Case-based flipped classroom approach to teach sustainable infrastructure and decision-making

Design, engineering, and construction for more sustainable infrastructure involve complex decisions with considerable risk and uncertainty. To prepare students for such challenges, agencies and organizations like the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, American Council for Construction Education, and American Society of Civil Engineers are placing more emphasis on complex engineering problems. The case-based module in this study aims to address such needs through a constructivism framework, integrating problem-based learning, a flipped classroom, and transdisciplinary content on behavioral science. The module presents a case about a wastewater project. Team-based learning involves proposing the placement of holding-tanks, first based on cost and later for an extreme flood. Three decision-making concepts (risk aversion, regulatory focus, take-the-best heuristic) are then taught. Students wrote individual reflections relating these concepts to the case. Initially, students perceived cost as the biggest barrier. After the module, students broadened their consideration to include risk aversion and regulatory focus theory. Students were more likely to consider resilience in their design and reflect on how their design would influence the community. The implications of these results are that teaching transdisciplinary concepts that bridge engineering and behavioral science can broaden students’ understanding of sustainability and change perceptions of the barriers for more sustainable infrastructure. The module is available through the Center for Sustainable Engineering repository.