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Redesign of Introductory Course in Department of Civil Engineering

Shih-Chung Kang1, Yu-Yun Liu

2 and Feng-Mei Chen

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Abstract: Rapid changes in societies across the globe have led to increasingly diverse and demanding

requirements on living spaces, buildings, and public facilities. These changes are in turn, affecting the role of

civil engineers and the field of civil engineering. Today, planning and construction projects require civil

engineers to take a human-centered approach and consider the social sciences, the natural sciences, and the

ecosystem. Therefore, traditional civil engineering education, which focuses heavily on knowledge of

mathematics and physics, is not sufficient. We have found that it is necessary to redesign our introductory

course for freshman students using a student-centered and application-focused approach. In addition, we will

integrate interdisciplinary components into imagination cultivation to enhance the students' problem-solving

skills. By studying four famous engineering cases, the Sydney Opera House, Yuan-Shan-Tzu flood diversion,

Taiwan high speed rail, and Golden Gate Bridge, students will receive an overview of architecture, hydraulic,

transportation, and structural engineering. After each lecture, we designed a related topic for group discussion

and invited a guest speaker with expertise in that area to give feedback and deliver a speech. To examine the

effectiveness of this redesign, we are going to evaluate assignments and final group projects through

professional judgment and peer review. By increasing the opportunities for teamwork and presentation, our

goal is to expand the width and depth of students' thinking and well prepare them as future engineers.

Keywords: course reengineering, interdisciplinary, student-centered, introductory course

Introduction

Role of civil engineers

Civil engineering is a symbol of human

civilization. Our lives have become more convenient

than in the past due to the development of buildings,

airports, tunnels, dams, bridges, roads, and a large

number of other infrastructures and public facilities

constructed by civil engineers. Traditional civil

engineers always placed emphasis on durability,

solidity, and safety when they design and supervise

the constructions of projects. Therefore, they must

possess extensive professional knowledge and skills

to help them build up steady constructions and assure

the stability of building structures. Owing to the rapid

growth of technology and economy in recent years,

human needs have become more diverse and complex

than in agricultural times. In addition to basic

concerns, engineers need to focus on human needs,

economic efficiency, engineering ethics,

environmental protection, ecological conservation,

and the aesthetic appearance of buildings. Based on

the evolution of society and engineering, the

educational goals of curriculum design should be

improved with the generational trends. We must teach

engineers to be creative and flexible, and to be

curious and imaginative (NAE, 2005). In order to let

our civil engineers keep pace with the times, the

primary task is reforming our educational pattern.

Reform of Engineering Education

Education is a crucial process for fostering

future engineers. In Taiwan, the traditional training

models for undergraduate students have always been

instructors-centered and knowledge-based; thus,

students’ attitudes would tend to be passive,

unimaginative, overcautious, alienated, and

unconcerned upon encountering problems. For this

reason, our educational system ought to train students

to be active, imaginative, insightful, and adventurous.

Active learning is more likely to occur in the

student-centered model while passive learning results

from a teacher-centered model (Catalano & Catalano,

1999). Student-centered instruction is a potential

method for increasing intrinsic motivation among

students (Hancock, Bray, & Nason, 1995).

Engineering education should be reformed to adopt

student-centered and application-focused orientations

in order to enhance students’ autonomy in learning,

problem solving skills and competitive strength in the

future society.

Course redesign

Based on previous evaluation, students who

took the course “Introduction to civil engineering”

were not very satisfied with the teaching

effectiveness. The results revealed that the traditional

course design could not arouse students’ learning

motivation and failed to fit the students’ initial

expectations for the course. Moreover, students did

not realize how to apply knowledge and skills learned

from the course neither to their daily life nor to the

civil engineering industry. In the past, instructors

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always laid stress on transmitting professional

knowledge to students (see Figure 1) and neglected to

cultivate students’ extended skills and positive

attitudes to face technical innovation and social

change in the future world.

In view of the influence of diversity on the

roles of engineers, engineering education should be

adjusted to face the global trend. In responding to the

urgency of education reform, we redesigned the

introductory course of "Introduction to Civil

Engineering" in 2010 fall, from being

instructor-centered and knowledge-focused to having

student-centered and application-focused orientations

(see Figure 1 and Figure 2), in order to train students

to become active, imaginative, optimistic, hopeful,

collaborative and ethics-focused engineers in the

future. In addition, we divided the 120 students into

three classes to promote students’ concentration and

ensure learning quality. Previous surveys pointed out

that the monotonous lectures could not initiate

students’ interests; therefore, we split the curriculum

into six sections: lectures, in-class discussion, oral

presentation, guest speakers, assignments, and final

project. In the following paragraphs, we illustrate

each section and its purpose in detail.

Lectures (emphasizing inspiration)

We designed “lectures” to enlighten students’

inspiration through introducing four famous

engineering cases, such as the Sydney Opera House,

Yuan-Shan-Tzu flood diversion, Golden Gate Bridge,

and the Taiwan high speed rail. The teaching

direction on this section is very different from the

past. “Transmitting knowledge through lecture does

not guarantee students’ comprehension or their ability

to apply it or do analysis based on it” (Sheppard,

Macatangay, Colby, & Sullivan, 2009). Instead of

teaching abstruse knowledge about engineering, we

placed emphasis on describing the characteristics of

engineers and the challenges occurred during the

constructing process to train students’

problem-solving capacities. In this way, students can

learn professional knowledge and understand specific

concepts in various fields in Civil Engineering by

listening to interesting stories and studying the

backgrounds. For example, the case of Sydney Opera

House guided students to learn about structural

engineering (SE), construction engineering and

management (CEM), computer-aided engineering

(CAE), whereas the case of Yuan-Shan-Tzu flood

diversion taught students about hydraulic engineering

(HE), geotechnical engineering (GE), structural

engineering (SE), and computer-aided engineering

(CAE) (see Table 1).

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Guest speakers

We invited eight professionals in total to share

their valuable experiences of the civil engineering

industry with students in order to broaden their

professional horizons and let them distinguish

between academic and industrial fields. In addition,

guest speakers would make comments and provide

suggestions on students’ in-class discussion. Guest

speakers can consolidate students’ professional

knowledge and help them comprehend how to apply

professional skills to their relative fields; when

students enter this industry, they will be much

prepared. In comparison with the knowledge-focused

lectures presented by instructors, the teaching

direction of guest speakers is application focused

(See Figure 2). These two sections can complement

each other; that is, learning is a process of integrating

both knowledge absorption and applications.

In-class discussion

Engineering work is a highly collaborative

process (Bucciarelli, 1996). Today’s complex

engineering systems require the collaborative effort

of experts, and both engineers and non-engineers

across multiple fields (Sheppard, Macatangay, Colby,

& Sullivan, 2009). Therefore, the training of

collaboration skills is very important. Each class,

students were asked to accomplish one task with their

group partners in class. The engineer also needs

“creativity,” described as the ability to respond to

challenges by combining in new ways “a broader

range of interdisciplinary knowledge and a greater

focus on systemic constructs and outcomes”

(Sheppard, Macatangay, Colby, & Sullivan, 2009). In

order to discipline students’ collaboration and

imagination, instructors ask them to give free rein to

their imagination and existing knowledge to solve

one open-ended problem, such as imagining and

depicting a construction in 2060, finding solutions to

resolve the flood problem in a residential area,

playing different roles to coordinate one kind of

connection way between two islands, and building up

a global transportation network (see Table 1). When

instructors ask students to imagine and depict the

construction in 2060, they have to imagine the

appearance, structures, and building materials of one

kind of construction, such as an airport, library (see

Figure 3), wedding hall or shopping mall and finally

draw it on white paper. They can select one topic

within their preference and imagine all possibilities

without any limitations during the designing process.

We hope students’ collaboration and imagination will

increase through the training of this section.

Figure 3 the library in 2060.

Oral presentation

Being an engineer, there are many

opportunities to work and communicate with people

from various nations or fields. It is a paramount aim

for future engineers to learn presentation skills.

Because the world of engineering intersects with the

worlds of business, law, economics, finance, politics,

and most fields within today’s global marketplace, it

is necessary for engineers to develop communication

skills that strengthen their performance within the

complex arena of the 21-st century workplace

(Galloway, 2008). In order to train students’ oral

presentation skills, good manners and politeness,

instructors requested students to keep a formal

attitude and to present their ideas in three minutes

after group discussion. Students can practice how to

express their thoughts clearly and distinctly within a

limited amount of time through the training of this

section.

Assignments

Assignments were designed as milestones to

help students carry out the final project step by step.

Instructors assigned homework to students after each

class and required them to complete it as a team.

Students have to communicate and collaborate with

their group partners and draw on their observations,

life experience, actions, and imagination to fulfill the

task. Assignments can enhance students’ observation,

collaboration, responsibility, imagination, and

planning ability.

Final project

Future engineers will need design skills, as

well as analytical skills (NAE, 2005). Instructors

mapped out a design project for the end of the

semester. Students were required to select two

buildings in the campus and design a pathway to link

them. They can link two buildings with any existing,

revolutionary, imaginative, or pioneering means,

without any restrictions. The purpose of this final

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project is to give the first-year students a design

experience before gaining substantial professional

knowledge. In addition, students were requested to

use 3D computer graphics software learned from the

course of “Engineering Graphics” and to operate the

surveying instruments learned in the course of

“Surveying Practice” to assist them in accomplishing

the final project (see figure 2). The interdisciplinary

design featured in the final project in this course is

rare in Taiwan. Finishing the project through

interdisciplinary and integrated knowledge is a great

challenge for students because they lack such

integrated capacities under their long-term traditional

education. To arouse their interests in the final project,

instructors asked students to prepare a poster to join a

competition (See Figure 4). Five experts would be

invited to make a critical examination and appraisal

of students’ posters. Students can learn professional

skills and applications at the same time through the

final project.

Discussion

According to the results of midterm and final

evaluations, we found that 82% of students liked the

redesigned program; however, they also indicated

that the final project occupied too much time and thus

affected their performance in other subjects (see

Figure 5). To improve this shortcoming, we can

strengthen the cooperation of three introductory

courses: introduction of civil engineering,

engineering graphics and surveying practice. For

example, we can arrange some joint assignments

among these courses to reduce students’ loadings or

modify the deadline for submitting the final project.

Although students have to spend much time finishing

the final project, based on their feedback, it is

beneficial for their learning. When they become

senior students, they can select to study capstone

courses to practice how to settle real problems with

their professional knowledge. Therefore, giving

freshmen a design experience is helpful to advance

learning. In the following years, we can track

students' performance to see if their learning effect is

better than students without any design experience

during freshman year in college.

Conclusion

Pursuit of a high score is a very common

phenomenon in Taiwan. Many students only care

about scores and do not appreciate what they gain in

the process. Traditional education places too much

emphasis on knowledge absorption, which is not

sufficient for the field of civil engineering. We

redesigned the introductory course to reflect

students-centered and application-focused

orientations and attempted to increase students’

learning motivation, collaboration, imagination and

other useful abilities. Even though students’

satisfaction on the reengineered course looks better

Figure 4 final project: a poster designed with 3D computer

graphics software

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than the traditional training model, there are still

some shortcomings that need to be improved within

the next year. We hope students can be global and

new generation engineers in the future. Thus, we

should reform the educational system with the times

but not stop at the beginning, fearing change. To sum

up, we can educate students in this way, but still have

to go on modifying the educational model with the

global trend.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the National Science

Council for supporting Shih-Chung Kang through

grant number 98-2511-S-002-008-MY2. We are

grateful to Prof. Liang-Jenq Leu, Prof. Herve Capart,

Prof. Shang-Hsien Hsieh, Prof. Jen-Yu Han, Prof.

Hsiou-Huai Wang for their inputs on this project. In

addition, special thanks go to Pei-Fen Leong, Hsin-I

Chu, and Department of Civil Engineering at

National Taiwan University for providing assistance

during the phases of course preparation and data

collecting. Finally, this work would not to be

published without many helpful suggestions from the

reviewers.

References

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