2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Work-in-Progress: Design of a Material Science and Engineering Course to Promote Hands on Learning and Writing Proficiency
Presented at Materials Division (MATS) Technical Session 6
In today’s rapidly evolving technical landscape, industry and academia demands an engineering workforce who beside solving challenging and complex engineering problems, can effectively communicate complex ideas. Traditionally, engineering lab courses have a higher focus on the technical side of experiments, and less emphasis on communication skills. Although such courses require students to write reports, integrated writing instructions have been a missing component. Due to lack of such training, students remained underprepared for the communication challenges they may encounter in the workplace. To bridge this gap, the newly established Materials Science and Engineering (MSEN) department at a large R1 University has developed a course that integrates hands-on experiments with structured writing instruction. In this paper, we present the design of the course and explain how the active learning approach creates an engaging, hands-on learning experience for MSEN undergraduate students to build both technical and writing skills in parallel. In the course, students complete three modules—metals, ceramics, and polymers—centred around the PSPP framework (processing, structure, properties, and performance), which teaches how processing-informed structure determines a material’s properties and thereby it’s performance. Students also conduct a series of processing and synthesis experiments such as heat treatment (metals), applying thin film coating (ceramics) and composite fabrication (polymers). To deepen their understanding, students conduct a range of characterizations on their prepared samples to explore the PSPP relationships. In addition to the hands-on experiments, the course has a mandatory writing-intensive component, where students receive writing instruction and prepare sections of a comprehensive lab report with focus on tasks such as memos and technical exhibits. Lastly students combine these sections into a formal IMMRAD-C report and practice presenting technical results in a clear and concise manner. With this paper, we describe the combined approach, which can serve as a model for future courses aiming to develop both technical and writing proficiency in undergraduate engineering courses.
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Mr. Anurag Srivastava Texas A&M University [biography]
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Dr. Bilal Mansoor Texas A&M University [biography]
