General Engineering Introduction/ASEE Paper

ASEE is the American Society for Engineering Education. This is a paper being written for presentation at a meeting Oct. 30, 2011 at Temple University. Engineers do it First Abstract “Introduction to Engineering” courses introduce a university's unique programs, projects and tools. Ethics and privileges such as 24 hour by 7 access to tools, materials and rooms are negotiated. Community Colleges don't have the resources, graders, graduate assistants, and multiple professors teaching the course. This paper lists the problems of teaching “Introduction to Engineering” at a Community College. It argues that truly open ended projects can be taught to freshman. It proposes an external assessment process as well as internal grading system. It is inspired by DIY, maker/hacker spaces, wikibooks, and wikiversity. It starts from a new narrative of playing, doing things first, design and problem solving. “Introduction to Engineering” is where students learn “Engineers do it First.” Outline /Fear/ /Narrative Problem/ /Freshman Problem/ /Open Ended Project Problem/ /Course Management Problem/ /Internal Grading/ /External Assessment/ /What's Next?/