2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Getting Started Teaching an Undergraduate Engineering Laboratory

Presented at NEE Technical Session 2 - Educator's experience and perspective

A group of six faculty from laboratory and design courses at a large public university in the Midwest United States recently started a community of practice (CoP) for laboratory and design instructors. The goal of the CoP was to share resources and generate ideas for improving laboratory and design courses after the pandemic. We realized that many of us faced similar challenges during that time as we moved our courses to alternate formats and that we would have benefited from being able to share ideas and collectively brainstorm solutions. Since then, the CoP has grown to almost 40 members representing most of the departments in the college. We have hosted workshops, coffee chats, and other events to facilitate the exchange of ideas between members. Some of the popular topics have been facilitating teamwork; improving inclusivity and belonging; and training laboratory staff. These events have led to us curating resources in these areas. The purpose of this tips and tricks paper is to share these resources about teaching laboratory and design courses that we have collected within the CoP with the broader engineering education community, especially for instructors who have recently started teaching a course with a laboratory or large design project.

Authors

Dr. Rebecca Marie Reck http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5894-4130 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign [biography]

Rebecca M. Reck is a Teaching Associate Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research includes alternative grading, entrepreneurial mindset, instructional laboratories, and equity-focused teaching. She teaches biomedical instrumentation, signal processing, and control systems. She earned a Ph.D. in Systems Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State University, and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.
Dr. Jessica R TerBush http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8438-7411 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign [biography]

Jessica received her B.S.E, M.S.E., and PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. After graduation, she worked as a post-doc for approximately three years at Monash University in Clayton, Victoria, Australia. She then spent three years working as a Senior Research Specialist at the Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, Missouri, where she trained users on the focused ion beam (FIB), scanning electron microscope (SEM), and transmission electron microscope (TEM). In 2016, she moved to the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, to serve as a lecturer in the department of Materials Science and Engineering. Here, she is responsible for teaching the junior labs as well as providing instruction on writing in engineering.
Prof. Caroline Cvetkovic http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3035-7313 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign [biography]

Caroline Cvetkovic is a Teaching Assistant Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she instructs courses in quantitative physiology, biofabrication, and transport. She earned her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She then completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Center for Neuroregeneration and Department of Neurosurgery at the Houston Methodist Research Institute.
Prof. Holly M Golecki http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3691-0420 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign [biography]

Dr. Holly Golecki (she/her) is a Teaching Assistant Professor in Bioengineering at the University of
Illinois Urbana-Champaign and an Associate in the John A Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University. She holds an appointment at the Carle-Illinois College of Medicine in the Department of Biomedical and Translational Sciences. She is also a core faculty member at the Institute for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access in the College of Engineering. Holly studies biomaterials and soft robotics and their applications in the university classroom, in undergraduate research and in engaging K12 students in STEM. Holly received her BS/MS in Materials Science and Engineering from Drexel University and her PhD in Engineering Sciences from Harvard University.
Dr. Christopher D. Schmitz http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9673-9832 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign [biography]

Christopher D. Schmitz received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois in 2002.
Katie Ansell University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign [biography]

Katie Ansell is a Teaching Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her teaching and research activities focus on the practical and social aspects of the classroom that contribute to the development of student expertise in Introductory Physics Laboratories.
David Mussulman University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign [biography]

IT professional newly transitioned to teaching faculty. Engineering and Information Sciences.
Chandrasekhar Radhakrishnan
Ilalee Harrison James University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

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