Mechanisms For Implementing Service Learning: Analysis Of Efforts In A Senior Product Design Class In Mechanical Engineering

Interest in applying and studying service learning in engineering courses is increasing due to both the experiential learning and values-based approach it offers. Integration of service learning into a required senior-level mechanical engineering product design class was undertaken and the cognitive and social effects of the pedagogy were studied through use of a pre-post survey tool. In this paper, we focus on the results of three main questions for study: 1) whether students’ perceptions of their ability in various engineering skills changed over the course of the class, 2) whether students’ perceptions of career goals changed over time, and 3) whether students’ interest in community service changed over the course of the class. Results indicate that students perceived learning gains in key product design areas such as ability to design new products, creativity, and problem solving, and some differential effects were found for women. Students, particularly minorities, also increased their orientation toward a service approach, changing their professional aspirations away from consulting and medicine to more innovative product development work and graduate research while increasing their overall interest in community service and their beliefs about engineers’ social responsibility. Introduction Service learning is a form of experiential education designed to enhance learning and provide practical outcomes through the integration of academically appropriate community service projects into coursework. In contrast to general experiential learning models, service learning adds the key benefit of directly connecting active learning with a social context. Service learning helps students to understand civic responsibilities and the application of technical skills to local and global contexts that they would not typically experience while at university or in the general job market once they graduate. Academic and industry leaders have emphasized the need for engineering students to develop core competencies in creative problem solving, group skills, design skills, and global awareness, such that engineers become an integral part of the leadership in setting public policy, industry, and corporate agenda 1, 2 . Educating engineers who not only excel technically but who are also ethical, socially aware, and globally sophisticated is a major challenge for today’s engineering schools. Service learning theory and practice provides a model for influencing such positive social and cognitive change by providing students with a learning environment in which to think about the larger context of their education as well as their role as members of society. The conceptual and empirical support that learning theory provides for service learning 3, 4 and the P ge 10932.1 Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Education fact that engineering programs using service learning indicate quite positive results 5, 6, 7 are compelling reasons to further integrate and study this pedagogy. Like other engineering schools, MIT strives to balance advanced specialized learning and research with general professional and human development. As ABET guidelines suggest , professionals in engineering and other technical disciplines should not only be domain experts but also skilled communicators proficient at understanding and dealing with global issues, ethical challenges, and complex problem-solving. MIT’s service learning program was created to help educate students in real-world contexts that enable them to experience and master these areas within and beyond a subject domain. In this work, we will describe the efforts of MIT’s service learning program with respect to one particular class: Product Engineering Processes, better known at MIT as 2.009. 2.009: Product Engineering Processes 2.009 is a one semester course, offered once a year in the fall term and is the required seniorlevel product design class in the mechanical engineering department (ME) at MIT. The class is project based, and as such, the focus is on applied engineering work, where students develop analytical, technical, and people skills, and practice applying them to real world situations. Students are required to work in large teams on a complex design problem, in which they go from generating ideas for new products, to concept development, to detailing and building a working prototype. Team projects therefore are the key component through which students acquire and apply technical and managerial skills to design, build, install, test, and improve a complex product. 2.009 provides students the opportunity to develop a broad understanding of the product development process and the steps and methods required for each part of the process. Teams of 16-18 students, work with a budget of approximately $6,500 per team, to design a new product and finally to build a working alpha prototype. 2.009 is based on extensive lab participation and out-of-class preparation in groups and as individuals, and is perceived to be one of the most demanding classes in the ME curriculum from the perspective of both the instructors and the students. Given the complexity and scope of the assignment, students are provided intense mentoring and guidance through lectures, labs, individual meetings with faculty mentors, and a detailed website, <http://web.mit.edu/2.009>, that is updated almost daily during the semester. The class is structured to guide students to focus systematically on an appropriate design concept over the course of the semester. ! All students are first randomly split into teams within recitation schedule constraints, but selection into teams is controlled using certain criteria: i.e., all teams have approximately the same make-up by gender and ethnicity. In addition, pre-existing affiliate groups (such as living groups) that can significantly change team dynamics are not allowed to self-select into the same team. ! Each of the teams is randomly split into sub-teams, allowing students to develop partnerships with a smaller band of teammates and creating conditions for within-team competition. Subteams each come-up with, develop, and refine different product ideas over the course of the semester. After honing a range of product ideas down to one refined design, sub-teams merge and work together to create the final alpha prototype. P ge 10932.2 Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Education Pictures 1-3, Initial process steps for the