No Lab? No Shop? No Problem: Intentional Design of a First-year Engineering Learning Center with Enlightening Outcomes

In Fall 2013, the First Year Engineering Program at Northeastern University opened a new 1600 ft Learning Center that was designed to provide first-year engineering students with: (1) a collaborative teaching and learning space that fosters communication, teamwork, applied active learning and self-directed learning, (2) a dedicated workshop setting with accessible hand tools to facilitate their hands-on design projects, (3) a central office and meeting location in which to engage with their first-year instructors for office hours, extra help and advising, and (4) an academic resource and community center including a bank of computers and 3D printers to support their first-year engineering courses. In order to track students’ activities in the new Engineering Learning Center and their perceptions of the Center’s effectiveness with respect to their engineering coursework, qualitative and quantitative data regarding the Center’s first academic year of operation were collected from students who were currently enrolled in at least one first-year engineering course. These measures included online surveys, observations by faculty, and recorded headcount data of students using the Center. Results indicate that over 80% of the responding students who visited the Learning Center at least once during the Fall 2013, Spring 2014, or Fall 2014 semesters believed that the Center and its resources were “important” or “essential” to their academic success in their first-year engineering course(s). In addition, the majority of students’ activities in the Learning Center that supported their engineering coursework included working on team design projects, using the network computers, attending a special first-year class, using the 3D printers, using hand tools to build a project, using the space to meet with classmates, and getting help from teaching assistants and faculty members. Qualitative analyses revealed that students generally valued the resources in the Learning Center but remarked –not surprisingly– that the Center’s actual operational space, which is only 700 ft of the total 1600 ft, was too small to handle the high usage demand during certain weeks of the semester when various design projects were due across multiple course sections. One of the primary outcomes of this initiative was learning that the faculty and their educational objectives were generally aligned with the students’ impressions and needs. At the same time, there were some areas of opportunity where this alignment could be improved and challenges could be pre-empted by defining the space to the students with clarity and intention. The lessons learned from this initiative indicate that our college’s Learning Center is being used as intended, and while it is small for the given population of over 700 first-year students, the original design elements and planning efforts have paid off. The research demonstrates that even with limited resources and space, one can create a centralized area designed to help students succeed in their first year of engineering. The purpose of this paper is to guide others who might be thinking about developing a first-year engineering learning center or questioning the value of creating a seemingly too-small space for their students due to limited resources. The paper will outline adjustments made and lessons learned that can be incorporated into the planning process of other educators and administrators who may be looking to provide a modest “makerspace” and hospitable centralized community area for undergraduate engineering programs and perhaps even for a high school, museum, or informal engineering education program. P ge 26189.2