An Active Learning Environment to Improve First-Year Mechanical Engineering Retention Rates and Software Skills

This work proposes a foundational change from traditional lecture to an active learning environment in the Colorado State University First-Year Introduction to Mechanical Engineering course of 145 students. The goal of this approach is to improve computational capabilities in Mechanical Engineering and long-term retention rates with a single broad emphasis. Major and minor changes were implemented in the course, from specific day to day in-class activities to the addition of laboratory sessions to replace traditional classroom lecture. These laboratories of no more than fifteen students were delivered by Learning Assistants, which were upper-level undergraduate peer educators. To evaluate proficiency, a MATLAB post-test was delivered to students who were instructed through lecture only (“Lecture”) and those who were instructed with the above changes (“Active”). A survey was also provided upon completion of the course to the Active group for student reflection on their perceived software capability and the usefulness of approaches. Post-test results suggest that the Active group was more proficient in MATLAB than the Lecture group. Survey results suggest that the Active group recognize they had not achieved expert use of the software but that they were likely to use it throughout their careers and that all approaches were useful, in particular the use of Learning Assistants. Future longterm retention statistics will shed light on the possible effectiveness of this approach, which are currently unavailable. Introduction Colorado State University has a total student enrollment in excess of 33,000. As a land grant university, the historic mission of the institution is to provide students with an education in practical fields such as agriculture and engineering. The College of Engineering has a growing student cohort, with an increase from ~450 first-year students Fall 2010 to ~600 students Fall 2015 [1]. However, persistence and graduation rates have remained fairly steady over the last fifteen years. The current six year persistence rate within the college is only ~45% and the six year graduation rate within the college is similar at ~43%. Many students do not remain within the college for even a full year, as the second fall persistence rate is only 70-75% [1]. These data show a significant portion of enrolled first-year engineering students do not remain within the program long enough to be exposed to foundational engineering content, which starts in the sophomore year with engineering specific courses. A current goal of the college is to improve these retention statistics. Additionally, many students do not develop the necessary software skills required to use computational tools such as MATLAB, which are integral to success in the curriculum. Students who do not develop these skills during introductory coursework must “catch up” in later courses, where the technical content is more challenging. We hypothesize this can lead to unpreparedness for challenging content or careers as an engineer and can negatively impact academic standing, leading to decreased retention. Thus, the goals of this work were to 1) improve retention rates for first-year engineering students, specifically mechanical engineering, and 2) improve computational and software skills of first-year students, specifically MATLAB and Microsoft Excel. MATLAB is a common computational package which can be used for a broad range of engineering problems throughout a curriculum [2]. However, learning Excel and MATLAB through lecture is challenging, as these tools are best understood through utilization, not observation [3]. MATLAB and other computational tools are often taught in classrooms with computational equipment, however this is can be a challenge with a large classroom [4]. Some have utilized computer based tutorials which students can complete on their own time [5], while others implemented a large scale deployment of personal computers equipped with MATLAB and other software [6]. Additionally, the use of peer-educators can be an effective approach to facilitating MATLAB development [7]. Thus, we have chosen to employ an approach which utilizes an active environment to learn MATLAB and other introductory content through the use of laboratory sessions and peer-educators, in this case the Learning Assistant model [8]. Similar to previous approaches, we have utilized classroom lectures, hands on in-class activities, and laboratory sessions [9]. The Introduction to Mechanical Engineering Course (MECH 103) was developed to provide students with an overview of the mechanical engineering discipline and as an introduction to the computational packages MATALB [10] and Microsoft Excel. The course consists of between 140 and 250 first-year students and was previously delivered using traditional lecture. While this approach was most efficient for a single instructor due to the enrollment size, this resulted in a static learning environment for a course which should excite students about mechanical engineering and provide foundational technical skills. The overall approach to this work was to thus create an active environment for students within the course, which had an enrollment of 145 students for the Fall 2016 semester. The rationale to this approach was that by providing students with hands-on experiences working with mechanical engineering problems and computational software, the understanding of course content will improve [11,12] whereby improving retention [13]. While some immediate test and survey data were acquired and are shown in this work, it is important to note that the true impact on retention is not currently recognizable and will require future analysis. In-Class Sessions Class sessions were varied throughout the semester and the week, as they typically included lectured course material, guest lectures or panels, and activities. The course met Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 9-9:50 AM in a large lecture hall with individual stadium seating. Friday lecture was often cancelled and this time was spent in weekly laboratory sessions instead, which are outlined in the next section. Monday class time was assigned to covering course content through lecture, teamwork activities, and in class problems. The content of the course included general introductory material such as teamwork, communication, and design, commonly used units and unit conversions, mathematical models and systems, and an introduction to Microsoft Excel and MATLAB. Active engagement in the class included a teamwork design problem, requiring students to break into groups of three. Due to the theater seating layout of the classroom, groups of four or more made successful teamwork and communication difficult. Each group of students were provided one piece of 8.5” x 11” blank printer paper, one paperclip, and two pieces of scotch tape. The design problem was simple: build the tallest free standing structure possible using only the given materials. This was an inexpensive and simple approach to teamwork design activity. In place of a lecture or even a discussion on how to use design techniques for a simple problem such as this, students were able to actively engage in this process despite the difficulties of class size and layout. While students typically have an excellent understanding of units such as a pound (lb), their physical understanding of units such as a Joule or Watt are less developed within the context of everyday life. To provide students with a meaningful representation of energy (Joule) and power (Watt), they were provided a common object – in this case a softball – and asked to calculate how high they would have to raise the object to exert one Joule of energy – in this case roughly a foot and a half. While simple and inexpensive, this activity provided students with useful knowledge they can apply without a calculator and helps them relate coursework to the real world. For example, if they can place a Joule into real-world context, they could then answer the question “Can I launch a rocket into space using a thousand Joules?”. Wednesday lecture sessions were commonly used for guest lecturers and panels. These class sessions included the College of Engineering Dean, faculty members and graduate students in mechanical engineering, industry panelists, entrepreneurs and small business owners, and an interactive teamwork theatre troupe. The goal of these sessions was to provide students with a broad overview of different disciplines within mechanical engineering and what skills are necessary to succeed in various professional roles. While emphasizing an active learning environment is inherently difficult with each and every guest, student engagement was addressed by delivering variability in all of the presentations and strongly encouraging students to ask questions. For example, the theater troupe was an interactive experience where students were able to act as a team member within a group that mocked to show a diverse team struggling with communication. This session involved humor, discussion, and lively responses from students in place of a traditional static lecture. Laboratory Sessions In place of Friday lecture, students were asked to attend laboratory sessions for one hour [14,3]. A total of eleven sessions were provided throughout the week to accommodate all schedules. Sessions included one instructor, 13-16 students, and were held in laboratories with individual workstations with Microsoft Excel and MATLAB software. Laboratory instructors included a Graduate Teaching Fellow and Undergraduate Learning Assistants (LAs). Laboratory sessions involved a short (<5 minutes) lecture briefly reviewing content from class before students began working on assigned problems. These problems implemented course content such as the use of Excel or MATLAB to analyze and display data through real-world applications. An example of utilizing MATLAB to simulate rolling a die is p