The world today demands that professional people have a generalized education which enables them to solve a great variety of problems in a very short period of time.

The main goal of this program is to improve the basic undergraduate instruction for the Engineering courses at the Federal University of Sao Carlos - UFSCar, regarding both the methodological and the technological points of view. This is being achieved through discussions of the issues involved and the introduction of new methodologies in the classroom, with the aid of computational and multimedia equipments, as well as the intense use of experiments to support theoretical explanation of certain phenomena.

The education of Engineering in Brazil began in 1810 at the "Rio de Janeiro Polytechnical School" (Escola Politecnica do Rio de Janeiro), which was founded through the initiative of professional army personnel and constructors. Today there are around 400 engineering courses available, distributed among several subareas and specializations.

The area of engineering is divided into seven sub-areas: civil, mechanical, electrical, chemical, mining, metallurgy and environmental engineering. These different subareas are further subdivided into some specializations such as: industrial electronics, production sciences, textile and sanitary engineering, among others.

The official minimum curriculum for a Course in Engineering contains disciplines intended to basic, general, professional, and specific professional formation. The subjects which comprise the basic and general disciplines include: mathematics, physics, chemistry, drawing, data processing, electricity, mechanics, resistance of materials, transportation phenomena, environmental sciences, humanities and social sciences.

UFSCar offers courses in Chemical Engineering, Production Engineering, Civil Engineering, Materials Engineering, and Computer Engineering.

Like the majority of engineering courses in Brazil, the problems involved in teaching engineering begin at the students' basic education level. Brazil's middle and high school educational system does not adequately prepare students, and this fact is reflected throughout the country's university education.

These defects are then added to the traditional form with which basic subjects are taught, as well as to deficient interaction between different groups of the professional areas.

The world today demands great changes of all universities, that are required to teach their students to be not only highly knowledgeable about new technologies, but also about interdisciplinary subjects, apart from providing them with a very solid basic education.

The advent of new technologies available today demands that universities be adequately prepared to qualify their students to face next century's extremely competitive work market. This means that university instructors are required, and will continue to be required, to show a high degree of productivity and quality. Future engineers need a basic education that will enable them to understand and work with these new technologies and knowledge, the dynamics of which make it practically impossible for university instructors to define a specific curriculum for each type of professional activity.

A basic, well founded education is one of the most important points in the education of an engineer. The new technologies, allied to a methodological and structural reformulation and increased interaction with the experience of the engineer, facilitate learning and prevent the lack of motivation so frequently seen in the first semesters.

To achieve a solid university education, an engineer must have a conceptually correct awareness of current issues in the several areas of knowledge. To this end, the use of videotapes, microcomputers, etc. as methodological aids will be extremely helpful.

The objective of this program is to improve the infrastructuire of the Basic Physics Laboratories and the creation of the Basic Mathematics Laboratory of the Center for Exact Sciences and Technology of UFSCar, under the supervision of the Department of Mathematics.

The Basic Mathematics Laboratory will allow the Department of Mathematics to provide its Engineering students with inicial contact with computer techniques, which will result in improved quality in learning theoretical concepts, since time spent doing routine calculations will be reduced. Additionally, the Laboratory will enable the student to become familiar, right from the start of the course, with software programs frequently used in research and applications. The teachers of the specific areas of Engineering will colaborate by participating in interdisciplinary seminars and practical classes to make them effective.

The infrastructure of the Basic Mathematics Laboratory should include multimedia software ("Datashow"connected to the microcomputer) in order to offer interactivity between hardware, teachers and students.

The equipment for use in both theoretical and experimental subjects requested by the Department of Physics aims, basically, to improve and adapt these subjects to current reality in order to provide future professionals with a solid education.

The set of software programs and/or video tapes that uses multimedia is aimed at creating an initial cell in the Department of Physics, with the objective of developing educational softwares to be used in the basic subjects offered to UFSCar students. Many of these softwares may also be used in the second year. To begin with, small computer programs with graphic animation, texts, hyper texts, and also sound when necessary, should be developed in order to simulate experiments and/or to illustrate theoretical physics concepts that can be more easily elucidated through multimedia techniques.

Another objective of this project is to interact with the departments of the Center of Exact Sciences and Technology and with other centers, such as the department of Arts, Education, etc. at UFSCar, in order to enable them to work together to improve the courses/curricula and produce teaching material that is visually pleasant and user friendly, using multimedia techniques. To this end, the recently created Bachelor's course in Image and Sound will be of fundamental importance.

OBJECTIVES AND STRATEGIES

The subprogram of the infrastructure of Basic Subject Teaching is intended primarily for Engineering Courses and it involves disciplines of Physics and Mathematics. Fourteen disciplines of theoretical and experimental nature are currently being revised in both aspects: syllabus and methodological techniques. This work is being undertaken jointly by instructors and students of Engineering, Physics and Mathematics. Also, some students are developing research projects (scientific and technological) under the guidance of researchers with the purpose of contributing to this program.

The main objective of this project is the improvement of the Engineering Courses in all the aspects. The first step of its strategy is the adoption of methodologies which could minimize the deficiency of the students' original 1 st and 2nd grade education. Secondly, the connection between the theoretical concepts and their application in problems of different areas of specialization is being taken into strong consideration.

The goal is to bring basic undergraduate education closer to the reality of professional and working activities.

Some computational techniques appropriate for classroom activities are being implemented in order to bring more dynamic and enriching teaching into the classrooms. The use of computers enables students to set their own pace in studying and helps them understand better and solve problems.

The softwares which are being introduced in these activities are required to have the following properties: good programming performance, good user interface, good for algebraic and numeric computation and good for graphics and simulation. These properties are considered essential to the task of any future future engineering professionals, and the REENGE project is making the implementation of such resources possible from the very start of undergraduate work. In the first year at UFSCar a student of Engineering will have access to these innovations.

The REENGE project gives UFSCar Engineering students the necessary knowledge to deal with the computer resources contained in the MATHEMATICA, MAPLE V and MATLAB softwares. These softwares are worldwide known as powerful tools in exploring and solving mathematical problem. The objective of this project is to guarantee that students who have recently graduated will, in the very near future, be capable of using current up-to-date computer resources, and will thus be qualified to contribute toward the progress of Brazilian technology.

The adoption of these technologies in basic disciplines will contribute toward motivating young students for the career and will, thus, also help reduce current university dropout rates. Meanwhile, the instructors should point out to their students that the new technologies available today are not a substitute for studying/learning, but rather, that they contribute to make learning more effective and pleasant process.

Another major problem to be overcome is in regard to the student's previous education. Students' overall understanding, which includes comprehending the qualitative aspects of physical and mathematical problems, is one of the challenges that teachers of all levels must face to ensure that the future professional receives a good basic education.

With such consideration in mind, this project introduces the use of videofilms as a classroom activity, in which some experiments that are difficult to set-up or to execute are shown, as well as the use of assembled kits of experiments. This procedure will allow the student to visualize a physical phenomenon, to interact with it and to observe its consequences, enabling him(her) to discuss qualitatively the problem before working out the mathematical equations.

In general terms, this project intends to launch the basis to extend the inclusion of computer, audiovisual and experimental techniques into the basic disciplines of all the courses in the areas of Exact Sciences and Technology at UFSCar, thus increasing the relationship between motivation/learning and consequently, reducing our current student failure and dropout rates.

As an outcome of the project we expect to produce texts, hypertexts, educational videotapes, softwares and kits for specific experiments to be used in the classrooms of the following disciplines: Differential and Integral Calculus 1, Differential and Series Calculus, Differential and Integral Calculus 3, Analytical Geometry, Linear Algebra, Differential Equations and Applications, Methods of Applied Mathematics, Numerical Calculus, Physics 1, 2, 3 and 4, and Experimental Physics A and B. The syllabus of these disciplines will include, besides their specific topics, the experiments using computers and/or multimedia equipments.

It is expected that the complement of traditional theoretical classes with technological Iresources will stimulate and challenge our students to develop the conceptual understanding of sciences and the abstract reasoning, since routine or lengthy tasks will be left to the computer.

Intensified contact between undergraduate Engineering students and basic education teachers may result in significant interdisciplinary research projects and products, which might be useful for the entire society.

The periodic meetings held to discuss the development of activities have been very important to evaluate the whole project. The exchange of experiences and ideas optimize the use of technology in the teaching/learning process, as well as lead to an adequation of pedagogical techniques, contributing to the general formation of the future professional.

Back to Table of Contents