Papers by Michael Sjoerdsma
Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association, 2011
This paper describes a course on spatial thinking and communicating designed by an interdisciplin... more This paper describes a course on spatial thinking and communicating designed by an interdisciplinary team and offered to first-year university students. An important goal was to introduce spatial thinking while accommodating the needs of the students from diverse backgrounds, educational goals and career pathways. Students in a first-year interdisciplinary cohort of 340 represented Mechatronics Systems Engineering, Business, Interactive Arts, Communications, and Computing Science. A major feature of the course design was an integrated laboratory, which served to amplify lecture content via practicing exercises aimed at developing their abilities to think and work spatially in 2D and 3D using tools including pencil and paper, digital and physical Lego, and a computer-aided design system. We describe our course design and team-teaching processes, realities that constrained our choices, the tools we use to assist our decision making during course design and delivery, and the structure ...
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Papers by Michael Sjoerdsma