Active Learning Enabled by Information Technology:
Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering

Dates

October 1999 — June 2003

Principal Investigators

Professor Dava Newman (Department of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering)
Professor Edward Crawley (Department of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering)

Goal

Empower students to take active roles in developing complex aerospace engineering systems.

Overview

Flight Simulator

Faculty throughout the aeronautical/astronautical curriculum are building upon Microsoft's Flight Simulator environment, developing add-ons intended to give students their own virtual aircraft and see how their design and modification ideas will affect flight performance. For example, modified gauges provide a moving target for students to track, and a second altitude needle, which oscillates at a specified frequency, helps measure pilot response and pilot-in-the-loop transfer functions. In the Air Traffic Control Subject, students have worked online with the virtual air traffic control community to simulate flying a Boeing 777 from Boston's Logan Airport to New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport, using full air traffic control procedures.

Simulation and active learning also play a large role in a freshman course, "Introduction to Aerospace Engineering and Design," which features a major project where student teams design, build, fly, and race radio-controlled lighter-than-air vehicles. Student design teams located at different universities interact and consult with remote experts via videoconferencing software, and sharpen their individual contributions to the team using surveys and journaling tools.

Active Learning

Faculty are transforming lectures to incorporate new techniques for active learning. The Unified Engineering subject is experimenting with Response-Response Systems, where lecturers pose questions to the class and students "buzz-in" their answers using remote control-like devices. The results are instantly tabulated and displayed on a projection screen, so both the instructor and the class can see if everyone is following along, or if the lecturer needs to go back over the presented material. Many of the learning modules make use of simulation. For instance students use Microsoft's Flight Simulator to monitor their own virtual aircraft to see how design modifications impact flight performance. They use interactive structures to learn to apply principles of structural design.

Conceive, Design, Implement, and Operate (CDIO)

To ensure the quality and proper composition of our educational programs, we have classified our educational objectives into an integrated framework:   Conceive, Design, Implement, and Operate (CDIO). All courses are classified into these four broad categories. This classification helps instructors to codify their educational objectives and fit into the overall educational objectives of the department. Based on the CDIO scheme, MIT as an educational institution can better allocate the new courses into a cohesive portfolio that delivers balanced education. For example, if the theories and practical knowledge on collaboratively conceiving and designing products were absent in the current curriculum, new courses would be developed to fill the void. Since developing new courses requires significant investment of resources and intellectual breakthrough, using this codified system allows educators to plan and organize strategic objectives of our engineering programs. Based on this principle, we have developed three courses specifically related to collaborative engineering. They are:   Multi-discipline System Optimization (course number 16.888), Space Systems Engineering (16.89), and Aircraft Systems Engineering (16.982).

More Project Details by the Principal Investigators

Introduction

The evolution of an engineering pedagogy depends on the use of the very tools it helped develop. The academic departments of MIT have proposed such an initiative aimed at improving engineering education through the development of computer based simulation, collaborative environments using information technology and integrating assessment at a variety of levels. It is our belief that Microsoft's partnership in the iCampus program ensures mutual benefits to both parties. We are working together to forge a new model of university-level engineering education, one that will develop professionals experienced in complex high-performance systems ready to engineer the future. The Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics has undertaken a new formulization of undergraduate education in the form of CDIO (Conception, Design, Implementation and Operation). Providing an integrated active learning program, enabled by information technology, CDIO aims at enhancing active learning through the development of simulation tools, active classrooms and collaborative environments.

Simulation

The behavior and performance of structures and their systems, the essential element of any sound engineering discipline, can be quickly grasped by students through the use of simulation models. The characteristic behavior of these models can be manipulated by simple changes of variables and boundary conditions. Such modifications to real-time simulations provide students with novel active learning experiences. Comparing their own predictions to those modeled by the interactive software, students conceptually grasp what may have once seemed overly obscure. Furthermore, the performance of the modeled system needs to be defined by the student and can be satisfied in different ways, in other words, the problems are open ended.

Distance Design Collaborative Environment

The historic design of the classroom, with a lecturer standing before an audience, has become a restrictive vestige of antiquated technology. Modern engineering is based on teamwork; modern engineering education, therefore, must also become collaborative. Presentations by topical experts greatly supplements basic course material while introducing students to unique points of view. Integration of IT to the conventional classroom facilitates such collaboration and creates the otherwise impossible opportunities for students in non-collocated design teams that span department, institutional and cultural differences. The collaborative environment can be utilized in allowing a continuous interaction amongst design teams irrespective of physical location. The IT based environment allows one to assess the effectiveness of collaboration and suggest improvements.

Active Classroom Learning

Our vision is a methodology, combined with supporting software, that improves the delivery of teaching in active learning settings, by aiding faculty in the management, authoring, and delivery of teaching materials tailored to the way students understand, and misunderstand, any given subject. By explicitly addressing the objectives of each educational activity while providing adaptive instructional materials to students, faculty members are able to optimize the use of class time during instruction. Student feedback (in both anonymous and acknowledged forms) ensures that the classroom is truly interactive.

Assessment is fully integrated in all elements of this interactive educational environment. Occurring at a variety of levels, assessments are made on the effectiveness of the IT based learning tools and software to the performance of students and how such novel educational techniques are influencing them.

Project Output

Publications

Akshay Sthapit "Object Oriented Approach to Structural Analysis," M.Sc. Thesis, February 2002.

Brodeur, D., Hall, S., Waitz, I., Crawley, E., Newman, D., "Active Learning," American Society of Engineering Education, National Conference, Albuquerque, NM, June, 2001.

Brodeur, D., Soderholm, D., Hall, S., Waitz, I., Crawley, E., Newman, D., Hansman, J. "Hands-On Learning," American Society of Engineering Education, National Conference, Albuquerque, NM, June, 2001.

Nolet, Simon, SALEH, Joe, QUALTERS, Donna, BRODEUR, Doris, NEWMAN, Dava. Microsoft I-Campus: Phase I Assessment, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, June 16, 2000, 58 pages.

Farnworth, Bruce. Architectural Framework to Support Integrated Concurrent Engineering in an Academic Institution, Master of Engineering Thesis, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, June 2000, 129 pages.

Farnworth, Bruce, Nolet, Simon, Manka, Alex. "DE-ICE FinalDesign Review," Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, presented May 16, 2000.

Hall, Steve, Dava Newman, Ian Waitz. "MIT: A Time of Renewal," MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics Learning Lab Dedication, September 13, 2000.

Manka, Alex. Developing a Design Environment for Integrated Concurrent Engineering (DE-ICE) in University Education: Integrating Student Designers, Design Tools, and Active Learning, Master of Engineering Thesis, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, June 2000.

Newman, Dava J. "Active Learning Enhanced by IT," Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Nolet, Simon. Development of a Design Environment for Integrated Concurrent Engineering in Academia, Master of Engineering Thesis, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, June 2001, 224 pages.

Wei Wang. "Computer-Supported Virtual collaborative Learning and Assessment Framework for Distributed Learning Environment", M.Sc. Thesis June, 2002.

Presentations

Active Learning Enabled by Information Technology, Presentation and Discussion at MIT, Sept. 25-27, covering: Engineering geology, BEAM animation, flight simulator, Limit Analysis, Truss structure simulations, and collaboration.

i-Campus Project Presentation: Wei Wang, "Interactive Collaborative Learning Assessment Framework and Support System in Distributed Learning Environment," 2002

Links

Flight Simulation Lab

SBE Space Biomedical Engineering & Life Support

16.00 Introduction to Aerospace Engineering and Design

Unified Engineering (16.010, 16.020, 16.030, 16.040)