skip to main content


Title: Creating Significant Learning Experiences in an Engineering Technology Bridge Course: a backward design approach
Academic bridge courses are implemented to impact students’ academic success by revising fundamental concepts and skills necessary to successfully complete discipline-specific courses. The bridge courses are often short (one to three weeks) and highly dense in content (commonly mathematics or math-related applications). With the support of the NSF-funded (DUE - Division of Undergraduate Education) STEM Center at Sam Houston State University (SHSU), we designed a course for upcoming engineering majors (i.e., first-year students and transfer students) that consists of a two-week-long pre-semester course organized into two main sessions. The first sessions (delivered in the mornings) were synchronous activities focused on strengthening student academic preparedness and socio-academic integration and fostering networking leading to a strong STEM learning community. The second sessions (delivered in the afternoons) were asynchronous activities focused on discipline-specific content knowledge in engineering. The engineering concepts were organized via eight learning modules covering basic math operations, applied trigonometry, functions in engineering, applied physics, introduction to statics and Microsoft Excel, and engineering economics and its applied decision. All materials in the course were designed by engineering faculty (from the chair of the department to assistant professors and lecturers in engineering) and one educational research faculty (from the department of chemistry). The course design process started with a literature review on engineering bridge courses to understand prior work, followed by surveying current engineering faculty to propose goals for the course. The designed team met weekly after setting the course goals over two semesters. The design process was initiated with backward design principles (i.e., start with the course goals, then the assessments, end with the learning activities) and continued with ongoing revision. The work herein presents this new engineering bridge course’s goals, strategy, and design process. Preliminary student outcomes will be discussed based on the course’s first implementation during summer 2021.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1725674
NSF-PAR ID:
10352624
Author(s) / Creator(s):
;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
2022 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ABET lists the ability to communicate in writing to both technical and non-technical audiences as a required outcome for baccalaureate engineering students [1]. From emails and memos to formal reports, the ability to communicate is vital to the engineering profession. This Work in Progress paper describes research being done as part of an NSF-funded project, Writing Assignment Tutor Training in STEM (WATTS). The method is designed to improve feedback writing tutors without technical backgrounds give to engineering students on technical reports. Students in engineering programs have few opportunities to develop their writing skills. Usually, composition courses are part of the general education curriculum. Students often see these courses as unrelated to their majors and careers [2]. Ideally, writing support should be integrated throughout a program. Since WATTs capitalizes on existing resources and requires only a modest amount of faculty time, it could enable engineering programs to provide additional writing support to students in multiple courses and provide a bridge for them to see the connection between writing concepts learned in composition courses and their technical reports. WATTS was developed in a junior-level circuit analysis course, where students were completing the same lab and writing individual reports. This paper focuses on a senior capstone course that utilizes concepts taught in previous courses to prepare students to complete an independent team research or design project. Projects are unique, usually based on the needs of an industrial sponsor, and are completed over three consecutive semesters. Each semester, teams write a report based on their activities during that semester, with a comprehensive report in the final semester. The multi-semester nature of the senior design project provides an opportunity for the researchers to chart longitudinal changes from the first to the students’ third semester interactions with the writing tutors, assessing the value of an integrated approach. The program’s impact on students’ attitudes toward revision and the value of tutoring, as well as the impact on tutors, are part of the assessment plan. The program hopes to change the students’ focus from simply presenting their results to communicating them. The goals of the project are to demonstrate to students that revision is essential to the writing process and that feedback can improve their written communication abilities. The expectation is that after graduation they will continue to seek critical feedback as part of their career growth. Surveys given to both students and tutors revealed that the sessions were taken seriously by the students and that meaningful collaboration was achieved between them. An evaluation of the writing in pre-tutored to final submitted report shows statistically significant improvement. Preliminary and current results will be included within the paper. [1] Criteria for Accrediting Engineering Technology Programs, ABET, Baltimore, MD., 2020, p.5, ETAC Criteria (abet.org) [2] Bergmann, L. S. and Zepernick, J., “Disciplinarity and Transfer: Students’ Perceptions of Learning to Write,” Writing Program Administration, 31, Fall/Winter 2007. 
    more » « less
  2. POSTER. Presented at the Symposium (9/12/2019) Abstract: The Academy of Engineering Success (AcES) employs literature-based, best practices to support and retain underrepresented students in engineering through graduation with the ultimate goal of diversifying the engineering workforce. AcES was established in 2012 and has been supported via NSF S-STEM award number 1644119 since 2016. The 2016, 2017, and 2018 cohorts consist of 12, 20, and 22 students, respectively. Five S-STEM supported scholarships were awarded to the 2016 cohort, seven scholarships were awarded to students from the 2017 cohort, and six scholarships were awarded to students from the 2018 cohort. AcES students participate in a one-week summer bridge experience, a common fall semester course focused on professional development, and a common spring semester course emphasizing the role of engineers in societal development. Starting with the summer bridge experience, and continuing until graduation, students are immersed in curricular and co-curricular activities with the goals of fostering feelings of institutional inclusion and belonging in engineering, providing academic support and student success skills, and professional development. The aforementioned goals are achieved by providing (1) opportunities for faculty-student, student-student, and industry mentor-student interaction, (2) academic support, and student success education in areas such as time management and study skills, and (3) facilitated career and major exploration. Four research questions are being examined, (1) What is the relationship between participation in the AcES program and participants’ academic success?, (2) What aspects of the AcES program most significantly impact participants’ success in engineering, (3) How do AcES students seek to overcome challenges in studying engineering, and (4) What is the longitudinal impact of the AcES program in terms of motivation, perceptions, feelings of inclusion, outcome expectations of the participants and retention? Students enrolled in the AcES program participate in the GRIT, LAESE, and MSLQ surveys, focus groups, and one-on-one interviews at the start and end of each fall semester and at the end of the spring semester. The surveys provide a measure of students’ GRIT, general self-efficacy, engineering self-efficacy, test anxiety, math outcome efficacy, intrinsic value of learning, inclusion, career expectations, and coping efficacy. Focus group and interview responses are analyzed in order to answer research questions 2, 3, and 4. Survey responses are analyzed to answer research question 4, and institutional data such as GPA is used to answer research question 1. An analysis of the 2017 AcES cohort survey responses produced a surprising result. When the responses of AcES students who retained were compared to the responses of AcES students who left engineering, those who left engineering had higher baseline values of GRIT, career expectations, engineering self-efficacy, and math outcome efficacy than those students who retained. A preliminary analysis of the 2016, 2017, and 2018 focus group and one-on-one interview responses indicates that the Engineering Learning Center, tutors, organized out of class experiences, first-year seminar, the AcES cohort, the AcES summer bridge, the AcES program, AcES Faculty/Staff, AcES guest lecturers, and FEP faculty/Staff are viewed as valuable by students and cited with contributing to their success in engineering. It is also evident that AcES students seek help from peers, seek help from tutors, use online resources, and attend office hours to overcome their challenges in studying engineering. 
    more » « less
  3. Evidence has shown that facilitating student-centered learning (SCL) in STEM classrooms enhances student learning and satisfaction [1]–[3]. However, despite increased support from educational and government bodies to incorporate SCL practices [1], minimal changes have been made in undergraduate STEM curriculum [4]. Faculty often teach as they were taught, relying heavily on traditional lecture-based teaching to disseminate knowledge [4]. Though some faculty express the desire to improve their teaching strategies, they feel limited by a lack of time, training, and incentives [4], [5]. To maximize student learning while minimizing instructor effort to change content, courses can be designed to incorporate simpler, less time-consuming SCL strategies that still have a positive impact on student experience. In this paper, we present one example of utilizing a variety of simple SCL strategies throughout the design and implementation of a 4-week long module. This module focused on introductory tissue engineering concepts and was designed to help students learn foundational knowledge within the field as well as develop critical technical skills. Further, the module sought to develop important professional skills such as problem-solving, teamwork, and communication. During module design and implementation, evidence-based SCL teaching strategies were applied to ensure students developed important knowledge and skills within the short timeframe. Lectures featured discussion-based active learning exercises to encourage student engagement and peer collaboration [6]–[8]. The module was designed using a situated perspective, acknowledging that knowing is inseparable from doing [9], and therefore each week, the material taught in the two lecture sessions was directly applied to that week’s lab to reinforce students’ conceptual knowledge through hands-on activities and experimental outcomes. Additionally, the majority of assignments served as formative assessments to motivate student performance while providing instructors with feedback to identify misconceptions and make real-time module improvements [10]–[12]. Students anonymously responded to pre- and post-module surveys, which focused on topics such as student motivation for enrolling in the module, module expectations, and prior experience. Students were also surveyed for student satisfaction, learning gains, and graduate student teaching team (GSTT) performance. Data suggests a high level of student satisfaction, as most students’ expectations were met, and often exceeded. Students reported developing a deeper understanding of the field of tissue engineering and learning many of the targeted basic lab skills. In addition to hands-on skills, students gained confidence to participate in research and an appreciation for interacting with and learning from peers. Finally, responses with respect to GSTT performance indicated a perceived emphasis on a learner-centered and knowledge/community-centered approaches over assessment-centeredness [13]. Overall, student feedback indicated that SCL teaching strategies can enhance student learning outcomes and experience, even over the short timeframe of this module. Student recommendations for module improvement focused primarily on modifying the lecture content and laboratory component of the module, and not on changing the teaching strategies employed. The success of this module exemplifies how instructors can implement similar strategies to increase student engagement and encourage in-depth discussions without drastically increasing instructor effort to re-format course content. Introduction. 
    more » « less
  4. null (Ed.)
    Bridge courses are often created to provide participants with remediation instruction on discipline-specific content knowledge, like chemistry and mathematics, before enrollment in regular (semester-long) courses. The bridge courses are then designed to impact student’s academic success in the short-term. Also, as a consequence of the bridge course experience, it is often expected that students’ dropout rates on those regular courses will decrease. However, the bridge courses are often short (ten or fewer days) and packed with content, thus creating challenges for helping students sustain their learning gains over time. With the support of the NSF funded (DUE - Division Of Undergraduate Education) STEM Center at Sam Houston State University, we are designing a course for entering chemistry students that consists of a one-week pre-semester intensive bridge component, which then flows into a one-month co-curricular support component at the beginning of the semester. The primary goals of the bridge component of the course are to strengthen student academic preparedness, calibrated-self-efficacy, and to foster networking leading to a strong learning community. The goal of the co-curricular extension is to help students sustain and build upon the learning gains of the initial bridge component. We plan to extend the co-curricular portion of the course in future years. A key measure of success will be improved participant course grades in the introductory chemistry courses for majors. Our design process has been centered on weekly meetings that alternate between literature review and course design. The design process was initiated with backward design principles and continues with ongoing revision. The goals, design strategy, and design process of this new course will be presented along with the achieved student outcomes during the implementation of the past summer 2020. 
    more » « less
  5. null (Ed.)
    Bridge courses are often created to provide participants with remediation instruction on discipline-specific content knowledge, like chemistry and mathematics, before enrollment in regular (semester-long) courses. The bridge courses are then designed to impact student’s academic success in the short-term. Also, as a consequence of the bridge course experience, it is often expected that students’ dropout rates on those regular courses will decrease. However, the bridge courses are often short (ten or fewer days) and packed with content, thus creating challenges for helping students sustain their learning gains over time. With the support of the NSF funded (DUE - Division Of Undergraduate Education) STEM Center at Sam Houston State University, we are designing a course for entering chemistry students that consists of a one-week pre-semester intensive bridge component, which then flows into a one-month co-curricular support component at the beginning of the semester. The primary goals of the bridge component of the course are to strengthen student academic preparedness, calibrated-self-efficacy, and to foster networking leading to a strong learning community. The goal of the co-curricular extension is to help students sustain and build upon the learning gains of the initial bridge component. We plan to extend the co-curricular portion of the course in future years. A key measure of success will be improved participant course grades in the introductory chemistry courses for majors. Our design process has been centered on weekly meetings that alternate between literature review and course design. The design process was initiated with backward design principles and continues with ongoing revision. The goals, design strategy, and design process of this new course will be presented along with the achieved student outcomes during the implementation of the past summer 2020. 
    more » « less