Development Of A Multidisciplinary Engineering Learning Center

The College of Engineering at the University of Notre Dame has recently opened an Engineering Learning Center. The Learning Center is a classroom, a laboratory, and a meeting place. It is a facility designed for experiential learning, communicating ideas and developing new methods for teaching and learning. The Center was developed through collaborative planning and coordination with all the departments in the College of Engineering. The Center was designed to provide a dynamic, flexible, collaborative learning environment to support a wide spectrum of educational activities. This 4000 square foot facility, developed at a cost of over $1M, began operation for the fall 2000 semester and it is currently supporting the project-intensive, first year course with an enrollment of 300-400 students each semester. Besides its involvement with the first year program, the Center supports a variety of learning activities across the College in the specific departments and degree programs. The Center includes flexible project-team work areas with networked computer support, multiple screen audio/visual capabilities that support a variety of multi-media sources and space for students to fabricate and store projects. This paper describes the planning, design, and operation of this multidisciplinary teaching and learning facility.