First Year Engineering Experience Initiative

Abstract

Abstract NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract Session 2171 First Year Engineering Experience Initiative1 E. Wang, N. Velasquez-Bryant, J. Adams, T. Batchman, P. Cantrell, E. Jacobson, W. Johnson, J. Kleppe, J. LaCombe, N. LaTourrette, G. Norris, W. Sparkman, and Y. Varol University of Nevada, Reno Abstract This project is one of nine projects supported by the Hewlett Foundation’s Engineering Schools of the West Initiative. At the University of Nevada, Reno the College of Engineering and the College of Education are working together on the 5-year project: The First Year Engineering Experience Initiative: A Bridge To and From Problem/Project/Team-Based Learning. The collaboration stems from a unique view of the engineering pipeline and aims to improve the quality, quantity, and diversity of our graduates through a flexible, hands-on curriculum. This paper describes the program’s three main activities: the development of an integrated freshmen curriculum, a future scholars program, and a summer bridging program. Assessment has been integrated into all activities and is being performed by experts from the College of Education. Currently, curriculum activity is focused on two freshmen courses. The first is a combined mechanical, electrical and civil engineering course where students work on interdisciplinary teams building digital scales. The second course is for mechanical engineering, material science engineering, and computer science students and focuses on structured programming through the use of robotics. The future scholars program is the teaching analogy to a research post-doc. The future scholars work with faculty on the integrated freshmen courses while receiving training on learning and teaching styles. The Hewlett Bridging into Engineering Program is aimed at students who are at high risk of dropping out based on historic data. The program is being followed up with periodic meetings between the participants and student mentors. 1 This project was supported by a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s Engineering Schools of the West Initiative (www.hewlett.org). Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2004, American Society for Engineering