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Innovative Design-Build Approach to Project-Based Learning

All undergraduates in the Civil Engineering Department at the University of New Mexico must take a senior capstone course in the last semester before graduation. The purpose of the capstone course is to require students to integrate the knowledge they have gained from their undergraduate curriculum into solving a real-life problem. One challenge at the University of New Mexico is providing this experience to students while satisfying the accreditation requirements for three separate undergraduate degree programs. Starting fall 2007, a new design-build approach was implemented in the capstone course that teams students from all three undergraduate degree programs to solve real-life engineering and construction problems. This innovative design-build approach provided additional education for the students, but also required assessment of accreditation criteria for two different accreditation agencies (ABET and ACCE). Based on faculty observations and student feedback, the design-build approach was successful because it introduced students to project aspects outside of the typical classroom environment. The engineering students were exposed to construction issues and forced to think about how their designs affected construction. The construction management students were exposed early to design decisions and the process of design. However, there were also lessons learned from this experiment that will improve future offerings of this course.