Effective use of integrated lecture and lab to teach civil engineering materials

The civil engineering (CE) materials course along with the other courses in the U.A. Whitaker School of Engineering (WSOE) at Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) is taught in an integrated lecture lab style. In this non-traditional setting, instructors use an integrated, active, and collaborative instructional technique. Also, unlike many other universities, there is not a separate time slot allocated in the schedule to conduct the laboratory experiments for this CE materials course. Instead, the lab is embedded into the course structure. Although it has been documented in the literature that this technique represents effective teaching pedagogy only a few engineering programs have adopted this method. In addition, the WSOE is only in its third year since students were first admitted into the engineering program as freshman. The CE materials course, which is taught to juniors, was offered for the first time this year. To ensure that student learning is maintained, the authors used a comparative approach with a CE instructor at Rowan University. Both instructors, one at FGCU and one at Rowan, used a similar syllabus, test structure and content, and student laboratory report assignments in their classes. Furthermore, a lecture from FGCU was recorded and viewed at Rowan to determine how other students reacted to the new technique. One laboratory report, which was graded by both instructors, was selected along with a student survey and selected assignments to assess the effectiveness of the new technique in the CE materials course at FGCU. The information presented in this paper could be used as an evaluation benchmark for other courses in the engineering program at FGCU. Also, schools in primarily teaching institutions could use the lecture lab technique to increase student participation and improve student learning in engineering courses.