Active Learning In First-Year Engineering Courses At Universidad Católica De La Santísima Concepción, Chile

This paper describes our experiences using Active Learning in four first-year computer science and industrial engineering courses at the School of Engineering of the Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción (UCSC), Chile. This work corresponds to the implementation stage of the curriculum reform using a CDIO-based approach that is currently underway at the School of Engineering, and which was previously described in [1].

Before this curriculum reform process, both first-year computer science and industrial engineering students had only one introductory course to their field of study, meeting just once a week for an hour. After the curriculum reform process, first-year computer science students take an Introduction to Computer Science course during the first semester, and a Programming Laboratory during the second semester. Similarly, the industrial engineering program now includes an Introduction to Industrial Engineering in its first semester and an Engineering Communication course in its second semester. These four first-year courses have been designed using CDIO standards 1, 4 and 8 as guidelines and have been formulated to include active learning in its many forms such as project-based learning, problem-based learning, case studies, small group discussions, oral presentations and reflective memos. The impact of the redesign of these first-year courses was assessed via anonymous student surveys taken the first week of class and at year end. Students also had to submit a short reflective memo on their experiences with each course. Our results show an improvement in student understanding of their professional endeavor and increased student motivation for their engineering programs. Student surveys registered high degrees of satisfaction with active learning techniques. Students also really appreciate working in teams, and receiving immediate feedback both from their instructors and their peers.