Improving Student Readiness for InquiryBased Learning: An Engineering Case Study During the past decade, the authors have sought to advance student research in a predominantly teaching institution. The two primary challenges were: academic  how to introduce and promote inquirybased learning (IBL) given the constraints, and business  how to obtain and sustain funding in the area of industrysponsored research. The authors developed a successful multidisciplinary modeling course that integrates four teaching and learning strategies and where key learning outcomes strengthen student readiness to engage in research. The course culminates with research performed as part of an IBL strategy that is relevant and supported by mentoring. The benefits include development of intellectual and practical skills that underlie a central activity of engineering design. The course structure, evidence of student work, and evolution over time to meet challenges are presented and discussed. Most importantly, the potential of this strategy to be implemented across other topical areas is addressed. Student participation in research improves learning of engineering and scientific concepts, increases interaction with faculty and industry sponsors, and provides opportunities for work in emerging technology areas. Benefits accrue both to students who pursue a research career and to those who enter applied fields by strengthening their ability to propose innovative solutions.

Examples of Applying ResearchBased Learning Principles to the Redesign of an Environmental Geotechnics Course This paper offers detailed examples of how researchbased learning principles can be translated into the instructional decisions involved in designing an engineering course. The redesign of the specific course on environmental geotechnics was prompted by transforming a lecturebased course to an online version. The implemented changes are compatible with research findings on learning, which are distilled in the literature in the form of the learning principles reviewed herein. For presentation purposes, the changes are grouped in two main categories: logistical changes, i.e. modifications mainly imposed by the constraints of online study, and pedagogical changes, i.e. changes not related to the learning medium. Examples of implemented modifications are given in the body of the paper and in the Supplement. In most cases, the initial motivation for a change was not to achieve compatibility with results of research on learning. Rather, the intended overarching aim was to make transparent the major decisions involved in course design. As far as the paper is concerned, its ultimate goal is to engage engineering instructors in contributing to communal teaching resources. Its immediate goal is to make explicit the relationship between good instructional practices and the research evidence that supports them through a variety of examples. In the process of so doing, the paper identified the research need to record how domain experts understand foundational domain concepts in a way suitable for use in instruction.