A LAB TASK GROUP FOR REVIEW AND CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT OF THIRD AND FOURTH-YEAR LABORATORY COURSES

• Published in: Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA)
• Main Authors: Torvi, David, Noble, Scott, Bitner, Doug, Fauchoux, Melanie, Peace, Rob, Retzlaff, Rick, Oguocha, Ike, Reitenbach, Hayden
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 14.06.2021
• ISSN: 2371-5243; 2371-5243
• DOI: 10.24908/pceea.vi0.14836

Since the mid-1980’s, the mechanical engineering program at the University of Saskatchewan has included three core third and fourth-year lab courses, each of which consists of 9-10 individual labs. In 2015 a task group was set up to review these courses, including deliverables, scheduling and links to material in corecourses. Since this time, the task group has taken on the major responsibility for continuous improvement of the lab program, including reviewing student evaluations, making changes to labs, and recommending equipment purchases.  The task group has also been responsible for a major redesign of the lab program, which will improve delivery and scheduling of labs, alignment with core courses, workload of students, and experience gained by graduate teaching assistants. Smaller apparatus have been designed and built in-house to allow students to gain additional hands-on experience. Labs have been designed to build on one another in order to systematically improve students’ general laboratory skills, including the use of data acquisition systems and experimental design. This new approach was used for the first time in ME 328 in 2019-20.  This paper will focus primarily on the role of the task group in continuous improvement, and the lab program redesign.  The new ME 328 course is described, along with lessons learned from the first offering. The task group’s role in moving to remote labs during COVID-19 is also discussed.