Engaging Engineering Students In Learning A College Wide First Year Seminar Program

This paper describes the inception, design and implementation of a First-Year Seminar Program in the College of Engineering at Penn State. Emanating from coincidental activities of a collegebased colloquy and working group on the engineering curriculum, and a re-evaluation of the general education program by the University Faculty Senate, the new first-year seminars were piloted in the College in 1998-99 and became a requirement for all students entering the University, effective summer 1999. The overall objective was to foster an understanding and appreciation for the importance of general education within the context of students’ undergraduate experience; and specifically to engage students more quickly in the scholarly community and facilitate their adjustment to the high expectations and challenges of college life. Other than stipulating that the seminars should be offered in small classes (20 students or less), and led by faculty with at least several years of teaching experience, the format and approach were left very flexible. Each of the University’s colleges was free to develop a seminar program that would be attractive to, and effective for, both its students and faculty. In the College of Engineering, the seminar program was configured as a mix of offerings tuned to the differing needs of the 1000 incoming first-year students, as well as to stimulate interest among the faculty to teach them. The resultant array of more than 50 distinct courses ranges from those that allow exploration of a variety of majors and careers, sections that emphasize particular disciplines, offerings that help students develop key academic skills or that provide hands-on and laboratory experiences, and seminars that are developed around a special interest of a faculty member or a professional or technical theme. An attractive funding mechanism was developed to help motivate faculty participation and address the department workloads. Overall coordination is provided at the College level, along with help on course development and assessment. Early evidence suggests the program is successful: a pilot program has been scaled up to include all new first-year students, and the model adopted for the program appears to work in the environment of a large, research university. This paper describes the “why and how to” -detailing the origins, structure and operation of the program. A companion paper attempts to answer the question of “how well we did” -as gleaned from the early results of assessment activities and instruments. These include input from students on their satisfaction with the seminars, compilation of what activities are actually taking place in the seminars, attempts to measure educational outcomes, and feedback from faculty members on their experiences with the program. I. Origins of the First-Year Seminar Program The impetus for the Engineering First-Year Seminar Program came from the establishment of a new, university-wide general education requirement. In early 1996, a Special Committee on General Education was charged by the University Faculty Senate to assess and make P ge 620.1 Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright 2001, American Society for Engineering Education recommendations for changes to the general education curriculum. At the time, the General Education program at Penn State had been in place in roughly the same form for over 10 years. Several attempts had been made recently to update and upgrade the curriculum to make it more meaningful and relevant to students, but these efforts failed to achieve the endorsement of the Senate. The Committee worked for eighteen months: doing research into best practices, evaluating course enrollment trends, obtaining input and considering alternative strategies before bringing back a proposal to the Senate membership. The broad consultation with students, faculty, student services and academic support personnel, alumni and employers of Penn State graduates was a key component of the process and, ultimately, to the success of the initiative. What emerged from these many conversations is that the content, while important, is not the most significant factor in ensuring a vital and successful general education experience. Exposure to skills courses in communications and quantification and to knowledge domains such as the arts, humanities and social and behavioral sciences is crucial for all students. However, just as important to what they learn, is how they learn. The Committee concluded that: “Good general education is associated with a culture that values high expectations, recognizes diverse talents and learning styles and emphasizes early engagement. Good general education promotes coherence and wholeness, interdisciplinarity and continuity, integration and synthesis (of instruction, practice and experience). It encourages active learning and collaboration and commitment to inquiry beyond the curriculum. Finally, good general education builds dynamic assessment and improvement into curricular processes.” The recommendations that were eventually adopted unanimously by the Faculty Senate emphasized, above all, the active engagement of students in their education. A variety of measures were taken to foster curricular experimentation, encourage dialogue and critical thinking, and incorporate collaboration and teamwork into the courses that comprise the general education program. In order to establish this kind of expectation right from the start for incoming students, a new first-year seminar requirement was established. Rather than prescribe the content and format for the seminars, however, the Committee advocated that the faculty in the individual colleges should have broad authority and flexibility in the design and delivery of the seminars. This decision did not come without pressures to do otherwise. The Committee received many suggestions for required content, from typing to software training, library to Internet literacy, time management and study skills to personal finances. Student leaders and student activities staff advocated mandatory alcohol awareness training and guidance on other aspects of responsible social behavior. The Committee concluded, however, that if the program was going to be successful, faculty buy-in would be critically necessary to make seminars available to the over 12,000 first-year students entering the University’s colleges and campuses each year. Further, the Committee felt that the objective of immersing entry-level students quickly and deliberately in a small, discussion-centered setting (in contrast to the larger “survey” courses they often take in the first year) could be accomplished through a variety of formats. The only boundary conditions that were therefore specified for the seminars were that they be offered in class sizes not exceeding twenty students, should be taught by “regular” full-time faculty and must be portable (in other words, would count towards the seminar requirement regardless of the college in which they were taken). Otherwise, the stated objective was simply to foster in students “an understanding of the importance of general education within the larger context of their undergraduate experience;” to facilitate their adjustment to the high P ge 620.2 Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright 2001, American Society for Engineering Education expectations, demanding workload, (and) increased academic liberties that accompany the transition to college life; to engage them in the scholarly community and help provide a bridge to other academic and co-curricular experiences. Secondary goals included familiarizing students with university resources, learning tools and fields of study and enhancing their contact with the full-time faculty. II. The Engineering First-Year Seminar Initiative The University-level initiative coincided serendipitously with the conclusion of a College-based task group that we needed to give new students more and better information with which to make an informed choice of major and to enhance their contact with the engineering faculty . An elective course for first-year students providing an overview of the College’s various majors – delivered in part by invited alumni speakers and industrial representatives --had been offered for a number of years, and the class enrollment had grown to 150 each semester. Studies at that time showed that almost 40% of incoming students had no clear preference for major, and that a third of those indicating a preference coming into the University changed their minds by the end of the first year. 25% modified their choice of intended major between the end of their first year and the spring semester of their sophomore year. Further, it was clear that some disciplines functioned as “discovery majors,” attracting little attention among prospective or newly arriving students, but eventually enrolling significant numbers of students by the beginning of the junior year. Finally, surveys indicated that many lower-division students do not get to know any faculty members well enough to ask them for academic or career advice or to write a recommendation, in part because they are intimidated by the prospect of visiting faculty offices. Yet, both students and faculty frequently voiced their interest in, and the importance of, establishing these kinds of relationships, as distinct from the “procedural” advising that is effectively conducted in an advising center. The University requirement was viewed as a way to formalize the, up to that point, voluntary seminar, and to expand on it to meet the diverse needs and interests of new engineering students. The challenge associated with designing and implementing an effective seminar program was clear. Foremost among these was how to deliver seminars to about 1000 first-year engineering students who b