Integrated Curriculum Enhances Engineering, Math, Science Instruction: New high-tech classroom facilitates teamwork, active learning

By John Fedele

The gymnasium in the Gardener Steel Conference Center was gutted to construct Pitt’s newest high-tech classroom (above) and adjacent study areas, all designed to support the shift to active learning and to help create a better sense of belonging for students.

The latest symbol of the shift to active learning in Pitt’s School of Engineering (SOE)—and in other math and science fields at the University—is in the newly renovated integrated curriculum classroom and study center in the Gardener Steel Conference Center.

Like its sister high-tech classrooms in SOE, this latest classroom is built to facilitate teamwork: Each table has two workstations with separate computers and enough room to accommodate a pair of three-student teams.

The instructor’s desk has another computer, with master controls to display his or her screen or any of the student teams’ screens on one of two projection screens.

An electronic white board replaces the dusty chalkboards of previous generations, and a high-tech docking camera—with resolution so fine students can see the scratches on the face of a watch—replaces the old overhead projector.

In addition to projecting the contents of a computer display, the video screens also are connected to a VCR and DVD player so that instructors can use those formats for lessons, as well.

The renovations go beyond the physical improvements to the room, as students entering the classroom pass through a brightly painted lounge and study area that will be staffed with tutors and individual study carrels.

Funding for the renovations came from SOE and the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), which will share the classroom.

But the integrated curriculum and high-tech classroom are only small parts of the pedagogical shift to active learning that SOE has been undertaking over the past three years, according to Dan Budny, associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and academic director of Freshman Programs, who is one of the architects of the program. And that shift has begun to spread to other academic departments, as well.

Three years ago, Budny, with SOE faculty members Rainer Johnsen, professor of physics and astronomy; Leonard Kogut, senior lecturer of chemistry; and George Sparling, associate professor of mathematics, were honored by the Carnegie Science Center for developing the pilot program for the integrated curriculum. 

That program exposed 40 freshman engineering students to the new pedagogical approach, which is now being adopted throughout SOE, the math department, and in many of the science classes in CAS.

“What we’re creating is a student-centered learning environment,” said Budny. “It’s more than just a new way of teaching. We’re creating a sense of belonging, a sense of family, with the student teams, with our counseling, and with our mentoring program in which freshmen meet with upperclassmen once a week. Even the new study carrels in the Gardener Center are designed to facilitate interaction.”

The change from the lecture-based instruction of the past is the result of recommendations made by the National Science Foundation, which advocates active learning: hands-on, experiential lessons, often working on real-world problems in teams as the optimal way to encourage learning in mathematics, science, and engineering. The integrated curriculum was put in place to coordinate the mathematics, chemistry, physics, and computer science courses that freshman engineering students take to fulfill core requirements. 

The results of the changes are dramatic.

“Larry Schuman, associate dean for engineering, has data on the first students to go through the active learning program, and not only are their grades up, but the students are retaining more of the information they’ve learned, almost to the point that they are on the level of students in the Honors College,” said Budny.

According to Faculty and College of Arts and Sciences (FCAS) Associate Dean Richard Howe, the new computerized classroom is representative of FCAS’ commitment to provide quality instruction for all students on the Pittsburgh campus who take FAS/CAS courses.

Thanks to the financial support of the Provost’s office, this new computerized classroom fulfills an FCAS promise to support the new Integrated Engineering Curriculum by providing a state-of-the-art interactive classroom for the benefit of those freshman engineering students who register for chemistry, physics, and mathematics.

The specialized facility also will be available for other FCAS instructors who can demonstrate a need to use the special interactive computerized student stations as part of their courses.