A Project Based Active And Cooperative Learning Approach To Improving Manufacturing Engineering Education

This paper describes a project-based active and cooperative learning (PB-ACL) approach that was developed to simultaneously address four industry-identified competency gaps that need to be closed between industry’s manufacturing workforce needs and current educational programs. The four competency gaps include 1) a specific manufacturing process, 2) business knowledge, 3) oral and written communication, and 4) teamwork. In the PB-ACL approach, students form various project teams with three or four students on each team. Each student is assigned different responsibilities. Each team works on a semester-long manufacturing project that includes three well-integrated tasks. A representative example of student projects is given to show how the PB-ACL approach works. A Likert-type and open-ended questionnaire was developed to assess student learning outcomes. Assessment results showed that more than 80% of the surveyed students gained positive experiences from the PB-ACL approach.