Longitudinal Integration of Problem Based Learning Into Undergraduate Mechanical Engineering Courses

Abstract

Problem-based learning (PBL) has long been recognized as an effective way to engage students in active learning. Problems are those students will finally encounter in their professional lives. Incorporating PBL into undergraduate education can motivate students to acquire knowledge and skills by tackling problems and not just to pass exams. In engineering, a common form of PBL is through course projects. Students work in teams to explore real-world problems and make presentations to share what they have learned. In practice, however, it often becomes a challenge to fully exploit the benefits of PBL in a single course because of the time constraints enforced in the curriculum. This paper describes an educational experience to longitudinally integrate PBL into several upper-division mechanical engineering courses. The goal of this PBL experimentation is to let students thoroughly research and study different aspects of a real-world problem. This is achieved by modularizing the problem and embedding the PBL modules into a series of courses. A case study will be presented to exemplify the use of modularized PBL to help cumulatively develop students’ capability in mechanical system modeling, simulation, analysis and design through several courses. The students involved are mechanical engineering undergraduates that are taking engineering analysis, dynamic systems, and computer-aided engineering courses. To conclude, student feedback and discussions on assessment strategies will be given. The modularized PBL can be a good way to mirror industrial practice in real-world engineering problem solving and to enrich students learning experience.