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Hi Ron,

It seems to me that case studies could be a great way to solve your dilemma.
You could provide the students with an engineering problem (one with
multiple correct solutions) that they would have to solve - supporting their
proposed solution using the math you teach them in exercises like the one
you describe below.

Here's a database with tons of case studies:

Engineering Case Studies from Carlton University
http://www.civeng.carleton.ca/ECL/

Best,

Tammy






On 6/23/10 9:43 AM, "Ronald Giachetti" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hi All,
> 
> In the fall semester I'll be teaching a course titled, "evaluation of
> engineering data" that involves probability and statistics.  I want to try TBL
> for this course, and I'm trying to think of good team assignments for in the
> classroom.  The problem I find is that the course material is usually
> presented as black & white -- in other words, for a problem there is only one
> correct answer.  In all the courses that I've seen that use TBL, the team
> assignments are such that there are multiple good answers and arriving at an
> answer requires a team to discuss and negotiate the strengths/weaknesses of
> different answers.
> 
> I've developed classroom exercises to demonstrate ideas.  For example, for
> confidence intervals I have a bag full of numbers from a distribution.  I have
> each team pull a sample of numbers and construct a confidence interval.  Each
> team then draws their confidence interval on the board.  I then draw the
> actual population mean and show them that even though all their confidence
> intervals are different, they all contain the mean.
> 
> While I think the above exercise is better than straight lecturing, it doesn't
> capture the team-based learning that I've seen in other classes.  So, if
> anybody has any experience in quantitative courses or can direct me to
> literature on the area, I'll be interested in how they construct team
> exercises.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Ron.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ronald Giachetti
> Associate Professor
> Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering
> Florida International University
> http://web.eng.fiu.edu/ronald/
> [log in to unmask]
> 305-348-2980