Improve Technical Communication Using Scaffolding Method in Mechanical Engineering Courses

Abstract One of the most effective and well documented ways, throughout literary sources, to educate and develop capable and independent professionals such as engineers combines lecture sessions with step-by-step synergistic activities (experiments and reports). Therefore, many engineering educators are seeking experiential learning techniques and implementations that are innovative to assist students understand, exercise, and communicate engineering concepts they learned. Although project-based learning allows students to be able to deduce and apply concepts effectively, students continue to struggle to communicate their work and results effectively from such experiential learning and other projects. Thus, to overcome the deficiencies in writing skills such as poor grammar and formatting, and effective literature review in reports, an instructional scaffolding plan has been developed and implemented in two junior level courses in parallel (Mechanical System Design and Thermal Fluid Laboratory course). The scaffold activities include incremental class activities and assignments as well as access to support resources. The scaffolding activities in the instructional plan will allow students to develop confidence from completing shorter and targeted assignments successfully earlier in the semester as they build their report for more complex and involve analysis and writing activities over the semester. The initially collected data for the two courses show above average performance based on student surveys before and after the scaffolding activities. This reflects an indirect assessment where students share their opinion of themselves. The collected data on direct assessment shows incremental improvement in performance of students based on relevant assignments completed in the courses. Additional assessments will be conducted in future offerings as well as other courses including Dynamics of Machinery, Measurement and Instrumentation, and System Dynamics and Control as part of an ongoing study. Although these are preliminary findings, such pedagogical technique has the potential to enhance the student learning experience and develop mindset to continue their life-long learning in their professional careers.