Hands-On Modules for First-Year Civil Engineering Students

Student engagement and retention in first-year engineering courses are typically challenging. Many engineering programs offer a general "Introduction to Engineering" course for first-year students, and designing interactive and engaging modules for such courses is essential for retention. We present several new modules for hands-on learning that would be excellent additions to an Introduction to Engineering course. The goal of these modules was for students to gain a qualitative understanding of the basic theoretical concepts relevant to several subdisciplines of civil engineering, including structural, environmental, geotechnical, and transportation. This paper describes the modules in detail and summarizes student feedback and retention data. This paper is a work-in-progress that will continue until the students graduate.