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Two project-based learning approaches were implemented in a 100-level information literacy class in the Mechanical Engineering program at a mid-Atlantic university. One approach, the treatment group, partnered engineering students with education students to develop and deliver engineering lessons that guide elementary school students through the engineering design process. In the second approach, the comparison group, engineering students were partnered with their engineering classmates to work on an engineering problem using the engineering design process. The two projects were designed to have similar durations and course point values. For both projects, teams were formed, and peer evaluations were completed, using the Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness (CATME) survey. This study examined how the two project-based learning approaches affected students' teamwork effectiveness. Data was collected from undergraduate engineering students assigned to groups in the comparison and treatment conditions from Fall 2019 to Fall 2022. Data was collected electronically through the CATME teammate evaluations and project reflections (treatment, n = 137; comparison, n = 112). CATME uses a series of questions assessed on a 5-point Likert scale. Quantitative analysis using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Covariance (ANCOVA) showed that engineering students in the treatment group expected more quality, were more satisfied, and had more task commitment than engineering students working within their discipline. However, no statistically significant differences were observed for teamwork effectiveness categories such as contribution to the team’s work, interaction with teammates, keeping the team on track, and having relevant knowledge, skills, and abilities. This result suggests that engineering students who worked in interdisciplinary teams with an authentic audience (i.e., children) perceived higher quality in their projects and had higher levels of commitment to the task than their peers in the comparison group. A thematic analysis of the written reflections was conducted to further explain the results obtained for the three categories: expecting quality, satisfaction, and task commitment. The thematic analysis revealed that the treatment, or interdisciplinary, groups exhibited considerably more positive reflections than their comparison peers regarding the project in all three categories, supporting results obtained quantitatively. 

Seventy-three students who enrolled in a senior-year level fluid mechanics course during spring semesters from 2019-2022 were asked about their perceptions on the impact in their professional preparation of a semester-long multidisciplinary service-learning assignment. This paper evaluates their current perceived impact of the assignment (long-term impact) and whether it might have changed from when they took the course (short-term impact). A survey was sent to all former students who went through the course and participated in the assignment, with a 61.64% return rate. The survey included questions about how well they remembered the assignment (some of the students were involved in it 4 years prior to completing this survey), the relevance of the project in terms of their professional preparation, how it impacted their collaboration skills, and whether their involvement affected their interest in participating in engineering outreach activities. To determine how their perceived impact of the project on their professional preparation has changed from when they took the class to now when they are working professionals, we compare their recent responses to the responses in reflections they completed while taking the course. The information gathered in the survey also provides a means to evaluate the effectiveness of the project and identify areas for improvement, which has implications for how similar projects might be designed and enacted in the future. 

Engineering is becoming increasingly cross-disciplinary, requiring students to develop skills in multiple engineering disciplines (e.g., mechanical engineering students having to learn the basics of electronics, instrumentation, and coding) and interprofessional skills to integrate perspectives from people outside their field. In the workplace, engineering teams are frequently multidisciplinary, and often, people from outside of engineering are part of the team that brings a product to market. Additionally, teams are often diverse in age, race, gender, and in other areas. Teams that creatively utilize the contrasting perspectives and ideas arising from these differences can positively affect team performance and generate solutions effective for a broader range of users. These trends suggest that engineering education can benefit from having engineering students work on team projects that involve a blend of cross-disciplinary and mixed-aged collaborations. An NSF-funded project set out to explore this idea by partnering undergraduate engineering students enrolled in a 300-level electromechanical systems course with preservice teachers enrolled in a 400-level educational technology course to plan and deliver robotics lessons to fifth graders at a local school. Working in small teams, students designed, built, and coded bio-inspired robots. The collaborative activities included: (1) training with Hummingbird Bit hardware (Birdbrain Technologies, Pittsburgh, PA) (e.g. sensors, servo motors) and coding platform, (2) preparing robotics lessons for fifth graders that explained the engineering design process, and (3) guiding the fifth graders in the design of their robots. Additionally, each engineering student designed a robot following the theme developed with their education student and fifth-grade partners. 

Preservice teachers (PSTs) in an educational foundations course were tasked with leading elementary students in an engineering design challenge. To explore different approaches for helping the PSTs develop competence in engineering education, two implementation methods were tested. In Spring 2022, PSTs collaborated with undergraduate engineering students to develop carnival-themed design challenge lessons. In Fall 2022, PSTs worked with their PST classmates to teach a professionally prepared engineering lesson focused on designing plastic filters. PSTs’ knowledge of engineering and engineering pedagogy were compared across the two semesters using an exploratory approach. Both groups showed increases in engineering knowledge and engineering pedagogical knowledge. Item-level differences suggest unique benefits to each approach providing insight for teacher educators designing interventions to prepare PSTs to integrate engineering into elementary education. 

There is growing evidence of the effectiveness of project-based learning (PBL) in preparing students to solve complex problems. In PBL implementations in engineering, students are treated as professional engineers facing projects centered around real-world problems, including the complexity and uncertainty that influence such problems. Not only does this help students to analyze and solve an authentic real-world task, promoting critical thinking, but also students learn from each other, learning valuable communication and teamwork skills. Faculty play an important part by assuming non-conventional roles (e.g., client, senior professional engineer, consultant) to help students throughout this instructional and learning approach. Typically in PBLs, students work on projects over extended periods of time that culminate in realistic products or presentations. In order to be successful, students need to learn how to frame a problem, identify stakeholders and their requirements, design and select concepts, test them, and so on. Two different implementations of PBL projects in a fluid mechanics course are presented in this paper. This required, junior-level course has been taught since 2014 by the same instructor. The first PBL project presented is a complete design of pumped pipeline systems for a hypothetical plant. In the second project, engineering students partnered with pre-service teachers to design and teach an elementary school lesson on fluid mechanics concepts. With the PBL implementations, it is expected that students: 1) engage in a deeper learning process where concepts can be reemphasized, and students can realize applicability; 2) develop and practice teamwork skills; 3) learn and practice how to communicate effectively to peers and to those from other fields; and 4) increase their confidence working on open-ended situations and problems. The goal of this paper is to present the experiences of the authors with both PBL implementations. It explains how the projects were scaffolded through the entire semester, including how the sequence of course content was modified, how team dynamics were monitored, the faculty roles, and the end products and presentations. Students' experiences are also presented. To evaluate and compare students’ learning and satisfaction with the team experience between the two PBL implementations, a shortened version of the NCEES FE exam and the Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness (CATME) survey were utilized. Students completed the FE exam during the first week and then again during the last week of the semester in order to assess students’ growth in fluid mechanics knowledge. The CATME survey was completed mid-semester to help faculty identify and address problems within team dynamics, and at the end of the semester to evaluate individual students’ teamwork performance. The results showed that no major differences were observed in terms of the learned fluid mechanics content, however, the data showed interesting preliminary observations regarding teamwork satisfaction. Through reflective assignments (e.g., short answer reflections, focus groups), student perceptions of the PBL implementations are discussed in the paper. Finally, some of the challenges and lessons learned from implementing both projects multiple times, as well as access to some of the PBL course materials and assignments will be provided. 

Two different implementations of PBL projects in a fluid mechanics course are presented in this paper. This required junior-level course has been taught since 2014 by the same instructor. The first PBL project presented is a complete design of pumped pipeline systems for a hypothetical plant. In the second project, engineering students partnered with pre-service teachers to design and teach an elementary school lesson on fluid mechanics concepts. The goal of this paper is to present the experiences of the authors with both PBL implementations. It explains how the projects were scaffolded through the entire semester, including how the sequence of course content was modified, how team dynamics were monitored, the faculty roles, and the end products and presentations. To evaluate and compare students’ learning and satisfaction with the team experience between the two PBL implementations, a shortened version of the NCEES FE exam and the Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness (CATME) survey were utilized. Students completed the FE exam during the first week and then again during the last week of the semester to assess students’ growth in fluid mechanics knowledge. The CATME survey was completed mid-semester to help faculty identify and address problems within team dynamics, and at the end of the semester to evaluate individual students’ teamwork performance. The results showed that the type of PBL approach used in the course did not have an impact on fluid mechanics content knowledge; however, the data suggests that the cross-disciplinary PBL model led to higher levels of teamwork satisfaction. Through reflective assignments, student perceptions of the PBL implementations are discussed in the paper. Finally, some of the PBL course materials and assignments are provided. 

This project was designed to address three major challenges faced by undergraduate engineering students (UES) and pre-service teachers (PSTs): 1) retention for UESs after the first year, and continued engagement when they reach more difficult concepts, 2) to prepare PSTs to teach engineering, which is a requirement in the Next Generation Science Standards as well as many state level standards of learning, and 3) to prepare both groups of students to communicate and collaborate in a multi-disciplinary context, which is a necessary skill in their future places of work. This project was implemented in three pairs of classes: 1) an introductory mechanical engineering class, fulfilling a general education requirement for information literacy and a foundations class in education, 2) fluid mechanics in mechanical engineering technology and a science methods class in education, and 3) mechanical engineering courses requiring programming (e.g., computational methods and robotics) with an educational technology class. All collaborations taught elementary level students (4th or 5th grade). For collaborations 1 and 2, the elementary students came to campus for a field trip where they toured engineering labs and participated in a one hour lesson taught by both the UESs and PSTs. In collaboration 3, the UESs and PSTs worked with the upper-elementary students in their school during an after school club. In collaborations 1 and 2, students were assigned to teams and worked remotely on some parts of the project. A collaboration tool, built in Google Sites and Google Drive, was used to facilitate the project completion. The collaboration tool includes a team repository for all the project documents and templates. Students in collaboration 3 worked together directly during class time on smaller assignments. In all three collaborations lesson plans were implemented using the BSCS 5E instructional model, which was aligned to the engineering design process. Instruments were developed to assess knowledge in collaborations 1 (engineering design process) and 3 (computational thinking), while in collaboration 2, knowledge was assessed with questions from the fundamentals of engineering exam and a science content assessment. Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness (CATME) was also used in all 3 collaborations to assess teamwork across the collaborations. Finally, each student wrote a reflection on their experiences, which was used to qualitatively assess the project impact. The results from the first full semester of implementation have led us to improvements in the implementation and instrument refinement for year 2.