Technology supported learning applied to an innovative, integrated curriculum for first-year engineering majors

In September of 1998, the College of Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth piloted an innovative, integrated, first year curriculum. It dramatically changed 31 credits across two semesters. Preliminary assessment data was very encouraging after the first semester of operation and the college of engineering adopted a modified program for most freshman, engineering students in the Fall of 1999. The paper outlines teaching and learning pedagogy and technology strategies that brought the new curriculum efficiently into being and helped to assure its success. The new program at UMD includes: integrating the introductory sequences in physics, calculus, and engineering; teaching and using teamwork among students and faculty using a specially designed technology oriented studio classroom; using active and cooperative learning methods; encouraging formation of a learning community of students by block-scheduling classes and grouping students in dorms; reducing the cost of delivering courses by making more efficient use of instructional time; using careful assessment to evaluate performance. The paper outlines the curriculum, teaching methodology, innovative technologies used in the new integrated curriculum and program assessment.