Kovar Group - Curriculum Development and Innovations

Curriculum Development and Innovations

In addition to a strong commitment to teaching and developing new undergraduate and graduate courses, I have focused considerable time and effort at more improving engineering education through curriculum reform and teaching innovations. My curriculum and teaching innovation efforts over the last several years can be grouped into two themes: 1) Improving teaching of particularly challenging and abstract concepts by introducing hands-on projects into engineering courses and 2) Reducing the barriers to graduation of engineering students. These efforts have been recognized with several awards including

Teaching Excellence Award, Student Engineering Council, University of Texas at Austin, 2000.
Engineering Foundation Young Faculty Excellence Award, College of Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, 2000.
- (One award given each year to a faculty in the Cockrell School of Engineering)
William J. Murray Jr. Fellowship in Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, 2004.
Outstanding Graduate Advisor, University of Texas at Austin, 2012.
- (One award given each year to a faculty member at UT Austin)
Jack and Maxine Zarrow Family K-16 Teaching Innovation Award, Cockrell School of Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, 2014.
- (One award given every several years to a faculty member in the Cockrell School of Engineering)
Mechanical Engineering Award for Teaching Excellence, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, 2016.
- (One award given each year to a faculty member in the Department of Mechanical Engineering)
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company Award for Excellence in Engineering Teaching, Cockrell School of Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, 2016.
- (One award given each year to a faculty member in the Cockrell School of Engineering)
E.C.H. Bantel Professorship, Cockrell School of Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, 2016-2019.
Inducted into the UT Austin's Academy of Distinguished Teachers, 2019.
- "In recognition of sustained and distinguished teaching."
BFGoodrich Professorship in Materials Engineering, Cockrell School of Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, 2019-present.

Initiatives

1. Introducing Project-Centered Education into Materials Processing (ME 336/ME 136L): Beginning in the early 2000s and over a period of many years, I led the transformation of the Materials Processing Lab from a conventional laboratory course to an integrated project-centered course. The premise of project-centered education is that conceptually difficult topics can be more easily learned if they are motivated by a hands-on project where the applications of the concepts can be made apparent before learning the theory. To this end, new laboratory experiments were added and existing experiments were revised. Almost all of the laboratory equipment was replaced with new equipment including the purchases of a scanning electron microscope (approx. $125K), furnaces, computers and data acquisition, digital cameras, and testing equipment. Most importantly, the lecture materials (4 sections/semester) were integrated into the labs so that just-in-time learning could take place (the material is now covered in lab at the same time as it was introduced into lecture). Until 2014, approximately 125 students per semester took this class in approximately 12 sections (with 6 Teaching assistants). With curriculum reforms in Mechanical Engineering and the resulting smaller class sizes for ME 336, I led the process of implementing extensive revisions to make the course even more hands-on.

2. The Creation of the Longhorn Maker Studio (now Texas Inventionworks): A key barrier to extending hands-on project based education to other classes in Mechanical Engineering and to other fields of engineering is necessity of the tools, space, and training on equipment . In Spring 2014, I became the founding Director of the Longhorn Maker Studio to address these barriers, and in Fall 2014, the 1,700 sq. ft. facility opened with a complete suite of easy-to-to use manufacturing and testing equipment. The Longhorn Maker Studio was used thousands of times per semester by students from across the Cockrell School for 1) hands on projects for courses (See for example, ME 379M/397 Robot Mechanism Design) , 2) by engineering student organizations such as SAE, for student entrepreneurial activities, or just for fun. The Longhorn Maker Studio continued to grow and moved to the an approximately 20,000 sq. ft space in the EERC building when it opened.

3. Curriculum Reform in Mechanical Engineering: I assumed the role of Chair of the ME department Curriculum committee in April of 2012. At that time, 4-year graduation rates for Cockrell School students were about 30% and 6-year graduation rates were less than 60%. Over the summer and fall, the Curriculum Committee, which consisted of 13 faculty and staff, met weekly to discuss curriculum reform. Amongst the many changes that were implemented were 1) Eliminating some courses and content from other courses 2) Reducing the number of required engineering courses in the ME curriculum 3) Increasing the number of elective courses and allowing much greater flexibility in what courses could be taken as electives 4) Integrating the increasingly important area of computation into all levels of the curriculum 5) Integrating communication skills into more courses 6) Adding an engineering course option for 1st year ME students to better motivate engineering earlier in the curriculum 7) Introduce Elective Strands to better guide students who wish to specialize in Engineering disciplines. Overall the number of courses required to graduate, the number of contact hours, and the number of credit hours were all reduced so that they were closer to that of our peers while providing greater flexibility for students to take courses that inspire them. The approximately 65 ME department faculty voted unanimously in favor of the curriculum changes at the end of Fall 2012 and the changes began to be implemented in Spring 2013 and are continuing. The rate at which 1st and 2nd year students did not advance was cut in half.

4. Math Engineering Committee: As part of my efforts at curriculum reform in Mechanical Engineering (ME), I learned that two of the classes which presented the greatest barriers for advancement in the ME curriculum were the second and third mathematics courses taken by all engineering students at UT Austin, M 408D Differential and Integral Calculus II and M 427K Advanced Calculus for Applications I, both of which had rates of non-passing of 15-25%, depending on the semester. I was appointed by the Cockrell School of Engineering in September 2013 as co-Chair of the Engineering-Math committee with the charge to review course content and its effects on student performance. The committee consisted of a representative from each of the seven engineering department and four Mathematics faculty. After reviewing the mathematics curricula at peer institutions, the committee proceeded to review the topical coverage lecture-by-lecture of each of the common required mathematics courses taken by UT Austin engineering students (M408C Differential and Integral Calculus I, M408D, and M427K). In addition, the content of other relevant courses (M340 and M427L) were also examined. At the end of the Spring 2014 semester, a consensus for changes to these classes emerged that involved extensive changes to the content and order of presentation of the materials in these classes. Material was removed that was not deemed to be essential so that there could be a greater emphasis on learning fundamentals, and the order of topics was arranged so that it was more logical, some new material was added, and conceptually difficult topics were pushed to later in the curriculum. Lastly it was recommended that the common math curriculum across the Cockrell School consist of 4 rather than 3 courses, consistent with that of our peer institutions. The recommendations were presented and accepted in April 2014 to both the Cockrell School and the Mathematics department and began to be implemented in M408C in Summer 2014. Data shows that student passing rates in M408C and M408D both improved significantly after implementation of the reforms.

5. Materials Science and Engineering Minor: In 2018, I lead the effort to create the Materials Science and Engineering Minor. This was the first minor in Enginering at UT Austin. I continue to serve as the Faculty Advisor for the minor program.

6. Graduate Advisor: I served as Graduate Advisor for the Materials Science and Engineering Graduate Program from 2005-2019. While I served as graduate advisor, the number of MS and Ph.D. students enrolled in the program has increased by about 50% while the number of applicants to the program has increased by about 100%. I also spearheaded significant changes to the course requirements, Ph.D. Qualifying Exam procedures, and student recruiting and advising processes.