Monica Cardella, associate professor of engineering education, is among 11 faculty members and graduate teaching assistants recently honored by the Purdue Teaching Academy. Cardella shared her innovative ideas on engaging students and facilitating learning in a video posted on the Teaching Academy website.

In each short video interview, an honoree discusses the teaching philosophies, strategies and tools used to engage students in ways that facilitate learning.

In her video, Cardella discusses teaching first-semester, first-year engineering students, especially in developing their problem-solving proficiency and teamwork skills. Her experience includes providing more active-learning opportunities in large classes with multiple sections by "flipping" some course content such as readings and videos to online pre-work. Cardella also explains how she adds a science-fiction concept to design projects in her class.

"This science-fiction context is something that allows the students to be creative," Cardella says. "It's also something that really pushes them to think about the fact that they are designing for people, or creatures, that are not like them … it pushes the assumptions that they make."

Cardella's video may be viewed here.

The entire series of video interviews is available on the Teaching Academy website.