Planning Grant to Establish the Center for Engineering Learning

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PROPOSAL NO.: 0230659PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Evans, EdwardINSTITUTION NAME: University of AkronTITLE: Planning Grant to Establish the Center for Engineering LearningAbstractThis planning grant presents a novel strategy for engaging teams comprised of facultyand students from engineering, education, and the sciences in structured collaborative learning ofengineering and engineering pedagogy. Through collaboration between faculties of engineering andeducation, team design projects that involve pre-service elementary education students and engineers atthe freshman through senior levels will be developed. Using planning grant funds, a working group willbe formed to develop and pilot-test the multi-disciplinary team design project.. In the long run, the CEL will participate in developing 1) high quality teachers prepared to include engineering in the K-12 curriculum, 2)engineering faculty applying pedagogy, assessment and learning theory to engineering curriculum, and 3)a body of scholarship on how students learn engineering at every developmental level.Our approach is that multi-disciplinary team design projects, when effectively mentoredby engineering and education faculty and practicing engineers, will increase students' engineeringcompetency and improve pedagogy in undergraduate engineering. The development of themultidisciplinary team design project will be driven by the input of in-service teachers and faculty fromthe College of Education. The engineering content of the design project will come from the expertise andresources of academic and industrial engineers. The administrators and industrial advisor on the workinggroup will address issues regarding institutional policy and industrial involvement, respectively.The starting point of our development will be the Vertically Integrated Team Design Projectconducted in the Department of Chemical Engineering. Engineering design will be learned by solving anauthentic engineering problem with a team of education students and engineers at all levels (students(freshman-senior), faculty, and industrial). Each team will be mentored by faculty members fromeducation and engineering, a practicing engineer, and a teacher. In this planning grant activity, four teamswill include pre-service elementary education teachers as active engineering members. Formativeassessment of the project will be discussed and disseminated by all stakeholders within the workinggroup. t our efforts will proceed at a rapid pace.