Abstract:

The undergraduate arena is the most important segment of the educational pipeline, since it prepares teachers for the high school environment, invigorates students to pursue graduate studies in cutting edge fields, and produces the vast number of future employees for industry.

Founded in 1901, California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) is currently one of only two polytechnic universities in the 23-member California State University (CSU) system. Comprising six distinct colleges, the university offers bachelor's and master's degrees as well as several teaching credentials. The university received approximately 50,000 first-year applications and accepted approximately 3,000 for the fall of 2016. Current total enrollment is around 19,000 students. While the current trend in undergraduate education is to increase experiential learning opportunities, Learn By Doing is the very successful educational paradigm that has been used and enhanced at Cal Poly for decades, making it one of the highest ranked state institutions in the United States.

Although Learn by Doing is practiced across the colleges and throughout the curriculum here, its application in the departments of Music and in Computer Science-Software Engineering will be highlighted in this presentation.

The Department of Music is part of the College of Arts at Cal Poly. An obvious area for Learn by Doing application, the Music Department adds this component to lecture classes (3 hours plus a 1 hour 'activity' component) in addition to performance course options, both areas being open to all students in the university and commencing in the freshman year. Each instructor determines hands-on projects. In addition, all graduating music majors must successfully complete a one to three-quarter senior project activity that could be a recital or project - both of which also have a significant writing requirement.

The Department of Computer Science/Software Engineering (CSE) is part of the College of Engineering at Cal Poly. The mission of the college is to provide an excellent Learn by Doing education and graduate in-demand day-one ready professionals. At CSE, all courses consist of a lecture (3 hours) and a lab component (3 hours). Multiple programming assignments and projects are given to the students during each quarter for every class. The undergraduate experience culminates in a required senior project. In addition, the Software Engineering major requires the students to complete a year long, industry sponsored project in a group setting. The CSE department maintains twelve computer labs, some with specialized equipment (HCI, graphics/games, cyber-security, high performance computing, mobile).

In this talk the presenters will provide specific information about the implementation of Learn by Doing at the undergraduate curriculum where students graduate with a mix of academic disciplines interwoven with workplace-type experiences and hands-on projects. They will address the requirements (curriculum design), successes, and challenges of delivering a top rated Learn by Doing educational paradigm at the undergraduate level.

Keywords:

Learn by Doing, Undergraduate Education.