A Team Oriented, Case Based Approach For A Transportation Engineering Course

Teamwork and the ability to work with contemporary and emerging technologies that facilitate collaboration are critical to the engineering profession today. Team oriented, casebased methods can be effective tools for learning. The use of well designed collaborative activities can be effective for enhancing student learning. This paper summarizes both the efforts and results in developing a team oriented, case-based approach for a junior level introductory course in Transportation Engineering. The intent of this approach is to support student acquisition of knowledge and a context sensitive use of the skills necessary for success in the profession. The approach used is based on the following beliefs: 1. Realistic learning activities presented as cases promote learning. 2. Collaboration is vital for learning and for success in the profession. The paper includes examples of the strategies used to facilitate learning, instruments used to assess the effectiveness of the approach, and results from the experiences. In summary, some students are reluctant to participate in “team” efforts. They indicate that they enjoy the casebased approach. In general, the team oriented, cased-based approach helps students make the connection from acquiring / processing information to developing knowledge and applying the same. Introduction A junior level introductory Transportation Engineering course is typical in the core undergraduate curriculum in Civil Engineering. CEG 362: Transportation Engineering is a required 3-credit course in the undergraduate curriculum in Civil Engineering at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Such a course would include topics in the life cycle of a transportation project (policy, planning, design, construction, operations, maintenance and rehabilitation) in the context of several modes (highway, transit, air, rail, water, etc.). Course objectives include linking concepts learned in this course to those from other courses and vice-versa, i.e., integration across the curriculum. In this process, students “learn” the interactions and tradeoffs between policy (technology considerations, financing issues, social and environmental