2018 Best Zone III Paper: Using the SCALE-UP Method to Create an Engaging First Year Engineering Course (Extended Abstract)

To meet the growing demands for professional engineers, much emphasis has been placed on recruiting and retaining increasing numbers of engineering students. In response, the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) performed a study and identified that students were ill-equipped to deal with the rigors of the engineering curriculum, particularly in the areas of problem solving, professional writing, and computer programming. Therefore, to address these areas, UTA has recently created a new first year engineering course that uses the Student-Centered Active Learning Environment with Upside-down Pedagogies (SCALE-UP) method. This presentation will include an overview of not only student performance broken down by several student groups but also early surveys showing student perception of the effectiveness of this method. The results will show that these pedagogies are effective in aiding students to learn the principles of engineering. In addition, student surveys will show that students respond favorably to the teaching strategies and learning environment implemented in the course.