The University of Tennessee Engage Program

该项目是田纳西大学一年级工程学学习的一种成功且令人兴奋的新方法。这个国家科学基金会项目将a)资助过渡成本，将该计划从试点课程扩大到整个工程一年级班，b)在计划中增加教育强化和丰富计划，c)允许将这一过程扩展到本科课程的高年级，以及d)有效地将这些改革的过程传播到其他大学和专科学校支线计划。这一倡议是一种全面的方法，以入学新生的教育需求为基础，从个人发展和社会化到新的一年级课程，建立在NSF联盟过去八年所学到的教育经验的基础上。该计划建立了一个以教师为导师的协作学习环境，它整合了一年级的主题，教授通过应用程序解决问题，它还解决了工程学学生留住人数增加的问题，强调代表不足的群体。已经获得了教职员工的批准，工程学院正在实施这些变化。Engage计划是根据对所有院系教职员工的调查、学院顾问委员会的意见、指定的教职员工咨询委员会的意见以及在访问其他具有创新的第一年工程课程的机构时收集的信息而制定的。开发团队的主要任务是继续教授基本技能，同时找到解决问题的能力和设计方法的技术，以及其他软技能，如团队合作和沟通技能。由此产生的计划将五门基础工程课程(总共13学分)整合为两门团队授课的六小时课程。Engage计划的独特之处之一是工程新鲜村的概念。这个村庄将包括教室、计算机教室和一个计算机实验室、一个免费的动手实验室空间、一个团队设计项目工作区、一个单独的学习区域、教职员工办公室和学生助理办公室，所有这些都位于一栋建筑中。Engage已经成功地完成了一个有60名学生参加的试点项目，结果是压倒性的积极。

9972944ParsonsThe Engage program is a successful and exciting new approach to first year engineering studies at the University of Tennessee. This National Science Foundation project will a) fund transition costs to scale the program up from pilot courses to the total engineering freshman class, b) add educational enhancements and enrichment programs to the plan, c) allow the expansion of the process to the upper years of the undergraduate curriculum, and d) effectively disseminate the process of these reforms to other universities and junior college feeder programs.This initiative is a comprehensive approach to the educational needs of entering freshmen, from personal development and socialization to a new first year curriculum that builds on the educational lessons learned in the last eight years by the NSF Coalitions. The program establishes an environment of collaborative learning with faculty as mentors, it integrates the subject matter of the freshman year and teaches problem solving by application, and it also addresses the increased retention of engineering students with an emphasis on under-represented groups. Faculty approval has already been obtained and the College of Engineering is in the process of implementing these changes.The Engage program was developed with input from a survey of faculty in all departments, comments from the College Board of Advisors, comments from an appointed Faculty Advisory Committee, and information gathered during visits to other institutions with innovative first-year engineering programs. The development team's central thrust was to continue to teach essential skills while finding techniques to address problem solving ability and design methodology along with additional soft skills such as teamwork and communication skills. The resulting program integrates five Basic Engineering courses (with a total of 13 credit hours) into two team-taught six-hour courses. Among the unique aspects of the Engage program is the concept of the Engineering FreshmanVillage. The village will include classrooms, computer classrooms and a computer lab, a free-access hands-on lab space, a team design-project work area, a separate study area, faculty offices,and student-assistant offices, all housed in a single building. Engage has successfully completed a pilot program with 60 students and the results were overwhelmingly positive.