Interconnected Learning In Construction Management Technology

Construction is an integrative process and thus construction industry needs professionals who are capable of integrating knowledge from various areas. The construction educators must cultivate students' ability to bridge boundaries among courses taken from different disciplines. The Long Island Consortium for Interconnected Learning was a multi-year, multi-faceted initiative funded by the National Science Foundation (DUE9555401) to enhance instruction and learning in mathematically based disciplines. Interconnected learning in construction management was part of this initiative. The paper will focus on the construction management department's effort of this multidimensional project. It will detail how the department’s faculty members organized and interacted among themselves as well as with faculty members from the other departments. Some of the specific activities that would be discussed in the paper are: restructuring of a surveying course to link it to mathematics courses, restructuring of a departmental computer programming and application course to make it relevant to other courses, restructuring of a statics course to link it to physics and mathematics courses, establishing peer tutoring and peer support groups for these courses, establishing active and cooperative learning environment, establishing critical thinking environment, establishing continuous group and self assessment environment.