New Perspectives in Science Education

Active learning (AL) methodologies have created a strong wave of activities to improve teaching and learning of science and engineering. Although reported results on AL are often positive and the notion of learning by doing is generally accepted as being effective, traditional classroom lecture continues to be the dominant teaching practice. A noteworthy concern with AL is the fact that content delivered usually is not as comprehensive as a traditional lecture. Since content reduction is usually a sensitive issue—arguably for several good reasons, it creates a roadblock to its systemic implementation. At California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA) a team of engineering faculty designed and implemented an integrated sophomore-year curriculum called SUCCEEd to overcome this limitation of AL. SUCCEEd was designed to transform the so called traditional student learning experience into series of team-developed and team-implemented curriculum integrated across courses. For example, students learn programming by developing solutions to statics problems, analyse moment/shear diagrams of 3D-modeled beams in the CAD class, and apply competencies learned in statistics to strength of materials lab data. The integration allowed students to have hands-on experience by applying the theory learned in one course into practice in another course. Student achievement and other factors that may contribute to student success in the program were assessed as a part of the SUCCEEd program. Achievement was measured via students’ grades, tests and quizzes results, and project results. The college self-efficacy (CSE), which refers to the students’ belief that they can succeed in college, was also measured. Results of these metrics indicates that the program is formative although the project has been fully implemented only for one year. These data will be tracked over time and will assess the program’s efficacy, both formatively and summatively. The paper presents a reflection on the goals, achievements, and areas of improvement for the program.