  As a CDIO collaborating member, the School of Mechanical and Electrical
Engineering of Sheridan maintains a curriculum that is deeply rooted in
skills-based learning, experiential learning, and engineering design. To ensure
our graduates are agile and ready for the workforce, we are taking proactive
measures to further improve their learning experiences. An important challenge
still impeding our students knowledge acquisition is the perception that
program courses have disjointed learning outcomes. The course map of programs
is carefully designed in such a way that technical skills acquired in
particular courses gradually build on each other. Despite the traditional
existence of prerequisites and co-requisites, the inaccurate view that courses
function independently persists among students and, occasionally, among faculty
members. One feasible approach to tackle this pedagogical challenge is to
combine various courses into an integrated learning block (ILB) having a
unified mission and objective. At Sheridan's School of MEET, we are applying an
ILB with three engineering courses offered within the same semester for all our
B.Eng. degree programs. The ILB deliverables are based on the design of a
chosen engineering system or subunit in a project-based learning (PBL)
environment. The rationale of this paper is to share our framework for
implementing an ILB in engineering programs and to examine the opportunities
and challenges related to this type of curriculum design. In particular, we
will discuss the methodology by which courses are selected to form an ILB while
taking into account their appropriateness for an industry-driven PBL. This will
be followed up with some of the strategies that are proposed to evaluate the
performance of students in an ILB through formative and summative assessments
based on CDIO competencies.
