Enhancing Undergraduate Labs for Experiential Learning Can we design labs to better teach employable skills in core mechanical engineering courses?
Date
2023-08
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Abstract
The learning laboratory is a common and important component of contemporary Canadian post-secondary engineering education, intended to relate practice and theory, provide a practical experience in what can be a largely theoretical program, and motivate students. However, a significant minority of mechanical and manufacturing engineering students in a third-year materials science course at the University of Calgary have, across the last decade, reported on their end-of-course surveys that they do not perceive any connections between their laboratories and either their careers or their lectures. Simultaneously, there have been calls from local industry, the provincial government of Alberta that regulates and funds the program, and University administration for more experiential opportunities to be included in undergraduate programs to better prepare students for their future employment. Given that engineering education is directly related to professional engineering practice, it is key that students perceive connections between their program and industrial applications. Therefore, the research question is, how can established educational scholarship be applied to undergraduate engineering laboratories in order to improve students’ perception of their learning experience? Established educational scholarship and expectations from the Government of Alberta and the University of Calgary were reviewed. Qualitative surveys were developed using this scholarship and released to University of Calgary students currently enrolled in the third-year materials science course, asking them to identify and assess learning levels in their laboratories past and present and how course actions affected their assessment. A second series of surveys was released to members of local engineering industry with experience managing students and graduates of the University program, identifying what value they see in engineering learning laboratories. Analysis of results and scholarship provided a set of recommendations for improving the student laboratory learning experience. The core principles of these recommendations are to communicate clearly and explicitly with students, to constructively align all components of the laboratory experience, and to include hands-on participatory experiences whenever possible. Further recommendations targeted implementation of these principles in the laboratory pedagogy, within the laboratory itself as experienced by students, in the laboratory assessment, and in laboratory facilitators such as teaching assistants and technicians.
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Keywords
Mechanical Engineering, Engineering Education, Undergraduate Engineering, Learning Laboratories
Citation
Love, M. (2023). Enhancing undergraduate labs for experiential learning Can we design labs to better teach employable skills in core mechanical engineering courses? (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.