2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Heat Transfer is an upper-division course in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering program, widely recognized as a mathematically intensive class which requires advanced problem-solving skills. Typical enrollment in this course ranges from 60 to 200 students and this course is being offered during the 10-week quarters in Fall and Spring in the mechanical and aerospace engineering department at University of California, San Diego. To enhance course design, students were first surveyed about the challenges they encounter while solving engineering problems. The most frequently reported difficulties included: identifying how to start a problem, selecting appropriate methods and equations, and achieving a strong conceptual understanding.
To address these challenges and enhance student learning, three scaffolded group activities were developed and integrated into the course. After the first and third activities, follow-up surveys were conducted to gather feedback on students’ experiences and perceptions on problem solving.
Additionally, the end-of-term course evaluation included questions about the effectiveness of the scaffolded activities on their learning experience and whether students are open to adopting flipped models, which would allocate more in-class time for guided, in-depth problem-solving practice.
This Work-in-Progress paper will present the design of the scaffolded activities, and summarize preliminary survey findings. Future work will involve refining the activity sequence and exploring opportunities to scale the approach for other upper-division engineering courses.