A multidisciplinary student-centered laboratory

Abstract

In this paper we describe a student-centered laboratory developed by the Department of Computing and Mathematical Sciences at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and partially supported by a National Science Foundation CCLI Program grant (DUE-9950839). This laboratory is utilized by students, freshmen to graduate level, as an active learning laboratory. These are students from several disciplines including computer sciences, mathematics, geographical information systems, engineering technology, and educational technology. The laboratory is centered around a computer-controlled model railroad system and a range of simple to sophisticated robotic platforms. The laboratory equipment and layout encourage "near-peer" teaching activities such as presentations and group projects. The student projects move beyond basic theory verification by requiring students to practice higher-level thinking, and students are able to physically observe the results of their own computational solutions to problems. The student projects encourage students to reorganize knowledge, understand computation in the context of larger systems, and discover the connections among several disciplines.