A first year course in integrative learning: a practical example of 'back ...

A first year course in integrative learning: a practical example of ‘back to the basics’ Otto Rompelman, Michiel J. Vellekoop Department of Electrical Engineering Delft University of Technology Delft Netherlands First year engineering students often face problems in understanding the mutual relations between the different courses as well as the relevance of courses and both the future study programme and the engineering practice. In this paper we describe a working group model which aims at solving this and a few other teaching problems in a learning by doing environment. KEYWORDS: GROUP WORK, FIRST YEAR, ENGINEERING SKILLS

INTRODUCTION; PROBLEM ANALYSIS Traditionally, the first year curricula in engineering consist of numerous and often mutually isolated courses. Students appear to have great difficulty in understanding the relation of the course contents and the field they have chosen when they started. This often leads to a lack of motivation. Furthermore, in the first year engineering students often are more trained in analysis rather than synthesis. Finally, typical engineering skills such as creativity, communication, team work etc. appear to be less emphasised as the ‘hard issues’ such as mathematics and physics. This problem is more or less illustrated in figure 1.

skills practice lab work

knowledge

engineering education

problems (missing elements) • integration • relation with profession • motivation

theory lectures execrcises

other competencies • creativity • communication • conceptual thinking • design ability

Fig. 1: Knowledge, skills and engineering competencies in engineering education

We have tried to solve this problem by introducing a ‘course’ in the format of small working groups, which run throughout the first year. The groups carry out small projects and a tutor with an advisory role supervises them. The structure will be discussed in more detail later. The pedagogic philosophy can be best described as the traditional Montessori-approach (though not explicitly applied): ‘teach me how to do it myself’. The key issues of the educational objectives are: • Learning to think in alternatives • Learning that in real life there are always more solutions to problem than just one • Learning to evaluate alternative solutions by first formulating criteria • Learning to think in terms of functions, rather than implementations • Learning to use knowledge and skills as a means rather than a goal • Learning to perceive technology in a context We will discuss a few activities (projects) and indicate which educational objectives are supposed to be met.

EXAMPLES OF PROJECTS First meeting with a group Usually, when a group first meets the members have to get to know each other. Remembering names and faces is hard and therefore people meeting in a group use nameplates. The tutor suggests that nameplates are convenient and proposes the students to produce them. He doesn’t supply materials and the students start to ‘improvise’. After a few minutes, every student has produced something. Now the tutor tells: ‘You just went through your first design engineering experience: in order to solve a problem you produced an artefact on the basis of a very roughly described commission. Now, tell me which is the best solution?’ Any answer has to be responded with: ‘why?’. This will lead to answers that can be transformed into criteria. Consequently, it can be elucidated, that • There are more solutions to the problem • All solutions help to solve the problem • We can define criteria to be met by the solution • The best solution is the one that best meets the criteria Introducing the oscilloscope (project in the second term) The oscilloscope is a rather complicated instrument characterised by a large amount of knobs and switches and students find it hard to learn to work with it. Usually, they are asked to study (a condensed version of) the manual. In practice, however, they switch on the instrument and start to play around with the knobs and switches. As an alternative, we let the students ‘virtually’ design an oscilloscope by asking: ‘what is the main function of an oscilloscope?’ Usually, the answer is something like ‘to visualise a voltage’. Now, by expanding on this we more or less design an oscilloscope using the whiteboard and by asking questions in terms of ‘what would you like to have in an instrument to visualise signals?’ In this way the tutor is able to interactively convert all the modalities in terms of functions. Displaying a signal, as a function of time requires two function pairs: ‘variable amplification’ followed by ‘conversion of a voltage into vertical deflection’ and a ‘generation of a periodical and linearly increasing voltage’ followed by ‘conversion of a voltage into horizontal deflection’. In this way even the complex trigger facilities can be ‘virtually’ designed. During the session the function block diagram of the oscilloscope is generated on the whiteboard. Consequently, an oscilloscope is

put on the table and the students can try and identify the controls of the different functions. The last step, obviously, is using the instrument for some practical exercises. The emphasis in this project is on learning to think in terms of functions. The CD-player The CD player is a very common ‘high tech’ consumer electronic product. During two sessions the students try to get familiar with the principles of the CD player. The sessions will be roughly descried. During the first meeting the tutor invites the students to formulate questions about the CD player on the basis of: ‘what I always wanted to know about the CD-player but never asked’. The tutor summarises the different questions on the white board. These questions may be: • How does the remote control work? • How is the information stored on the disk? • How does the pick up mechanism know where to sense the information? • How is the data transformed into sound? • Is the rotating speed of the disk constant or variable? In the next step the tutor invites the students to design a CD player by asking what functions are needed in a CD player. During a brainstorm session the students may come up with • A rotating system • A speed control system • A pick up device to sense the stored information • A system to transform the digital (?) data into sound • A system for inserting the disk • A system for finding the right track The tutor makes a draught function block diagram on the white board and tries by asking questions to refine this diagram further e.g. by splitting up functions in sub functions. Due to lack of knowledge at a certain stage this process has to stop. The result is a rather disorderly draught function block diagram of the CD player. The students are now invited to redraw this diagram into a clear diagram. Now the group tries to find the relation between the initial questions and the different functions as the are now identified. Now students are given the opportunity to disassemble a CD player. They are asked to identify components that are implementations of the just identified functions. Finally, they are invited to split up the diagram in three to four parts, such, that small subgroups will be able to study the respective parts in detail. The tutor can give an advice in order to arrive at about equal tasks for the subgroups. The sub groups are now formed and the subjects of study are allocated. Defining the different tasks concludes the session. These are: • Writing a small report on the session • Studying the allocated part • Preparing oral presentations on the subjects In the next session (one week later) the subgroups report on their findings. The tutor checks whether the initial questions have now been answered. Furthermore, he discusses with the group which of the courses and lab that they have followed up till now are related to the design of the different functions. They easily identify physics (optics) with the pick up device, digital circuitry with the decoding, electronics with the processing of the information from the pick up device. Interestingly, they initially do not see the relevance of linear algebra. The tutor can then (conceptually) illustrate the relation between linear algebra and the digital signal processing. The final task is now to compose a small report on the entire project. This report is used during the final and individual examination as discussed below.

In this project the learning in terms of functions is expanded. Furthermore, they see how technology and the engineering profession are related to the different subjects in their study. The paper cutter (last term project) The last term project is the design of a security device for a paper cutter. They visit the department’s section where lecture notes etc. are produced in order to see how a paper cutter works. Consequently, they are given the task to develop an ‘ad on’ to enhance the security of the paper cutter. Use must be made of a given set of electronic components and sensors. For the logic circuitry they have to design a state machine which consequently is programmed into a PAL (Programmable Array Logic). An already prepared box simulates the paper cutter with logic inputs for ‘blade moves down’, blade moves up’ and ‘blade holds’. The movement of the blade is visualised with an array of LED’s. The role of the tutor is mainly to support the process: the students take full responsibility of the project. The term is concluded with a session of one afternoon in which all students present their results. The format of the meeting is that all students of that year are present in a lecture hall. Each team has 8 minutes to both present and demonstrate their product. A team of three persons (teachers and director of studies) act as jury and awards three prizes for the best results, in which ‘best’ refers to originality, technical quality and quality of the presentation and demonstration. The meeting is concluded with an informal meeting in the departments social club. Apart from the other objectives, in this project the students learn to use knowledge and skills as a means rather than a goal. Furthermore, they experience technology in a context.

ORGANISATION The organisational setting is as follows. The students are divided into groups of 10. Usually, the grouping is based on a grouping as it was made during the university’s introductory programme, which means that often some students in the group already know each other. Each group has a tutor who is a member of the teaching staff. The groups meet 7 half days, or 4 hours, during seven weeks in each term. The academic year comprises 4 terms. Hence the groups spend more than 100 hours together. Apart from the group meetings they do preparatory work, either individually or in small subgroups. The course is valued 5.5 credit points out of the 42 credit points of the first year. One credit point equals 40 hours study load. Hence, about half of the study time reserved for the course is spent in the group meetings. During the year the number of projects become smaller which means that the projects become larger. The groups are stimulated to take their own responsibility. They appoint chairpersons and rapporteurs who produce minutes. The roles may be allocated to different group members. The role of the tutor is mainly to support the process in the group. Sometimes this is rather intensive such as during the first week of the ‘CD-player’ project. However, usually the tutor supports the starting up phases and then leaves the group to do the work they have mainly defined themselves. At the end of a session the tutor joins the group. After perusal of the results he may give an advice about how to proceed.

ASSESSMENT Each period is concluded with individual interviews of the students taken by the tutor. The interviews after the first and third term are mainly intended to give feed back on the overall

performance of the student. The interview after the second and last fourth (=last) term is (apart from giving feed back as in the other interviews) meant to be a real assessment of the results of the student. Questions can be asked about the technical contents of the projects as they have been carried out during that term. Since all members of the group take responsibility of the entire project, questions can be asked on issues that have been dealt with by other students of the team. After the assessment interviews the tutor either or not gives the credits to the student.

CONCLUSION The course has been running for three years now. It is still in a rather experimental phase. Students have indicated that they have now discovered that indeed the integration of the different areas of knowledge indeed leads to the creation of new products. They have also shown that they are now able to define a program of requirements for such a new product (design ability). Furthermore, they have learned to set up and keep to a planning for solving a problem. They seem to find it very satisfying to have discovered to be able to solve rather complex and sometimes vaguely defined problems by integrating both the competencies of all group members and the knowledge and skills acquired in other courses. We were lucky to have a team of enthusiastic teachers. At the end of each term there is an evaluative meeting, during which experiences are exchanged and suggestions for improvement are given. The appreciation of the students is increasing over the years.