Teaching a Materials Science Course Within Project-Based Learning Integrated Engineering: A Comparison of Three Approaches

The Iron Range Engineering (IRE), Twin Cities Engineering (TCE), and IRE-Bell Engineering (Bell) programs are project-based learning programs within a department of integrated engineering at a U.S. Midwestern university. In addition to Design and Professionalism courses, the junior and senior students in these programs take 1-credit Technical competency courses, with the goal of integrating knowledge and skills across the three types of courses. The Technical competency courses are built around Fundamental Principles of Engineering (FPs), and course content, assessment, and pedagogy are designed to support students' conceptual understanding of these FPs. One of the Technical competency courses common to all three programs is Materials Science. In this practice paper, the authors did a self-study to explore three approaches for teaching for conceptual understanding of materials science FPs within the larger project-based learning programs. The data sources included evaluations of course planning documents (e.g., syllabi, lesson plans), as well as discussions with the instructors to further clarify those documents. The three approaches were compared to identify common content and deliverables and also contrasted to find differences that are related to the varying needs of the students, instructors, and program contexts. The results of this self-study are relevant not only to instructors of introductory Materials Science courses but also instructors of other technical engineering courses.