AC : ENGAGING FRESHMAN ENGINEERS USING THE PAUL- ELDER MODEL OF CRITICAL THINKING

Transcription

1 AC : ENGAGING FRESHMAN ENGINEERS USING THE PAUL- ELDER MODEL OF CRITICAL THINKING Dr. Angela Thompson P.E., University of Louisville Dr. Patricia A. Ralston, University of Louisville Dr. Jeffrey Lloyd Hieb, University of Louisville Jeffrey Hieb is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering Fundamentals at the University of Louisville. His research interests include the use of technology in engineering education, secure operating systems, and cyber-security for industrial control systems. c American Society for Engineering Education, 2012

2 Engaging Freshman Engineers Using the Paul-Elder Framework for Critical Thinking Abstract This paper presents an exercise, or series of exercises, developed by the authors for their Introduction to Engineering course. Two major course components are critical thinking and departmental presentations. The critical thinking framework includes eight elements of thought: purpose, question at issue, information, inferences, concepts, assumptions, implications, and point of view. There are seven different engineering disciplines taught at the school, each in their own department. Each department gives a class long presentation as part of the course. The developed assignment is given for each department presentation with the intention of reinforcing elements from the university s critical thinking framework and improving student engagement in departmental presentations. Student survey responses indicated that students found the assignment effective in meeting some of the course goals, such as improving their critical thinking skills. An analysis of selected students work on these assignments indicate that most students had some success in identifying salient purposes, concepts, and questions at issue for each engineering discipline for which there was a department presentation. It was also clear that point of view was an element with which students consistently struggled. Introduction The J.B. Speed School of Engineering is a medium-sized, urban, ABET-accredited institution in the southeast. Since 2006, entering freshman take an Introduction to Engineering course, a two credit hour course that meets the university s freshman experience requirement. The course also gives freshman engineers an introduction to the engineering profession, engineering design, different engineering disciplines, and critical thinking. In the fall of 2011, there were 450 students in 12 sections taught by an instruction team of four faculty and six graduate teaching assistants. Critical Thinking became an explicit part of the course in response to the University s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), and the introduction to engineering course is responsible for teaching students the critical thinking framework adopted by the university. Another significant component of the course is department presentations. One entire class meeting (2 hours) is devoted to each of the seven degree granting engineering departments at the school, for a total of seven class meetings out of a total of 28 meetings for the semester. When evaluating previous years, the instructional team identified two areas in need of improvement: engagement by students in the department presentations and reinforcement of the critical thinking framework. When the course was initially developed, department presentations were incorporated to introduce the department, its faculty, and research areas to freshman prior to the beginning of the fall advising schedule; with the emphasis on helping students confirm their choice of intended major. There were no assignments related to department presentations, and many students appeared to conclude that

3 presentations by departments other than those they were interested in were unimportant. Furthermore, to complete all department presentations before fall advising, the presentations took place on consecutive class meetings for three and one-half weeks, which exacerbated the lack of engagement. Presentation of the critical thinking framework has been improving each year. This course is one of the few places students receive explicit instruction on the critical thinking framework; however, familiarity with the framework and its use are implicitly a part of many other courses. To achieve familiarity with the framework, students need to explicitly and repeatedly use the framework over the course of the semester. This paper describes a critical thinking assignment intended to reinforce the critical thinking framework and increase students engagement in department presentations. Section two discusses the Paul-Elder framework and how it is used in critical thinking instruction in our Introduction to Engineering course. Section three gives a brief overview of department presentations in Introduction to Engineering courses. Section four describes the development of an assignment to reinforce critical thinking, in particular in terms of the Paul-Elder framework, and improve student engagement in departmental presentations. The results of a survey and faculty impressions are presented in section five with conclusions about the effectiveness of the exercise and its future use presented in section six. 1. Critical thinking instruction in Introduction to Engineering The university has adopted the Paul-Elder 1 framework for its critical thinking model. By adopting this framework, faculty throughout the university will use the same language (Paul-Elder is discipline neutral) and it is hoped students will better recognize the critical thinking aspects that are implicitly a part of most courses. The Paul-Elder framework is shown in figure 1. The framework includes standards, elements, and traits. The elements are the elements of thought; they can be used to decompose any critical thinking into its constituent components: what are the assumptions? The standards are used to evaluate the elements, Are the assumptions valid? Traits are used to describe the characteristics of a good critical thinker, and are the most subtle. Figure 1. The Paul-Elder Framework of critical thinking 1. Various instruction methods have proven effective in encouraging critical thinking in engineering students. In a review of the educational literature, Cooney et al. found two primary areas for best

4 practices in critical thinking education: writing for reflection and problem-based learning 2. Similarly, Romkey and Cheng highlighted interdisciplinary problems, open-ended problems and discussion, reflection, and active learning as effective techniques for critical thinking development 3. Despite the technique applied, several common themes emerge when researching effective development of critical thinking skills 2,3,4 : 1. Explicit instruction of critical thinking is important; assessment tools and frameworks can be used as a guide, 2. The instructor should model good critical thinking practice, 3. The instructor must provide ample opportunities for the students to practice critical thinking. In Introduction to Engineering, explicit critical thinking instruction uses the Paul-Elder framework and includes lecture presentations on the eight elements and the standards and reading assignments from Learning to Think Things Through by Gerald Nosich 5. Nosich elucidates the P-E Framework by clearly distinguishing between analysis and evaluation as it relates to critical thinking. The elements provide a way for any piece of reasoning to be analyzed or understood and the standards are filters or ways to evaluate the reasoning, to determine if the reasoning was done well. Figure 2 illustrates the process of reasoning using the Paul-Elder critical thinking framework. In Introduction to Engineering, differentiating between analysis and evaluation in terms of the elements and standards and the ability of the elements and standards to guide analysis and thinking is emphasized. Figure 2. The process of reasoning using the Paul-Elder critical thinking framework 5. The eight elements are best shown as eight equal sectors of a circle Figure 3. Analysis of reasoning is done by going around the circle in order to fully appreciate the impact of each element on the reasoning, understanding the elements both individually and collectively, or how they contribute to an integrated whole. The analysis portion of critical thinking answers How has the thinking been done? Once a piece of reasoning is understood or analyzed, it must be evaluated. In order to evaluate any piece of reasoning, one must go back around the circle, this time evaluating using the standards. Evaluation answers How well has the thinking been done? Nosich 5 provides an excellent and easily read exposition on both the process of analyzing and evaluating a piece of reasoning. (pp , ). Introduction to Engineering students were required to read the Nosich text as they completed two critical thinking assignments. In the first assignment, students were given an article to analyze by identifying the elements of reasoning. They were not required to write detailed or complete sentences,

5 but simply identify with phrases or short sentences each of the eight elements. After identifying the elements, which forces one to answer questions about the reasoning itself, it should be possible to understand the article as fully as possible. In the second assignment, students were to evaluate the same article by applying the standards to the elements to make judgments about the article s reasonableness. These two assignments provided the students with a solid foundation of the P-E framework, and critical thinking concepts in general. Figure 3. The eight elements of the Paul-Elder Framework of critical thinking Introducing Engineering Disciplines in Introduction to Engineering A primary goal of most Introduction to Engineering courses is to introduce students to the various engineering disciplines. To improve engagement, retention, and development of critical thinking, many engineering schools have looked at alternative methods to introduce the various engineering disciplines in Introduction to Engineering courses. Several schools have adopted project-based or laboratory-based approaches to incorporate active learning. For example, the University of Florida converted their lecture-based Introduction to Engineering course into a series of labs focusing on the various disciplines. They found that the active learning approach was preferable and saw significant increases in retention 6. Other schools have taken similar approaches by having students participate in both discipline-specific and multidisciplinary projects 7,8,9. At North Carolina State University, student teams were asked to conduct research about a particular discipline and give short (5-10 minute) presentations to the rest of the class 10. Additionally, students were required to attend at least two informational seminars put on by the various departments. Like Introduction to Engineering courses at many engineering schools, our course invites faculty representatives from each of the different departments to speak to the students about their discipline. Departments have retained autonomy in developing their presentations, so there is no pre-determined

6 format. To improve engagement, it was suggested that the time be broken up into segments with hands-on activities and time for students to interact in small groups with some of the department s students and faculty. Five of seven departments followed this recommendation, one presented using only a lecture format, and one conducted lab tours in place of a hands-on activity. In addition, this fall the presentations were spread throughout the 14 week semester, starting with week four and continuing roughly once a week for the next six weeks. This schedule appeared to work much better than in previous years and there were no ramifications with the fall advising schedule. Students who ended up needing another advising appointment due to changing majors were accommodated without incident. 3. An exercise for critical thinking reinforcement and department presentation engagement The faculty team created an Analyze the Discipline exercise based on Nosich s Logic of a discipline 5 exercise for each departmental presentation. The exercise requires students to analyze each departmental discipline, based largely on the department s presentation, by identifying the elements of thought as they relate to that discipline. The assignment is a one page list of prompts (built directly from the elements of thought), and is customized for each discipline. The prompts for Chemical Engineering are shown in Table 1. The students are given a hard copy of the assignment just before the presentation. The assignment requires students to identify and explain each of the eight elements of thought as applied to the particular discipline. It was intended that this would make students more engaged in presentations and appreciate their usefulness even if they did not plan to major in that discipline. Students were reminded that at many points in their career, they may be part of multi-disciplinary teams and should be informed about all the engineering disciplines regardless of their intended major. While similar to Nosich s exercise, the Analyze the Discipline exercise is simpler. Nosich develops the concept of the Logic of a Discipline in more detail and depth, emphasizing the need to find the inter-relationships and inter-dependence of the eight elements on one another within a discipline in order to see the synergies within a discipline and to truly understand the logic of a discipline that constitutes how those within that discipline reason. Students may not achieve this level of synthesis with the Analyze the Discipline exercises, but the exercises should serve to reinforce the elements of thought of the Paul-Elder framework and help students better understand the various engineering disciplines. Table 1. Sample list of prompts given to students for the Analyze the Discipline exercise. Analyze the Discipline: Chemical Engineering The main purpose of Chemical Engineering is: The main question at issue in chemical engineering is: Chemical Engineering takes place within the context of: The information Chemical Engineers use is: Some implications and consequences of Chemical Engineering are: The key assumptions Chemical Engineers make are: The point of view of Chemical Engineering is: The main concepts in Chemical Engineering include:

7 Departments were given the Analyze the Discipline exercise in advance and informed that students might ask questions related to the assignment. No rubric was made for grading this exercise, nor were examples of good responses provided to students or the department faculty. For the contribution to course grade, TAs scored these as participation points only; they were not graded thoroughly. 4. Results For this paper, samples from all twelve sections were reviewed randomly by the instructional facultyto get an overall understanding of the quality of student responses. Four of the eight elements of the Paul- Elder framework were analyzed in detail to gauge the effectiveness of the assignment. Purpose and implications/consequences of the discipline were examined to gauge the students general understanding and impressions of the disciplines. Assumptions and point of view were examined because the instructors felt these were the more difficult elements to grasp. Additionally, for 27 select students, assignments for each of the seven disciplines were reviewed closely. This was done to assess whether the students understanding of the critical thinking framework improved over repeated use of the elements. The teaching assistant (TA) for those sections selected some students in the following categories: 1.) consistent high achievers, 2.) consistent low achievers, and 3.) improvers. All seven assignments for these students were read by faculty and compared. Students were also given an IRB approved survey at the end of the semester with two specific questions about all the critical thinking exercises. Only 404 students took the survey since some students had dropped by this point and some did not participate since the survey was optional. Survey Results Two questions on an end-of-semester survey related to effectiveness of the critical thinking instruction and exercises. The results from the survey are shown in figures 4 and 5. Question 1: As a result of the critical thinking assignment and the analyze the discipline exercises for each department presentation, my critical thinking skills are: Figure 4. Survey responses to Question 1. Question 2: The goals of this course include improving students : a) use of tablet pcs; b) critical thinking and decision-making skills; c) team building/communication skills; d) understanding of diversity/harassment; e) knowledge about engineering professionalism/ethics; f) understanding of

8 engineering design and practice; g) knowledge of departments/engineering disciplines at SpeedSchool; h) ability to use the software tools Excel, Maple, Matlab. As you read through the following list of course activities, think about whether each activity was effective or not effective in achieving one or more the goals. Critical Thinking Presentations and Assignments Department Analyze the Discipline Exercises Figure 5. Survey responses to Question 2. Sixty-seven percent of student respondents thought their critical thinking skills were somewhat better, better, or significantly better. This result is in line with student answers for most of the classroom activities questioned on the survey. Roughly 70% of the students seemed to appreciate faculty attempts to achieve the goals of the course. The critical thinking presentations and assignments were found to be effective in achieving course goals by 59.1% of the students while 10.4% had no opinion. The Analyze the Discipline exercises were judged effective by 71.5% with 10.9% having no opinion. Again, these results were consistent with most of the responses for other presentations, assignments and outcomes. Responses about the effectiveness of the 16 class activities varied from 52% to 89% with the average 69%. Overview of Student Responses on Analyze the Discipline Exercises Table 2 shows a sample of student responses from three of the seven department presentations on the Analyze the Discipline assignment. In general, student responses to the questions of purpose and implications suggest that students had a sufficient understanding of the various engineering disciplines. In some cases, the student responses to purpose exhibited a simplistic or limited view of the discipline. For example, a majority of students described the purpose of civil engineering to build bridges and structures. This is likely a reflection of the presentation by the Civil Engineering Department which focused primarily on bridge failure and design. Student responses to implications/consequences were often focused on life or death issues. For example, many responses on the civil engineering assignment mentioned bridge failures leading to death. Responses on the bioengineering assignment frequently contrasted benefits to human health and life with the possibility for fatal mistakes. Even

9 some responses on the computer engineering assignment mentioned the possibility of death due to engineering errors. Assumptions and point of view seemed to be less understood by the majority of students. Many responses to the question of assumptions described assumptions people make about engineers in that particular discipline. For example, civil engineers wear hard hats or computer engineers work on computers all day. The most common responses for point of view described subspecialties of the discipline in question. Analysis of Selected Students Performance Faculty impressions of individual student results for all seven assignments are shown in Table 3. The categories are high achievers (HA), low achievers (LA), and improvers (I) as identified by the teaching assistants. Shown also is the course grade the students received. Department abbreviations are Bioengineering (BE), Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), Chemical Engineering (CHE), Computer Engineering and Computer Science (CECS), Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), Mechanical Engineering (ME), Industrial Engineering (IE). The comment column gives faculty impressions after studying the responses in the order they were completed by students. The TAs gave participation points for these assignments; they were not graded as a separate written assignment, which might account for some students not taking them as seriously as desired by faculty. 5. Discussion of Results The survey results appeared to confirm that students appreciate the activities that faculty are providing to meet the course goals. Responses concerning the critical thinking activities and Analyze the Discipline exercises received what amounted to average ratings from the class. After reviewing the work of the selected students (Tables 2 and 3), and referring back to both Nosich and exemplars of analysis of engineering disciplines provide by Paul et al. 1, these observations are made: 1. The elements point of view and assumptions are hard to grasp. It is clear that faculty need to discuss the elements more thoroughly during the lecture about the Paul-Elder framework. More interactive small group activities to reinforce this would be beneficial. Many student answers took the view of what do people assume ABOUT engineers, despite the assignment asking specifically for assumptions engineers make. One faculty presenter actually mentioned something like everyone assumes CEEs wear hard hats. Several students took that as the answer to what they were supposed to answer and then they kept that same context for the following assignments! Some of the presenters even seemed to struggle with exactly how to answer questions related to point of view. This remains a challenge as to how to work with faculty from other departments.

10 Table 2. Sample of student responses on analyze the discipline assignments. Discipline Civil and Environmental Engineering Purpose They design and build the nation s transportation, supply and energy systems and solve problems of today s society such as water supply, urban congestion, waste disposal, and conservation Build bridges, structures/infrastructure Implications Death from structural failures, damage to environment Fresh water to 3 rd world countries Create many structures that make our daily lives convenient Assumptions Point of View Assume drivers behave a certain way on the bridge They have to assume how much what they build will be used in the future Civil engineers only do bridges, It is just like architecture Structural, environmental, water resources, transportation Usefulness to the public, durability, aesthetics Many civil engineers are willing to give up a percentage of salary vs other disciplines for the opportunity to do work that has society benefits Bioengineering Develop health related products and techniques to improve quality of life Apply engineering to medicine and biology If something were to go wrong with a device or medicine the consequence could be fatal In the realm of ethics and human conscience, any process or product meant to repair biological processes in humans must be rigorously tested, because they can mean the difference between life and death of a patient New technology makes surgery safer with a shorter recovery time Design product that causes least harm. People want to heal as fast as possible Their main interest is helping/serving the patient Always be a way to make life better for patients Assume people typically follow the same health patterns Different fields (prosthetics, research, medical techniques, etc) Bioinformatics, bioinstrumentation, biomaterials, imaging, rehabilitation The human body is a complex system that we must strive to understand so that we may improve its systems Computer Engineering and Computer Science Focuses on programming languages, data and information representation, storage and processing, and algorithms and computability Design and develop hardware and software systems Because of CECS we are able to study/research bioinformatics, medical informatics, numerical analysis, computational chemistry, and simulation and modeling. Faster computers, better quality of life A consequence of CECS could be a broken/faulty code in the software that runs a chemotherapy machine that causes it to release too much radiation which could kill a person. A computer will compute flawlessly. Errors are usually user based. Modeling with a computer is more efficient than by hand They work on computers all day That a computer program can accurately represent a real-world event There are some problems a computer cannot solve Computer languages, how a computer/device interprets input, need to think in terms of a consumer/user to make the devices more appealing/affordable Every problem can be modeled Security, programmers, artificial intelligence, statistics, algorithms They look at things analytically. They also look at how to improve and progress technology

11 Table 3. Faculty impressions of student responses on Analyze the Discipline exercises. Course Student Category Faculty Impressions of the Analyze the Discipline Exercise Grade 1 HA A 2 HA A 3 HA A 4 HA A 5 HA A good - thoughtful throughout, more trouble with points of view and assumptions - but got better! missed the central questions, some improvement with points of view, missed assumptions throughout; clear that student was engaged and listened to presentation; had trouble with points of view and assumptions; clear that student was engaged and listened; also had trouble with points of view and assumptions; assumptions - ones made about engineers, not assumptions THEY make; but IMPROVED drastically by end - very good through ECE; overall very good effort on all of these - proficient with elements 6 HA A struggled with points of view for BE onward, but good on first two; actually got worse - seemed to take less seriously as progressed 7 HA A had trouble with point of view and assumptions - but went in right direction - just weak - and continued with this answer (assumed that their data comes from reliable sources - wrote this for all of them!) On both of these, took a simplistic idea and used each time. 8 HA A problems with assumptions and points of view; answers got weaker with progression. 9 HA A same issue with points of view and assumptions; effort seemed to decrease - answers improved in some areas, worse in others with progression 10 HA A some improvement in point of view and assumptions - clearly most challenging 11 HA A 12 I A 13 I A 14 I A 15 I B Probably best effort but still it is clear that more discussion is needed on point of view especially more; excellent work throughout on other elements good on purpose and questions; same trouble with points of view and assumptions on some, not all; poor on CEE - least effort appears to be put in; all others thoughtfully done; especially good with ME; CECS one best I have seen - even for assumptions and points of view; poor CEE ( I think the speaker made a joke about assumptions people made about CEEs - wear hardhats- and kids started answering the question about assumptions from that perspective) ; pretty good on points of view and assumptions struggled with assumptions and points of view; consistent effort, but missed point on most of elements only purpose and central question were very good both CEE students thought implications were all dire - death, flooding, etc.; weak assumptions and points of view; effort appeared consistent 16 I B problems with assumptions and points of view; answers got shorter with progression 17 I A same issues with points of view and assumptions; answers worse with progression 18 I A only 4 assignments; similar issues with point of view and assumptions 19 I A effort and work seemed to decline with progression; took comments of presenter at strict face value; unable to integrate the entire content of the presentation; 20 LA B some fairly thoughtful answers, just left a lot of them blank; missing 3 assignments 21 LA B misunderstanding of points of view and assumptions(made about the career itself - good job, etc); missing 3 assignments; didn't take it seriously 22 LA A clearly did not understand assumptions or points of view, and wrote nonsense in places, general low effort - some fair answers 23 LA B frequently left assumptions and points of view blank; answers indicated some engagement but limited; some improvement with progression 24 LA C only three items, some brief, but fair answers, some off base, some good 25 LA D only two items, could barely read this - couldn't read most answers - Tas shouldn't have given credit for this work. 26 LA D Only 3 assignments; very poor effort, but some answers pretty good - even for assumptions and points of view 27 LA D only 4 assignments; similar issues with point of view and assumptions

12 2. There is a clear need for more and better feedback. This is difficult for any explicit critical thinking assignment, and is made more difficult by the large class size. One difficulty in giving a solution after collecting the assignment is that it can confuse students since their answers might be different but still accurate. It is therefore important to indicate to students, in the form of feedback, aspects of their response that meet a standard as defined by the instructors in advance. An approach being considered for next year is training of the TAs to score all the critical thinking assignments using a critical thinking rubric. In many cases, the overall quality of work actually declined from Analyze the Discipline exercises one to seven because the students didn t feel the assignment was valued. Some of the very high achieving students did extremely well throughout, but in general that was not the case; and some even commented that they didn t think anyone would ever read their assignment. Also, many errors of understanding the elements were made consistently across many of the assignments, punctuating the need to give more and better feedback. Finding an efficient way to provide feedback is a high priority for next year. 3. The elements of purpose, concepts, question at issue, and implications were well understood by all of the students, a very encouraging outcome which demonstrated their understanding of these elements of thought. These good responses also showed students learned something about the engineering disciplines, and they listened well enough to write it down for their assignment. It seems reasonable to assume they were engaged well enough to get more information from the presentation than they would already possess in most cases. 6. Conclusions and Future Directions To summarize, based on the analysis of student responses to these exercises and the survey information, the authors found three primary conclusions: 1) it is imperative that students get informative feedback as quickly as possible, 2) the Analyze the Discipline exercises were useful for reinforcing critical thinking and the P-E framework, and 3) the Analyze the Discipline exercises were effective for improving engagement of students during department presentations. Additionally, from review of our analysis of these exercises, there is also evidence that students gained an understanding and appreciation of all seven engineering disciplines offered at this university, as opposed to listening closely only to their department of interest. Of those selected students and also those from the larger sample, most could identify the purpose, concepts, and question at issue elements for all seven disciplines which demonstrates basic understanding of the disciplines. In future semesters, faculty will consider checking for a correlation between the student responses to the Analyze the Discipline exercises and the choice of major. Since these exercises were useful in achieving the desired outcomes of reinforcing critical thinking and P-E framework and better engaging students in department presentations, similar activities will be continued in the future. However, the issue of better and more rapid feedback must be addressed as must the fact that most students struggled with the elements assumptions and point of view. This will inform how the instruction of the P-E framework is taught in the future. In lecture presentations and group activities, more concrete examples of identifying elements and going around the wheel to

13 analyze an article and a discipline (not necessarily engineering) will be done. The feedback issue is not new; all faculty know rapid, informative feedback is critical for student learning. However, in large classes, scoring written work in a timely manner is a challenge. These authors are challenged to find the best way to use these or similar exercises, but to give more rapid feedback. Part of our future work in this area includes determining the best approach for improvement of feedback, critical thinking instruction and student engagement. Some possibilities include focusing exercises on a smaller number of elements for each assignment, varying the element asked each time; developing some of these as team exercises; and working with the departments to make sure their presentations provide at least some information that gives students an understanding of most of the elements. By providing the students with quicker, more meaningful feedback, the authors feel that future Analyze the Discipline assignments can serve the dual purpose of further encouraging development of students critical thinking skills while enhancing the knowledge gained about various engineering disciplines. References 1. Paul, Richard, Niewoehner, Robert, and Elder, Linda, The Thinkers Guide to Engineering Reasoning, Foundation for Critical Thinking, Cooney, Alfrey, Owens. Critical Thinking in Engineering and Technology Education: a Review. ASEE Conference Proceedings, Romkey, Lisa and Yu-Ling Cheng. The Development and Assessment of Critical Thinking for the Global Engineer, Proceedings of the 2009 ASEE Annual Conference, Woods, Felder, Rugarcia, and Stice. The Future of Engineering Education III: Developing Critical Skills. Chemical Engineering Education. vol 34(2). Pg Nosich, Gerald, Learning to Think Things Through, Pearson/Prentice Hall, Hoit, Marc and Matthew Oland. The Impact of a Discipline-Based Introduction to Engineering Course on Improving Retention. Journal of Engineering Education. 87(1), pg , Daniels, Collura, Aliane, and Nocito-Gobel. Project-Based Introduction to Engineering Course Assessment, in Proceedings 2004 of the ASEE Annual Conference, George, Lynnane. Engineering 100: An Introduction to Engineering Systems at the US Air Force Academy. ASEE Annual Conference Proceedings Verma, Alok. Impact of Project Based Learning in Introduction to Engineering/Technology Class. Proceedings of the2011 ASEE Annual Conference Lavelle, Jerome and Mary Clare Robbins. The First Year Engineering Course at NC State University: Design and Implementation. Proceedings of the2003 ASEE Annual Conference, 2003.