Scaling Up Arizona State University’s First-Year Integrated Program in Engineering: Problems and Solutions Sarah Duerden, Bruce Doak, Jeanne Garland, Meredith Green Ron Roedel, Pete Williams, Joan McCarter & D. L. Evans Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287 Abstract This paper discusses how scale-up from a pilot of 32 students to 80 students affected the integrated delivery of material in English composition, physics, and engineering to a cohort of freshman engineering students. It also discusses how collaborative learning and projects were structured to fit 80 students, the effects of class size on student-to-student interaction and student-to-faculty interactions in and out of the classroom, and what modifications were made to the classroom facilities to accommodate these projects. Although there were some detrimental effects accruing to the scale-up, for the most part, student performance was unaffected or slightly improved. Introduction The Freshman Integrated Program in Engineering (FIPE) at Arizona State University, a Foundation Coalition sponsored program, integrates a 15 hour block of engineering, calculus, physics and English in the first semester and replaces engineering with chemistry in the second semester of the freshman year. The Foundation Coalition [1] is attempting the systematic reform of undergraduate engineering education using four main thrusts (active learning, technology infusion, curriculum integration, and assessment and evaluation) to develop a desired set of student outcomes [2]. The FIPE program, while integrating subject matter, still identifies individual courses on a student’s transcript and uses instructors from traditional departments to deliver the bulk of the material usually taught to freshmen. The instructors work together to make their course material complementary to that from the other disciplines and to integrate the involved disciplines as seamlessly as possible[3]. Such integration, although much less than making one large 15 hour package without disciplinary distinctions, still involves a non-trivial learning curve for instructors. Therefore, an initial 32-student pilot allowed the instructors to begin negotiating this learning curve. The program began with a 32-student pilot program in which 31 students were actually enrolled. The faculty team knew that ASU could not “institutionalize” a 32 student-size class at the freshman level, but they chose to “experiment and learn” at this size due to several factors, not the least of which was that a physical facility was available that could accommodate the small scale experiment. The third iteration increased to 80 students with 77 actually enrolled. This intentional increase in enrollment presented some interesting problems that required creative solutions. The Problem The first problem involved determining the extent of the scale-up (e.g., how large was large enough?). This was complicated by the fact that freshman composition is normally taught to section sizes of 25 students or less, calculus to section sizes of 45 students or less, physics and chemistry to lecture section sizes of up to about 250 students (with smaller recitations and laboratory sections), and the beginning freshman engineering course to section sizes up to 125 students (with a smaller recitation section). Meetings with all of the department chairs involved in the program led to the decision that a target of 80 students would be appropriate for the fall semester of 1996. English, therefore, agreed to assign three instructors to the section. Mathematics agreed to assign either two instructors or one instructor and one teaching assistant (who might normally be assigned his or her own normal-size section of calculus). Similarly, physics agreed to assign one faculty and one or more teaching assistants. Engineering would allow up to two instructors to be assigned. The second problem was delivering the course material and projects that were used in the pilot program with 32 students to an 80 student class. The 32 student pilot had a high faculty-student ratio. Would the program work with 80 students and a lower faculty-student ratio, or was the success due only to the small size of the pilot? Thus, the faculty focused on how the increase could be accomplished while still maintaining positive outcomes for the students. In this paper, the instructors show how scaling up the pilot project affected course material, delivery of that material, engineering projects, and student-instructor relationships. Next, the paper discusses how a physical facility was designed to accommodate this increased class