The Introductory Materials Science and Engineering Course
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The Introductory Materials Science and Engineering Course
William D. Callister, Jr. Department of Metallurgical Engineering University of Utah 2419 East 3510 South Salt Lake City, UT 84109, U.S.A. ABSTRACT The introductory materials science and engineering course offered at the college/university level is, for many instructors, very difficult to design and to teach. This presentation discusses challenges for the course, as well as several problematic issues to include: course content, course organization, and course mechanics. The results of two surveys of engineering faculty are presented and discussed; these provide perspectives and lead to suggestions on how to manage these troublesome areas, and improve the quality of and student satisfaction in this course. Also discussed are commercially available software packages, and, in addition, a hybrid electronic-paper introductory materials textbook.
INTRODUCTION One of the most pressing challenges for undergraduate education in the discipline of materials science and engineering is the teaching of introductory courses. The majority (about 85%) of introductory courses are of one semester/quarter duration, and there is the perceived expectation that all of materials science and engineering should and can be “covered.” This situation is something akin to having, say, a single introductory mechanical engineering course that presents the fundamentals of statics, dynamics, strengths of materials, thermodynamics, etc. It has been the author’s experience that there is considerable student dissatisfaction in a high proportion of these introductory courses. Common complaints include: “the instructor rushes through the subject matter too rapidly;” “the course is not interesting;” “I don’t see any relevance to what I’m supposed to learn in this course;” and “the instructor is very disorganized.” Consequently, one of the ongoing struggles for MSE departments is deciding what can and should be done to improve course quality and enhance student satisfaction. A variety of scenarios have played out as MSE departments confront this ongoing problem. In some instances the introductory course is a service course for non-MSE majors. And when student dissatisfaction is rampant, other departments opt to design and teach their own courses. This situation, of course, may have adverse funding consequences to the MSE department. On other occasions, the MSE department assigns one of its weaker instructors to the service course (perhaps as a punishment, and/or to reduce this instructor’s exposure to its own MSE students). There are several elements of the class and subject matter in the introductory course that make it difficult to teach; these include the following: (1) Inhomogeneity of class composition—student major and class standing. (2) The number of MSE topics is overwhelming. (3) Course content—including the dilemma of breadth-versus-depth coverage.
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(4) Course organization. (5) Mechanics of course management—generating student interest and providing relevance. This pa
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