2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Indicators of Change in Mechanical Engineering Instructors’ Teaching Practices Across Five Years

Presented at MECH - Technical Session 15: Engineering Education Research and Reviews

Current best practices in teaching and learning are often not implemented in engineering courses, including those of mechanical engineering. The low rate of the adoption of best practices in teaching and learning can be attributed to the variation in training among individual educators and a lack of time to learn about and implement new teaching strategies. A significant disruption to higher education in 2020 created an opportunity for instructors to change their teaching practices. The purpose of this study was to determine the ways that instructors adjusted their teaching activities during a disruption and to identify whether those adaptations resulted in long-term teaching changes. Course syllabi were analyzed with a specific focus on active learning opportunities employed within a classroom and assessment strategies. Syllabi from 93 sophomore- and junior-level courses in a mechanical engineering department at a R1 Midwest University were examined for change over the period of Spring 2019 to Spring 2023. The syllabi were deductively coded using a priori course change typology. The results showed that in-class student activities and in-class group activities increased after the disrupted semester. Assessment focused predominantly on exams across the timeframe of the study. Some changes to instructors' teaching practices were found but the changes were often not sustained past 2021. Recommendations for mechanical engineering instructors are made.

Authors

Hayden J Wulf University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Dr. Grace Panther University of Nebraska, Lincoln [biography]

Dr. Grace Panther is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln where she conducts discipline-based education research. Her research interests include faculty change, 3D spatial visualization, gender inclusive teamwork, and studying authentic engineering practice. Dr. Panther was awarded an NSF CAREER award in 2024. Dr. Panther has experience conducting workshops at engineering education conferences both nationally and internationally, has been a guest editor for a special issue of European Journal of Engineering Education on inclusive learning environments, and serves on the Australasian Journal of Engineering Education advisory committee. Dr. Panther received both her Ph.D. and M.S. in Environmental Engineering from Oregon State University.
Prof. Heidi A. Diefes-Dux http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3635-1825 University of Nebraska, Lincoln [biography]

Heidi A. Diefes-Dux is a Professor in Biological Systems Engineering at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln (UNL). She received her B.S. and M.S. in Food Science from Cornell University and her Ph.D. in Food Process Engineering from the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at Purdue University. She was an inaugural faculty member of the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. Her current role in the College of Engineering at UNL is to lead the disciplinary-based education research initiative, growing the research enterprise and the engineering education research graduate program. Her research focuses on the development, implementation, and assessment of modeling and design activities with authentic engineering contexts; the design and implementation of learning objective-based grading for transparent and fair assessment; and the integration of reflection to develop self-directed learners.

Download paper (1.96 MB)

Are you a researcher? Would you like to cite this paper? Visit the ASEE document repository at peer.asee.org for more tools and easy citations.

» Download paper

« View session