Lessons learned from the first round of course assessments after curriculum restructure based on ASCE BOK2
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American Society for Engineering Education, 2018. Texas A & M University's civil engineering department undertook a curriculum project based on concerns of conceptual gaps and redundancies in the degree program and a desire to holistically incorporate the outcomes from the American Society of Civil Engineer's (ASCE) Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge for the 21st Century: Preparing the Civil Engineer for the Future, 2nd Edition (BOK2). The process resulted in a comprehensive curriculum map, where each program learning outcome is explicitly connected to courses in the curriculum at one of three levels: "I" for when outcome is first introduced, "R" when outcome is being reinforced, and "D" when outcome is demonstrated and subject to a summative assessment. Based on the identified course program learning outcomes, individual course worksheets were developed to identify what student work-products, such as homework assignments or exams, would be collected to assess each outcome. This paper will discuss the assessment process used for the curriculum as a whole and for individual courses (including its place in the ABET continuous improvement criterion), the specific lessons learned after the first 3 years of implementation, the changes to be made for the next 3 year cycle, and conclusions on how these experiences may be transferred to other programs. A mixed-methods approach is used to evaluate this first cycle of implementation and assessment, include comparing expected vs. actual/measured: (a) courses evaluated in a given semester; (b) student artifacts; and (c) program learning outcomes.
