Many of the core concepts in engineering are complex andprecise. Hence, university students taking introductory classes in engineering, even those with high entry qualifications, often have difficulty learning these concepts and applying them to problem-solving tasks. This problem is more pronounced when the class size is large. The National Academy of Engineering recommends that universities should address how students learn in addition to what they learn in order to ensure that student learning outcomes focus on the performance characteristics needed in future engineers. This paper addresses how case study-based instructional strategy has been used as an effective tool in an Introductory Course in Mechanical Engineering (ENGR 1110) at the freshman level to overcome these problems. This instructional strategy has been in use during the past three semesters at Auburn University, and the evaluation results show that the students involved obtained a thorough understanding of the engineering concepts and also improved their soft skills, including team working, communication, and ethical and problem solving skills. In-depth information about the evaluation results, course map and instructional strategy are provided in this paper.
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