamental engineering concepts such as stress, strain, and equilibrium.
The collaborators are working to discover and change students' preconceptions, which may be incorrect assumptions of how materials behave, based on their prior coursework and life experience. This project is addressing a real problem that engineering instructors are currently experiencing in their classrooms. Since the engineering educators have been involved in the project from the beginning, they are more likely to continue to use the curriculum materials they develop, and to encourage others to use them. This collaboration is also ensuring that the findings are being implemented in classrooms soon after they are discovered. More interactive, conceptually oriented classrooms, such as those being implemented in this project, will improve student learning and increase student interest and retention in engineering.
Project Members:
Shane Brown, PI
Funding Source:
This CAREER engineering education research project will advance our understanding of the differences in how engineering students and practicing engineers understand fundamental concepts of civil engineering. By mapping these differences, the project will help bridge the gap between what is taught in college and what students need to know to become effective civil engineers. Using the results of this research, educators understand be able to develop curricular materials that allow students to more rapidly enter the professional practice of engineering. A key aspect of this project is sharing the teaching tools widely among other universities.
Project Members:
Shane Brown, PI
Funding Source:
ESTEME@OSU is an effort born out of action research and working to broadly implement innovative evidence-based instructional practices - specifically, interactive engagement in lecture and formal cooperative learning in studio workshop laboratories - into core undergraduate courses in biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, and physics at OSU. This transdisciplinary – led by College of Engineering, managed by Center faculty and supported through a grant from the National Science Foundation – involves investigators from three OSU colleges (Engineering, Education and Science), the Offices of Academic Success and Engagement, Institutional Research, and the Center for Teaching and Learning. The project will provide opportunities for positive impacts on approximately 10,000 students, 50 faculty members, and 300 student instructors annually. Ultimately, ESTEME@OSU will result in enhanced infrastructure towards reform including improved professional networks, communities of practice, and measurement and processes related to student learning, retention, and learning related beliefs.
Project Members
Shane Brown Co - PI
Funding Source
