Integrated Design Project - An Integration of Fundamental Engineering Courses (original) (raw)
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A Project-Based Integrated Curriculum for Civil Engineers
¾ Changes in the needs of society and developments in computer science and information technology are changing the role of civil engineers and are opening a series of exciting challenges and opportunities. Computer technology has liberated ci vil engineers from the tedious task of time performing complicated, but routine computations, allowing them to concentrate on the more creative part of the design process, to integrate design and construction (or manufacturing), and to consider explicitly the economic and social implications of their work. At the same time the question is no longer how a system behaves under specified actions but how it can be designed to behave in a desired way; in other words, how to control the performance of the built e nvironment. The future focus for civil engineers will be on designing, repairing, maintaining, protecting and preserving the built environment based on ensuring system performance during demand actions with varying probability of occurrences. As a result , the Civil Engineering Department at Texas A&M University is planning a comprehensive revision of the philosophy and practice of undergraduate civil engineering education. A new curriculum is proposed built on a project -to-theme -to-topics model in which students are first presented with actual projects every academic year starting from the freshman level. A series of courses provide a central focus and structure for the curriculum with student teams addressing projects that cut across disciplines within civil engineering. The teams working on these projects would be guided to decompose a project into themes, such as dynamic analysis, environmental impact, geotechnical analysis, etc. so that they learn how engineering thoroughly breaks down large complex problems into conceptually manageable and interacting components. Then, students would use more traditional topics as analysis tools to generate quantitative analysis of the thematic issues. As the students are led to discover the knowledge needed to sol ve the problems arising from their projects, explicit links to specific subject courses in the curriculum will be made. Courses on individual subjects throughout the curriculum are then linked through the common context provided through the project sequen ce. The class material and presentation will be problem and project driven, incorporating just -in-time learning with a practical motivation for learning the needed skills. The project -theme -topic model will refocus attention of students and faculty away from the lowest two levels of Bloom's Taxonomy (knowledge, comprehensive) and toward the higher levels (application, analysis, evaluation, synthesis) that are expected and demanded of engineering graduates.
Integrated design concept in civil engineering education
International Journal of Engineering Education, 2016
The current diÅculties in the Construction Industry have confirmed the urgent need for interdisciplinary between all the design disciplines, from engineering to architecture. The requirement for high levels of building eÅciency and the optimization of the building process is making increasing demands on the accuracy of designs. The project is no longer a sum of contributions, but a design methodology that combines the answers to all the diÄerent requisites of the building, an integrated design project. This multidisciplinary approach to design problems is only possible if it is present in the design process from the outset. This implicit complicity is only possible if it starts in university education, searching for a unique common language of construction. This article shows an example of the implementation of integrated project delivery (IPD) methodology to the project based learning in civil engineer education. Exploring the experience undertaken in last year's in one of the courses of the Integrated Master in Civil Engineering (MIEC) of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, the implementation of the IPD methodology along lectures and studio classes, proved to be a more eÅcient learning performance among students in what concerns to the understanding of the relation between the design process and the convergence of all engineering disciplines that have to work together with the architecture design practice. Therefore, the methodology implemented in the architecture course in the 2nd semester of the 2nd year (1st cycle) of the MIEC, described in chapter 3, allows students to learn the design methodology as an integrated disciplinary project and to become able to access the available work tools, from project design to construction process. As a result, the improvement in the students 'ability to acquire knowledge' was clearly visible in the increase of final grade average since the IPD methodology was implemented in the course (2010/11). Also, student's motivation for developing extra homework became higher due to their initiative and commitment.
2015 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition Proceedings
Typically, Civil Engineering education supplements an individual course lecture series with hands-on laboratory exercises. These laboratory exercises tend to deal solely with the material being addressed in the lectures for the particular course. Consequently, not only are these laboratories limited to one Civil Engineering sub-discipline but also limited to the material being taught in the specific course. The Civil Engineering Department at our Institute developed and implemented a Design Studio Lab (DSL) for use in the 2014-2015 school year. This experiential studio linked several of the Civil Engineering sub-disciplines in a series of two-two hour studios/labs and one lecture per week (three credits). Four Civil Engineering sub-disciplines participated in this experiential studio with the desired goals of; gaining additional knowledge in a specific Civil Engineering sub-discipline, performing experiments and exercises in a sequence that illustrate the multi-discipline interaction that typically occur on Civil Engineering projects, developing a better understanding of the role of each sub-discipline in the practice of Civil Engineering and emphasizing the need for communication, collaboration and cooperation between Civil Engineering sub-disciplines. This paper addresses the desired student objectives and an assessment of the achievement of these objectives. The successes of this course are discussed as well as the "lessons learned" from the first semester. The experiential studio/laboratories are based on a known site and building. At the start of the design studio lab, the students are presented with the project information such as drawings, soil borings, and digital files. The faculty has the license to add underground tanks, contaminated soil and other Civil Engineering issues to the project data. The setup of the design studio lab allows for significant change from semester to semester. Several of the intra (sub)-discipline experiential laboratories are discussed in the paper. As an example, the structural group interface with the geotechnical group in the development of building foundation loads, the performance of laboratory tests on the site soil to estimate differential settlement of the foundation and the input of this data into structural analysis software to determine the effect on the structural support moment frame. The results of the experiments/labs are captured in lab reports, papers and presentations. This design studio/lab is a prelude for a second more independent experiential studio which in turn leads to the comprehensive Capstone Design Course.
A Capstone Design Approach In Civil Engineering
2004 Annual Conference Proceedings
Assessing student outcomes from the civil engineering program at Oregon Institute of Technology (OIT) identified several areas of concern. Ineffective team skills, limited multidisciplinary design experience and inadequate integration of technical communications with the engineering curriculum were specifically targeted for improvement. To strengthen student outcomes in these areas, technical communications faculty and civil engineering faculty at OIT developed a new senior project curriculum. Senior civil engineering students must now complete a three-term, full academic year, senior project sequence that integrates engineering design with communication skill development. The class functions as a civil engineering consulting firm with civil engineering faculty leading design teams in geotechnical engineering, transportation and traffic engineering, environmental engineering, structural engineering and planning. Two communications faculty are also part of the firm and provide in-house expertise in technical communications. The firm is required to respond to a formal request for proposal (RFP), develop a conceptual plan within the proposal, and prepare and present a professional proposal to secure the project. The RFP identifies a real project within the local community and is multidisciplinary in nature. Upon proposal acceptance, specific design teams are formed in which students complete the project design as specified in the firm's proposal. Effective communication both intra-team and inter-team is essential to ensure a professional cohesive design by the firm. Final designs are submitted in written reports, including all plans and specifications, and presented orally to a diverse audience of professionals, peers and faculty. Technical communications faculty assist students in preparing proposals, written reports and presentations, and guide the process of internal documentation procedures such as daily logs and weekly progress reports. Workshops on professional ethics, group dynamics and peer reviews are also incorporated in the class. Local professionals and other faculty participate as clients, consultants and experts. Surveys given to students at the end of the project reflect a moderate improvement in student outcomes based on this class. Students appear reluctant to leave the organized structure of the classroom for the open ended problems presented by the design projects. Alumni, however, who have completed the sequence, have given strong endorsements. Local professionals and Industrial Advisory Committee members have expressed satisfaction with the approach and objectives of the class.
A Unique Civil Engineering Capstone Design Course
International Journal of Engineering Pedagogy (iJEP)
The North Dakota State University, USA, capstone course was developed as a unique model in response to the effort of the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology, USA, to streamline and improve design instruction in the curriculum and has steadily evolved to keep pace with the ever-changing technology and the expectations of the profession and the society we serve. A capstone design course by definition should be a design experience for students in the final year before graduation integrating all major design concepts they have learned up until then in the program. Carefully chosen real world projects with design content in all sub-disciplines of civil engineering are assigned in this team-taught course. Faculty and practicing professionals make presentations on design process; project management; leadership in an engineering environment; and public policy; global perspectives in engineering; and professional career and licensure. Practicing professionals also critique the ...
Project-based teaching software for structural design
1988
The paper describes the way in which CAL software has been developed and used to assist in the teaching of structural design, in the context of final-year project work. The software has been written specifically to enable students to design steel portal frames. which are the most common structures used in industrial construction. It is highly interactive. makes considerable use of graphics and "help" facilities. but avoids leading the student automatically towards acceptable solutions. It was developed as part of a British Steel Corporation initiative for teaching of structural steelwork at undergraduate level and runs on a BBC microcomputer. The software is used in the context of a whole-day design exercise in which students work in small groups to produce alternative designs for an industrial shed. Different confi~rations can be compared and the effect of amendments investigated, which has never previously been feasible. Its use during the last three years has shown distinct advantages over existing design teaching methods, particularly in the conceptual aspects.
Integrated Civil Engineering Curriculum: Five-Year Review
Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice, 2004
An integrated curriculum, which draws material from different areas to teach students about design and problem-solving, offers civil engineering educators an option for accommodating new topics without increasing the number of courses. Freshman engineering and the senior capstone course are two examples of integrated courses, and the writers present a 5-year perspective on an approach that extends the concept of integration to six additional courses, comprised of an 8-course, integrated civil engineering core curriculum. Drawing on their combined experiences with the courses and assessment in a review by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, the writers conclude that the curriculum offers a useful vehicle by which to add material to the 4-year program without increasing the number of credit hours, and offers flexible courses to meet goals of professional groups. The paper describes lessons learned, challenges that remain, and current approaches to improvement.
Construction Research Congress 2014, 2014
Changes experimented in the interaction of the different disciplines involved in building science during the XXth Century have increased the divide between what is taught in the classrooms and what is then later expected by the real world of professional practice. However, recent advances in computer technology and demands that come from contemporary professional scenarios have challenged this divide. This new reality has given birth to the development of an integrated interdisciplinary approach, under the umbrella of Integrated Project Delivery (IPD). Through IPD, the traditional consultant based model has been substituted by an integrated one in which the different professions are required to work together from the beginning of the building project.
Field project-based learning to enhance structural design abilities for civil engineering students
2018
Design courses need to embrace the exemplary nature of the civil engineering profession and to address the concerns of employers that engineering graduates are unprepared and poorly trained to face the engineering profession. The introduction of project-based learning is important because as a constructivist learning pedagogy, project-based approach emphasizes learning by doing via direct students’ engagement in projects, performed either individually or in groups. The objective of this research is to investigate the extent to which the students’ design abilities are enhanced through field project-based learning in structural reinforced concrete design course. The research was carried out on groups of student who were assigned design tasks at a local design firm. The data were collected through interviews, journal entries, direct observations and document analysis. These data were analysed using content analysis method and the results were later triangulated to increase the reliabil...