Instructional Assistant

Abstract

Engineering 100 is an introductory engineering course required to complete a Bachelor of Science and Engineering degree at the University of Michigan. It is intended to be taken during students’ first year at Michigan and aims to introduce students to the engineering design process, communication using written technical reports and oral presentations, and teamwork and team management. Roughly a dozen sections are offered each year, with each focusing on a specific design problem in various engineering fields. Engineering 100-950 was first introduced in Fall 2016 and leads students through the development of a sensor package to be used in high altitude weather balloons. Section 950 is among the most popular Engineering 100 sections and well received by a majority of its students. Developing and constructing a functioning sensor package requires students to work with upper-level electrical, computer, and climate engineering concepts and gives students valuable technical experience that can be applied in later coursework, project teams, or internships. Analyzing and communicating the impact of laboratory tests and real-world data prepares students for technical writing that they will be responsible for producing over the course of their engineering careers. And the opportunity to launch a high altitude weather balloon is an exciting and unique experience that can help define their first year in Michigan Engineering. Although the class is well functioning and well received in its current state , it has been criticized for its perceived overemphasis on technical materials and lack of student oriented design work. In order to address this concern, we plan on shifting lab emphasis from field-specific technical experience to generalizable design experience. This will require increased integration between the engineering and technical communication aspects of the course. There are also unrelated concerns about the institutional knowledge held by current and previous instructors. Since its creation in 2016, there has been a continuous line of Instructional Assistants that have been able to easily pass institutional knowledge down to maintain the course. Covid-19 has disrupted this flow of information and an additional aspect of my project will be to provide thorough documentation and instruction to future IAs to help the class succeed in future semesters.