Scaffolding in Introductory Engineering Courses

IntroductionIFEM classes, which include statics of engineering, mechanics of materials, dynamics, and mechanics of fluids are essential components of many engineering disciplines (Steif & Dollar, 2008). This study is an evaluation of a new paradigm incorporating a pedagogical reform that was performed over a period of six years at Iowa State University (ISU) in its College of Engineering. The focus of the new paradigm was on using student-centered and scaffolding learning approaches to promote better understanding of conceptual fundamental knowledge for students and to see whether there were significant predictors in student performance from an upstream class (statics of engineering) to a downstream class (mechanics of materials) in the same sequence.For many decades now, engineering education has heard some loud discussions of a new learning paradigm, which involve learning-centered community in classrooms, transformational faculty development, and institutional change (Mayer et al., 2012). These discussions are centered around two popular paradigms-teachercentered learning and student-centered learning (Huba & Freed, 2000). The teacher-centered paradigm involves knowledge transmission from teacher to students who passively receive information. In the teacher-centered paradigm, assessments are used to monitor learning with an emphasis on getting the correct answer and the learning culture is competitive and individualistic. These features are contrasted by the student-centered paradigm, which actively involves students in constructing knowledge. The student-centered method emphasizes generating questions, learning from errors, and assessments that are used to diagnose and promote learning. The student-centered culture is cooperative, collaborative, and supportive-wherein both the students and instructor learn (Huba & Freed, 2000). For many decades experiments on a new paradigm involving learning-centered community have been numerously performed, however none in the size and scope of this study. The authors wish to demonstrate and replicate the positive effectiveness of scaffolding in small classes by demonstrating it over 6 years, involving thousands of students.This quantitative study was designed to explore variables affecting student academic success, with the hope of effectively investigating the most fruitful way to teach IFEM courses, and to determine whether an experimental pedagogy class centered on scaffolding and cooperative learning pedagogies is a strong predictor of student performance. The variables included demographic characteristics and grades earned in two classes-the upstream class (statics of engineering) and the downstream class (mechanics of materials). This study was conducted using data over a period of 6 years, from 2007 to 2013, in both statics of engineering (EM 274) and mechanics of materials (EM 324) at Iowa State University from multiple instructors teaching multiple sections.In the past, statics of engineering has often been taught in a traditional lecture and note-taking approach. This study echoes the works of others in the field of engineering education and makes use of student-centered learning in statics of engineering (Benson, Orr, Biggers, Moss, Ohland, & Schiff, 2010). The key element of this study is the use of active and cooperative engagements in class.Literature ReviewScaffolding in TeachingThe concept of scaffolding in recent years has become the topic of much discussion and the focus of new research in engineering education. Researchers and educators (Mayer et al., 2012; Schmidt, Loyens, Van Gog, & Paas, 2007) are beginning to take a new perspective to understand the nature and the importance of scaffolding and how it ties with student-centered learning. Scaffolding refers to the "learning supports and aids put in place to allow students to more easily come to grips with new course material that would otherwise be too complex to readily understand" (Putnam, O'Donnell, & Bertozzi, 2010, p. …