A computational approach has become an indispensable tool in materials science research and related industry. At the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, our team at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE), as part of a Strategic Instructional Initiatives Program (SIIP), has integrated computation into multiple MSE undergraduate courses over the last years. This has established a stable environment for computational education in MSE undergraduate courses through the duration of the program. To date, all MSE students are expected to have multiple experiences of solving practical problems using computational modules before graduation. In addition, computer-based techniques have been integrated into course instruction through iClicker, lecture recording, and online homework and testing. In this paper, we seek to identify the impact of these changes beyond courses participating in the original SIIP project. We continue to keep track of students’ perception of the computational curriculum within participating courses. Furthermore, we investigate the influence of the computational exposure on students’ perspective in research and during job search. Finally, we collect and analyze feedback from department faculty regarding their experience with teaching techniques involving computation.
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Impact of Integrating Computation into Undergraduate Curriculum: New Modules and Long-term Trends
Computational methods have become increasingly used in both academia and industry. At the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE), as part of a university-funded educational innovation program, has integrated computation throughout its undergraduate courses since 2014. Within this curriculum, students are asked to solve practical problems related to their coursework using computational tools in all required courses and some electives. Partly in response to feedback from students, we have expanded our current curriculum to include more computational modules. A computational module was added to the freshman Introduction to Materials Science and Engineering class; thus, students will be expected to use computational tools from their first year onwards. In this paper, we survey students who are currently taking courses with integrated computation to explore the effects of gradually introducing students to programming as well as both macro- and micro-scale simulations over multiple years. We investigate the improving confidence level of students, their attitude towards computational tools, and their satisfaction with our curriculum reform. We also updated our survey to be more detailed and consistent between classes to aid in further improvements of our MSE curriculum.
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- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10215362
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- ASEE Virtual Annual Conference
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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A computational approach has become an indispensable tool in materials science research and related industry. At the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, our team at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE), as part of a Strategic Instructional Initiatives Program (SIIP), has integrated computation into multiple MSE undergraduate courses over the last years. This has established a stable environment for computational education in MSE undergraduate courses through the duration of the program. To date, all MSE students are expected to have multiple experiences of solving practical problems using computational modules before graduation. In addition, computer-based techniques have been integrated into course instruction through iClicker, lecture recording, and online homework and testing. In this paper, we seek to identify the impact of these changes beyond courses participating in the original SIIP project. We continue to keep track of students' perception of the computational curriculum within participating courses. Furthermore, we investigate the influence of the computational exposure on students' perspective in research and during job search. Finally, we collect and analyze feedback from department faculty regarding their experience with teaching techniques involving computation.more » « less
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Computational methods have gained importance and popularity in both academia and industry for materials research and development in recent years. Since 2014, our team at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has consistently worked on reforming our Materials Science and Engineering curriculum by incorporating computational modules into all mandatory undergraduate courses. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted education as on-campus resources and activities became highly restricted. Here we seek to investigate the impact of the university moving online in Spring 2020 and resuming in-person instructions in Fall 2021 on the effectiveness of our computational curricular reform from the students' perspective. We track and compare feedback from students in a representative course MSE 182 for their computational learning experience before, during and after the pandemic lockdown from 2019 to 2021. Besides, we survey all undergraduate students, for their online learning experiences during the pandemic. We find that online learning enhances the students' belief in the importance and benefits of computation in materials science and engineering, while making them less comfortable and confident to acquire skills that are relatively difficult. In addition, early computational learners are likely to experience more difficulties with online learning compared to students at late stages of their undergraduate education, regardless of the computational workload. Multiple reasons are found to limit the students' online computational learning, such as insufficient support from instructors and TAs, limited chances of peer communication and harder access to computational resources. Therefore, it is advised to guarantee more resources to students with novice computational skills regarding such limiting reasons in the future when online learning is applied.more » « less
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Computational materials modeling has been emerging as a very important aspect in materials science research. At the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, our faculty team at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, as part of the Strategic Instructional Initiatives Program (SIIP) of the university, have integrated comprehensive computational modules into multiple MatSE undergraduate courses and have created a collaborative teaching environment to improve these modules iteratively. Each year, a dedicated teaching assistant has been involved to communicate between faculty members, to ensure the quality of the computational modules, and to offer additional office hours. After three years of effort, we have now established a stable and systematic environment for computational education in MatSE undergraduate courses. The students initially involved in the program are now approaching their senior years. Thus we now investigate the influence of the computational experience in the SIIP classes on the performance of the students in the senior classes. In this paper, we present the recent progress of our computational curriculum and we focus on the influence of the program on the performance of students in senior computational modelling classes and senior classes with computational modules.more » « less
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Computational methods have gained importance and popularity in both academic research and industrial applications in recent years. Since 2014, our team has consistently worked on reforming our Materials Science and Engineering curriculum at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign by incorporating computational modules into all mandatory undergraduate courses. Here, we investigate the impact and effectiveness of these computational modules in light of our recent graduates’ feedback. We surveyed alumni who graduated between 2017 – 2021 and asked them about the benefits of the computational curriculum and the significance of computation for their career. “data analysis” was reported to be the most significant computational practice, followed by “programming” and “simulation tools”. Python is the most prevalent programming language, and half of the respondents have reported to use it for their work. Particle based simulation tools are rarely used by our alumni, whereas continuum methods are more relevant, especially for alumni in industry. Graduates who pursued Ph.D. or Master’s degrees benefited more from the existence of computational modules and would also benefit the most from qualitative improvements of the modules. Alumni have reported limited benefits of computational modules during their job search, but note a slightly positive impact on their job performance. Overall, our Alumni think that the current amount of computational material in the curriculum is ideal, but further analysis indicates there is still room for qualitative improvements. We find the perspective provided by alumni to be a valuable tool to evaluate the computational reform of the MatSE curriculum at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and it is a useful guide on how to reshape and improve its effectiveness further.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--34754
