A project-based pedagogy for first year college students in Imaging Science

The Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science (CIS) at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) has completely abandoned its traditional lecture-based pedagogy for incoming freshmen, and in its place implemented a radically different project-based curriculum for all first year students. With this new approach, all first year students work together as a single integrated multidisciplinary team for a full academic year to design, develop, build, and test a unique, fully functional imaging system. The goal in implementing this approach is to provide the students with a foundational experience that is more relevant, more engaging, more challenging, and more motivating than the pedagogy that has been used to date. If successful, the impact of this approach on undergraduate STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education could be transformational. It could change long-held perceptions about the abilities of first year students, and could lead to a new understanding of the role of faculty in technical undergraduate degree programs.