MODEL ACTIVITIES FOR COORDINATING CORE ENGINEERING COURSES

The United States Coast Guard Academy (USCGA) is a small undergraduate institution of approximately 1000 cadets with eight majors.The four engineering majors require students to take basic engineering courses such as Statics, Mechanics of Materials, and Dynamics.These courses are offered in multiple sections in a given semester and serve as the gateway to a career in engineering.A coordination system is employed at the academy for each service basic engineering course in order to ensure uniformity in multiple sections.Importance is placed on uniformity, which has successfully been achieved through activities including frequent faculty communications using a variety of media, standardized exams and grading across all sections, inclass demonstrations, and feedback to assess coverage.A course coordinator, typically a faculty member who has taught the course before, is selected to champion this effort.It is the course coordinator's responsibility to ensure that the same material is presented and assigned in all sections.The duties of the course coordinator in consultation with other instructors includes the selection of a textbook, review of previous course materials, revision of course objectives, development and update the syllabus, assignment of homework, development of quizzes, preparation of handouts, coordination of exam development and grading, coordination of faculty resources for tutoring and review sessions, chair end of course review, and development of statistical assessment data.In this paper, the authors present the course coordination model used at the USCGA using the Mechanics of Materials course as an example.Activities that have been proven to ensure uniformity amongst multiple sections, effective communication between instructors, and teaching practices that enhance student learning are also discussed.