2006 ASEE Southeast Section Conference Project-Based Learning in Engineering Design and Graphical Communication

Abstract – Retention of engineering students from the freshmen year to the sophomore year is a concern of many engineering institutions. Also of concern is the ability of students to take knowledge learned in one application and transfer it to another application. To address these issues the Engineering program at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) has recently redesigned its freshmen Introduction to Engineering Design course (IED) to excite students to independently learn, to create an environment for peer learning, to increase student in-class and out of class participation, and to emphasize and connect the role of graphical communication in the design process. It is believed that these objectives are instrumental for exciting students about engineering, for increasing student retention, for motivating learning, and fo