Bringing Theory and Practice Together in Engineering Classrooms: A Research Project to Develop Cost-Effective Instructional Material

美国工业界越来越强调，一个成功的工程师除了拥有强大的技术能力外，还必须了解深刻影响工程决策的非技术力量。目前的工程教学方法并没有充分培养学生的这些能力和理解。这个多学科项目就是为了解决这个问题而提出的。该项目的目标是开发和测试二年级课程的教学材料，将理论和实践结合在一起，在工程课堂上培养学生更高水平的认知技能，并具有成本效益。对一个试点项目的教学方法和结果的审查表明，案例研究教学方法最适合实现这些目标。在这个项目的第一年，将与工业界合作开发六个工程案例研究以及背景能力材料、教员手册、WWW网站和视频。在第二年，教学材料将在奥本大学进行三个季度的测试。这些材料的可重复使用性将在阿拉巴马农工大学（Alabama A&amp；M）这所少数族裔院校进行测试。使用这种教学方法的有效性将通过基于结果的模型以及实验和比较组研究设计来评估。在整个过程中，来自学生和教师的定量和定性数据将用于对材料和方法的持续形成性评估。与项目目标相关的结果度量将在总结性评估中进行分析。该项目的传播方面将包括出版教学材料、更新万维网网站和在学术和实务期刊上发表论文。该项目以主动学习方法为基础，有可能使工程教育发生革命性的变化，从而满足行业将理论和实践带入课堂的需求。

American industries are increasingly emphasizing that a successful engineer must, in addition to possessing strong technical capabilities, understand the non-technical forces that profoundly affect engineering decisions. The current engineering teaching methodologies do not adequately develop these capabilities and understandings of the students. This multi-disciplinary project is being proposed to address this problem. The goals of this project are to develop and test instructional material for a sophomore course that will bring theory and practice together in engineering classrooms, develop the higher-level cognitive skills of the students, and be cost effective. A review of instructional methodologies and results from a pilot project showed that the case study method of instruction is the most suitable for achieving these goals. During the first year of this project, six engineering case studies along with background competency materials, instructor's manuals, WWW sites, and videos will be developed in partnership with industries. During the second year, the instructional materials will be tested at Auburn University during three quarters. The reusability of the material will be tested by running this course at Alabama A&M, a minority institution. The effectiveness of using this instructional methodology will be evaluated by an outcomes-based model and also with an experimental and comparison group research design. Throughout, quantitative and qualitative data from the students and faculty will be used in the ongoing formative evaluation of the materials and methods. Outcome measures related to project goals will be analyzed in the summative evaluation. The dissemination aspect of this project will involve publishing the instructional materials, updating the WWW site, and publishing papers in academic and practitioner journals. This project, built around active learning methods, has the potential to make a revolutionary change in engineering education, thereby fulfilling the demand s of industry to bring theory and practice into classrooms.