Paper ID #9874

Curriculum Revision to Better Integrate Mechanical Engineering Science and

Practice in the 2nd and 3rd Undergraduate Years
Dr. Michele Miller, Michigan Technological University
Dr. Michele Miller is an associate professor of Mechanical Engineering at Michigan Technological Uni-
versity. She teaches classes on manufacturing and does research in engineering education with particular
interest in hands-on ability, lifelong learning, and project-based learning.
Dr. Jeffrey Allen, Michigan Technological University
Dr. Jason Blough, Michigan Technological University
Dr. James P. De Clerck, Michigan Technological University
After an 18 year career in the automotive industry, Dr. De Clerck joined the Michigan Tech Department
of Mechanical Engineering - Engineering Mechanics in August 2009. His areas of expertise include noise
and vibration, structural dynamics, design, modal analysis, model validation, inverse methods applied to
design, and advanced measurement techniques.
Dr. William J. Endres, Michigan Technological University

Dr. Endres received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign in 1992. He has served on the faculty at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor for 7 years
and at Michigan Technological University since 2001, where he is currently an Associate Professor and
the Director of the ME Senior Capstone Design Program. In 1996 he began envisioning a technology
company which he ultimately founded as Endres Machining Innovations, LLC (EMI) in 2004 to develop
and commercialize innovative processes and tooling technologies. EMI’s industry-leading R&D efforts
aim to provide substantial efficiency improvements. EMI’s focus is the machining of difficult-to-machine
materials, such as titanium, nickel alloys, stainless steels, compacted-graphite iron (CGI), hardened steel,
and abrasive composites, and applications like energy efficient chipping/chopping of cellulosic biomass.
In 2013 a manufacturing company was formed for production of their first product line leaving EMI to
focus on technology development and commercialization partnerships.

Dr. Scott A. Miers, Michigan Technological University

Dr. Ibrahim Miskioglu, Michigan Technological University
Prof. Gregory M. Odegard, Michigan Technological University
Prof. Charles D Van Karsen, Michigan Technological University
Dr. Paul J. van Susante, Michigan Technological University

Dr. van Susante received a M.Sc. in Civil Engineering in 2001 from Delft University of Technology in
The Netherlands followed by a M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Engineering Systems from the Colorado School of
Mines in 2004 and 2011 respectively. He has been teaching undergraduate engineering courses including
mechanics of materials and senior capstone design since 2005. He is currently a lecturer in the Mechanical
Engineering department at Michigan Technological University where he is involved with developing the
new undergraduate curriculum and course coordinator for the first new ME-Practice course.

American
c Society for Engineering Education, 2014
 Curriculum Revision to Better Integrate Mechanical Engineering
Science and Practice in the 2nd and 3rd Undergraduate Years

Introduction

The mechanical engineering program at Michigan Tech has been engaged in a curriculum
revision process since 2010. The implementation of the new curriculum will take place over
three years, starting in Fall 2014. The revision recognizes that engineering work, engineering
students, and educational methods are changing.

The program faculty considered recommendations from external entities, investigated innovative
curricula at other institutions, and solicited input from departmental faculty and staff. The
Engineer of 2020 will change job functions more frequently than engineers of the past, and thus
the NAE cites practical intuition and agility as desired attributes.1 A Carnegie Foundation report2
finds that “the tradition of putting theory before practice…[allows] little opportunity for students
to have the kind of deep learning experiences that mirror professional practice.” Based on
analysis of industry needs, two of the seven recommendations of the ASME 2030 task force are
more practice-based engineering education and curricular flexibility.3 Education researchers have
identified a “valley of despair” in the 2nd and 3rd years.4 Whereas students do project work in the
first and fourth years, in the second and third years, many do not see the connection between
course work and engineering work; as a result, both motivation and confidence decrease. Finally,
engineering work today relies heavily on computational tools that are now widely available. The
new tools can create more realistic models of complicated real systems. More consistent use of
these tools throughout the curriculum can further strengthen student understanding of the
fundamentals and allow them to address more complex problems.

New engineering programs, such as those at Olin College5 and James Madison University6, are
taking a different approach to engineering education by challenging lower division students with
complex open-ended problems and by infusing project work throughout the four-year curriculum.
The large number of mechanical engineering students at Michigan Tech presents challenges to
implementing more project-based courses, but size has advantages too: well equipped
laboratories, a mature industry sponsored capstone design program, and diverse faculty expertise.

This paper will describe the process we followed to develop a new curriculum in addition to
providing details about the new curriculum itself.

Curriculum Design Process

In Fall 2010 an ad-hoc Curriculum Revision Committee (CRC) was assembled. The CRC has
had 8-10 members representing the various technical areas of the department. It has attempted to
follow a structured design process in designing a new curriculum. Table 1 summarizes the
process. The stages shown in Table 1 are roughly chronological, but the process was not as
linear as it appears.
 Table 1: Curriculum revision process

Design Process Stage Activities

Identify the problem. Review literature, seek input from industry
partners, and consider first-hand experiences with
students.
Identify desired attributes of graduates (such as Survey industry partners and department faculty.
critical thinker, ethical) and desired
knowledge/skills of graduates (such as finite
element analysis and communication).
Identify objectives and constraints. CRC compiles.
Benchmark other curricula. Review literature, explore university web sites, and
invite seminar speakers.
Generate concepts for new curriculum. CRC and department faculty and staff brainstorm.
Select concepts for new curriculum. Departmental faculty and staff provide feedback on
options; CRC creates draft proposal and seeks
further feedback.
Design new courses: identify learning objectives. CRC proposes learning objectives for four new
practice-based courses; faculty and staff provide
input with sticky notes in lounge, and at follow-up
meeting with survey to rate importance of each
objective.
Design new courses: identify learning assessments Course coordinators and smaller groups are
and learning activities. working on each course.
Develop implementation plan. Small group of CRC members, administrators and
student advisors are working on this.
Pilot test new course activities. Takes place in Spring and Summer 2014.
Implement new courses; gather student feedback, Begins in Fall 2014.
assess, and improve.

The CRC faculty had numerous discussions about identifying the problem. Many drew on their
first-hand experiences in advising capstone design and other student project teams. Most agreed
that students have difficulty applying engineering knowledge and skills to real-world projects.
The CRC also studied the literature about projected changes in engineering work and how
current curricula may not adequately prepare graduates. One of the changes in engineering work
is the heavy use of simulation tools.

In terms of design requirements, one of the objectives of the new curriculum is to produce
graduates with desired attributes, knowledge, and skills. With industry and faculty input, we
compiled a set of those. Other objectives included limits on the amount of faculty time needed to
implement and sustain the new curriculum, higher student motivation, and ease of making future
curriculum changes, among others. Constraints included meeting university and college course
requirements, meeting ABET requirements, and accommodating a range of abilities of incoming
students, among others.

Concept generation took place at various times in the process and in multiple venues. For
example, at a meeting in Spring 2011, faculty and staff did an exercise of designing a curriculum
that was guaranteed to fail in 10 years and subsequently to design one that would be wildly
successful in 10 years.7

Concept selection also took place in an iterative way. A department meeting in spring 2012
focused on the questions of: where to introduce more application/practice; how to provide more
opportunity for depth; how best to teach computer tools. With regard to the first question,
faculty discussed the options of adding more projects to the core engineering science courses
versus adding separate project courses to the curriculum. In the end, we selected the second
option: it would not require that every course be taught in a different way and it would facilitate
multi-disciplinary projects. For the second question, faculty considered the options of more
electives versus a five-year BS/MS program. We chose the option of more electives: it aligned
with the ASME Vision 2030 recommendations, and it was unclear that the BS/MS program
would be attractive to a large percentage of our students. For the third question we considered
the options of explicit instruction in ME courses versus independent study using widely available
tutorials. Our selection was a hybrid. Some explicit instruction will be done in the course where
a new tool is introduced. Faculty members agree that the tools need to be part of multiple
courses so that students do not have time to forget what they have learned (as happened in the
old curriculum). Refresher training will be the responsibility of the students. Later in the
process, faculty voted on whether to add additional electives credits by dropping a Circuits
course or an Economics course from the old curriculum. The faculty was strongly in favor of
keeping both courses.

In terms of course design, the CRC considered the idea of a request for proposals (RFP) process.
While there was some positive response to that approach, we recognized a need for significant
coordination amongst the designs of each course. In the end, we identified course coordinators
for each new course and small groups of overlapping faculty that would work on each.

Many logistical issues need to be worked out for the implementation of the new curriculum.
Following the example of another engineering department at Michigan Tech, we will phase in
the new curriculum over three years. New 2nd year courses will begin in the 2014-15 academic
year. The old 2nd year courses will be taught for the last time in 2014-15 to catch students who
failed a 2nd year course or went on co-op in the previous year. New 3rd year courses will begin in
2015-16. The old 3rd year courses will be taught for the last time in 2015-16. And new 4th year
courses (additional elective offerings) will begin in 2016-17. Based on projections of the
numbers of students in the old and new courses, we are determining numbers of sections to offer,
the faculty and TA requirements, and the schedules of classrooms and lab spaces. Additional
teaching resources are required for the first two transition years, and the department chair has
made the commitment to meet those needs.

New course activities will be piloted in Spring and Summer 2014 using undergraduate students
and graduate teaching assistants. The CRC is considering options for how to continue to receive
student input during new course implementation. Things will not go perfectly, and it will be
important to rapidly and regularly address problems as they arise.
Description of New Curriculum

Midway through the process, in 2012, the CRC adopted a vision for the curriculum revision. This
helped us to communicate succinctly to others what we are trying to achieve.

• Employers will aggressively compete for our graduates, who have extensive hands-on training
in solving engineering problems.
• Graduate programs will aggressively compete for our graduates, who, in addition to practical
problem solving skills, have developed expertise in a sub-specialty of mechanical engineering.
• Students have a passion to solve problems that make a difference in their communities, and
they take ownership of their learning.
• The curriculum enables faculty and students to engage in cross-disciplinary projects that
strengthen critical, creative, and interdisciplinary thinking.
• Faculty are committed to doing whatever it takes—including pushing beyond boundaries,
working collaboratively, adjusting course content and adopting new teaching approaches—to
best realize the rest of the vision.

There was strong faculty desire that the curriculum provide more opportunity for practice and at
the same time more opportunity for depth. What tradeoffs would need to be made to accomplish
these two somewhat contradictory goals?

The new curriculum makes two major changes:

1. It introduces four new practice-based courses that replace four lab courses and a 3rd year
design processes course. These are project-based courses that integrate a number of
content threads in the second and third years: application of core course concepts;
programming, modeling, and simulation; laboratory skills including instrumentation,
measurement, data acquisition, data analysis and experiment design; structured design
process; making and tinkering; communication.

2. It reduces the number of core courses and increases the number of technical electives.

Table 2 summarizes the change in the credit distribution. “Practice” in the old curriculum
consisted of four laboratory courses (5 credits) and a junior level engineering design process
course (3 credits). The new curriculum replaces these with a sequence of four courses that span
the 2nd and 3rd years. In the ME core, the three course sequence of Dynamics, Vibrations, and
Controls reduces to a two course sequence. Similarly, the three-course sequence of
Thermodynamics, Fluids, and Heat Transfer reduces to a two-course sequence. The two-course
sequence for mechanism design reduces to one course. Some of the material removed from the
core courses will move to the practice courses while other material will move into elective
courses. The higher number of elective credits permits students to take a sequence in a particular
area and thus deepen expertise.

With respect to ABET requirements, the purpose of the new curriculum is to improve attainment
of student outcomes and program educational objectives. The new curriculum adds one credit of
engineering topics. The new practice-based courses are intended to improve student preparation
for the senior capstone design course (which remains unchanged). Furthermore, the added
emphasis on application of core mechanical engineering concepts to real-world problems should
enhance student ability to work professionally in thermal and mechanical systems areas.

In terms of the classes taught within the ME department, ME core reduces from 61% of the ME
course credits to 47%. ME practice plus capstone design increases from 22% to 26%. Technical
electives (assuming all are taught within ME) increase from 17% to 27%.

Table 2: Credit distribution in the old and new curriculum

Old Curriculum New Curriculum

General Education 24 24
Economic Decision Analysis 3 3
Math and Science 31 31
1st Year Engineering 6 6
Circuits and Materials Science* 6 6
Capstone Design 4 4
Free Elective 3 3
ME Practice 8 10
ME Core 33 26
Technical Electives 9 15
Total 127 128
* One of the credits of the materials science course is categorized as science in the ABET accounting of credits.

Figure 1 shows the flowchart for the new curriculum. The first-year is (mostly) common for all
engineering students. The sequence of four practice-based courses creates a spine connecting the
first year engineering and capstone design courses. Pre-requisites on the practice-based courses
link them to ME core courses, but flexibility in student scheduling was also a consideration when
deciding on the pre-requisites.
 Figure 1: Flowchart for the new curriculum

Description of Practice-Based Courses

During the revision process, the CRC identified a number of threads of knowledge/skills that
would comprise the four practice-based courses:

• Application of ME core concepts (thermal and fluid systems, design, manufacturing,

solid mechanics, and dynamic systems)
• Programming, modeling and simulation
• Laboratory skills including instrumentation, measurement, data acquisition, data analysis,
and experiment design
• Structured design process
• Making and tinkering
• Communication

The courses will incorporate some of the lab activities from the old curriculum, but they will
include (especially in the later courses) more open-ended projects where students learn and work
more independently. The courses will also teach the structured design processes (formerly
taught in one junior level class), building on the introduction students receive in the first year
engineering courses. The CRC identified learning objectives for all the threads and distributed
them amongst the four courses. Table 3 shows samples of learning objectives for the four
courses.
 Table 3: Examples of learning objectives for the four ME practice (MEP) courses

Course Sampling of learning objectives

MEP1 Create CAD models of parts and assemblies
Select and use appropriate transducers
Perform and analyze tension and bending tests
MEP2 Make measurements that relate to heat and work
Perform and interpret finite element analysis simulations of trusses and frames
Write effective technical reports individually and as a team
MEP3 Apply energy balance and First Law analysis to systems
Identify mode shapes and natural frequencies from measured data
Optimize component designs for a selected manufacturing process
MEP4 Implement open and closed loop control systems
Troubleshoot electrical and mechanical dynamics and vibrations problems
Apply design optimization techniques

To give a brief overview, in MEP1 students take things apart (reverse engineering), break things
(material testing), and develop lab and computer skills. In MEP2, students make things,
experiment with conversions between electrical, thermal, and mechanical energy, and learn the
limitations of models. MEP3 focuses on synthesis, system design, and using evidence to make
decisions. In MEP4, students diagnose, optimize, and innovate.

Core Course Revisions

One of the challenging aspects of the curriculum revision was reducing the number of ME core
credits. Table 4 summarizes the changes and the content that was removed.

Table 4: Summary of changes to ME core courses

Old course sequence New course sequence Comments

Dynamics Dynamics Less time for review of pre-
Mechanical Vibrations Dynamic Systems req material; some vibrations
Dynamic Systems and Controls and controls content moves to
technical electives.
Thermodynamics Energy-Thermal-Fluids I Some topics combined in new
Fluid Mechanics Energy-Thermal-Fluids II ways; some content moves to
Heat Transfer technical electives.
Product Realization I Mechanical System Design Strengthen focus on synthesis
Product Realization II and Analysis and modeling; reduce focus on
standard component design.

The two-course sequence of statics and mechanics of materials remains unchanged because these
are also service courses to other engineering departments. A manufacturing processes course in
the old curriculum will receive updating, move to later in the curriculum, and lose its associated
lab (part of which is incorporated in the practice-based courses).
Electives Courses

Additional electives will be offered that will allow students to deepen their knowledge in
different areas of mechanical engineering such as dynamic systems, thermal systems, solid
mechanics and manufacturing.

Conclusions

Our new curriculum has been designed to address the changing engineering workplace, changing
students, and changing educational methods. Four new practice-based courses will better engage
students to put into practice the engineering concepts they are learning. Additional elective
course opportunities will allow them to follow their passions. We are four years into the revision
process, and full implementation will take another three years. It has been a slow process. Keys
to maintaining the momentum have been an enthusiastic group of faculty on the CRC and strong
support from the department chair. Future challenges include ensuring effective coordination
amongst courses and involving additional faculty in the teaching of project-based courses.

References
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2. Sheppard, SD, Macatangay, K, Colby, A, Sullivan, WM, “Educating Engineers: Designing for the Future of the
Field,” The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 2008.
3. Danielson, S., A. Kirkpatrick and E. Ervin, “ASME Vision 2030: Helping to Inform Mechanical Engineering
Education” Proc. FIE Conference, Rapid City, SD, 2011.
4. Kotys-Schwartz, D., D. Knight and G. Pawlas, “First-Year and Capstone Design Projects: Is the Bookend
Curriculum Approach Effective for Skill Gain?” Proc. ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Louisville, KY,
2010.
5. Guizzo, E., “The Olin Experiment,” IEEE Spectrum, Vol. 43, No. 5, 2006, pp. 30-36.
6. Pierrakos, O. and E. Pappas, “Assessing Students’ Learning Outcomes during a Complex and Real-World
Problem-Based Service Learning (PBSL) Project in a Sophomore Engineering Design Course,” Proc. of the
ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, 2010.
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Reston, VA, March 2011.