2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

A few years ago, when the authors embarked on the task of redesigning a linear algebra course for engineering students, there was a lack of available review papers providing a comprehensive foundation on the topic and an explanation of the current state of knowledge for engineering students. Undeterred, the authors undertook an extensive examination of existing literature related to linear algebra and carefully examined their applicability for engineering students, to successfully redevelop the course. Subsequently, the objective of this paper is to provide a list of pedagogical methods the authors has reviewed for teaching linear algebra courses that applicable to engineering students. The ultimate intention is to assist future scholars who may find themselves in a similar position as the author, enabling them to save a significant amount of time by benefiting from the insights presented in this paper.

In this paper, the examined methods were divided into two broad categories: (1) pedagogical methods focusing on specified linear algebra content such as “span”, “linearly independence”, “linear transformation”, etc. and (2) general instructional pedagogical methods focusing on the course instead of specific topics, such as “flipped classroom”, “active learning”, “technology integration” etc. We read more than 50 literatures and only included those methods that are applicable for teaching engineering students in this paper. For instance, we excluded the literature that investigated different approaches to master proofs of some linear algebra concepts since there is not much emphasis on proofs as other topics like applications for engineering students. To ensure a comprehensive review, the author utilized multiple search engines and delved into various databases, including conference papers and mathematical education journals, to access a diverse range of valuable methodologies.