14–15 May 2001
University of Wisconsin Madison

Summary

The first miniconference on Freshman Year Innovations was held at the University of Wisconsin Madison on 14–15 May 2001.  The goal of the conference was to bring together faculty who have been involved with freshman engineering courses and to provide a forum for in-depth discussions.  The focus was on the freshman year because that year is critical in terms of student perceptions about what engineering is all about and student motivation to continue on in engineering.

There were five attendees from the University of Michigan, four from Purdue University, two from Smith College, ten from the University of Wisconsin, and four from other Foundation Coalition schools. 

Each of the schools was asked to prepare a brief presentation on the main freshman year issue that they would like to address during this conference.  This issue should be an aspect of the freshman year that the school would like to work on over the next six months in collaboration with this group.  The issues presented by the four schools were the following:

University of Michigan
The freshman engineering course was the focus.  The general concern was

• Providing technical content across disciplines
• Integration of technical material with communication
• How to get outside faculty to appreciate the value of the course

Specific aspects of teaching this large course (approximately 600 students each semester) were not enough student/faculty interaction, the need for extra support for students, the learning curve for faculty, and the "right" type of project.

Purdue University
Purdue had a list of what they are doing well:

• Dedicated faculty (in the Freshman Engineering Department)
• Emphasis on active/collaborative learning (ACL)
• Motivating the need for computer tools with engineering topics
• Small class sections that are faculty led
• Classes for special students

Purdue also saw a number of challenges:

• Providing sufficient staff, space, and technology resources
• Buy-in from service departments to adopt educational pedagogy changes
• A common course to meet diverse needs
• Integration/coordination of interdisciplinary topics
• More "engineering" in the first year—what does that mean?
• Technical team issues
• Developing a work ethic among students

Smith College

The overall issues for engineering at Smith are

• Integration of engineering and liberal arts
• The balance between rigor and breadth in the engineering curriculum

Smith chose to focus on their introduction to engineering course, which has numerous facets, including a design project, field trips, and exposure to engineering practice.

University of Wisconsin

The focus was on the "learning communities" set up in the LINKS program.

• Should they be oriented to provide content links between courses?
• Should they be oriented to help students survive by making friends, forming study groups, learning the expectations for university courses, learning how to study, etc.?

Action Plans

These issues were discussed in small groups, in large sessions, and individually throughout the conference.  At the end of the conference, each of the schools prepared an action plan for them to work on over the next semester.  The action plans developed by the schools are as follows:

University of Michigan

1. Refine their educational objectives through a faculty peer audit
2. Build social interactions across sections
3. Develop a database of success stories, both faculty and students
4. Develop a library of learning strategies
5. Conduct an external review of the introduction to engineering course by industry, other departments, and explore how to increase staff satisfaction

Purdue University

1. Have a retreat to look at creating a better freshman year experience.
2. Develop an effective TA training program.
3. Develop a three-day workshop for faculty teaching the sophomore-level courses that covers what the freshman year is all about and ACL workshop.
4. Refine the course syllabus to include looking at the course objectives for other freshman courses (106, 116) and telling students what they have accomplished.
5. Develop more teaming tools.

Smith College

1. Form a curricular advisory board focused on teaching and learning in engineering
2. Meet with administration to work on the scholarship of teaching
3. Conduct a major overhaul of the Introduction to Engineering course

   Identify faculty who can capitalize on Smith's strengths in liberal arts

   Reexamine the course objectives and map them to activities

   Provide adequate opportunities to achieve objectives

   4.  Establish a dialogue in engineering on learner-centered approaches to education

University of Wisconsin

1. Initiate interchanges with other institutions
2. Raise awareness of LINKS among College of Engineering faculty
3. Plan in detail how to train the Engineering Fellows and what they will do
4. Address special issues such as registration barriers
5. Make LINKS an unavoidable technology—create a demand for LINKS among faculty and students based on its value

Next Steps

The ideas of follow-up via a conference next semester, visits or exchanges among faculty, telephone conference calls, etc., were discussed.  There was an enthusiastic response to the idea that we meet again.  Smith College is very interested in continuing the interaction next semester.  The participants were eager to keep talking but hesitant about committing specific faculty to a specific date or time or topic.  There were many comments that the meeting had been valuable and similar meetings could be valuable in the future, especially with a well-thought-out format and list of attendees.

The University of Wisconsin Focused Dissemination Team (UWFDT) will work on plans to continue involvement with other schools.  Ideas that have already been floated are

1. Have a miniconference with new schools (e.g., Pennsylvania State, Illinois, Minnesota) in the fall
2. Interact with Smith on their curricula committee
3. Conduct a conference call in fall with the three schools to see what they desire
4. Plan a miniconference of a lot of schools next spring
5. Start up a group of schools in the SECC

Attendees

University of Michigan
Gary Herrin, Assistant Dean
Jason Daida, Professor, Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Sciences
Patrick Hammett, Professor, Industrial and Operations Engineering
Leslie Olsen, Professor, Technical Communications
Susan Montgomery, Professor, Chemical Engineering

Purdue University
P. K. Imbrie, Professor, Freshman Engineering
Bill Oakes, Professor, Freshman Engineering
Heidi Diefes-Dux, Professor, Freshman Engineering
Robert Montgomery, Professor, Freshman Engineering

Smith College
Borjana Mikic, Professor, Engineering
Susan Voss, Professor, Engineering

University of Wisconsin
Mike Corradini, Associate Dean
Pat Farrell, Incoming Associate Dean
Sarah Pfatteicher, Assistant Dean
Jennifer Kushner, Associate Director, WEEL
Sandy Courter, Professor, EPD
Alice Pawley, LINKS Coordinator
Jay Martin, Professor, Mechanical Engineering
John Mitchell, Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Don Woolston, Assistant Dean
Teresa Adams, Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Foundation Coalition
Jeff Froyd, Project Director, Texas A&M University
David Cordes, Professor, Computer Sciences, University of Alabama
Russ Pimmel, Professor, Electrical Engineering, University of Alabama
Ron Roedel, Professor, Mathematics, Arizona State University

For further information, contact
Jeff Froyd, Project Director
Foundation Coalition
Phone: 979.845.7574
E-mail: froyd@tamu.edu