Paper ID #32312Bias in First-Year Engineering Student Peer EvaluationsLea Wittie, Bucknell University Lea Wittie is an Associate Professor in the department of Computer Science in the Engineering College at Bucknell University. She has spent the past 4 years coordinating the first year Engineering student Introduction to Engineering and over a decade participating in the program before that.James Bennett, Cornell University James Bennett is a biomedical engineer specializing in medical device design and development. He has earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biomedical Engineering from Bucknell University and is currently
writingthat would normally be included during an oral presentation of the slides.The last component of each round is the reflection. After completing all previous components,students reflect on their experience and compose a write-up on the two “best” presentations theyreviewed during the peer review process. The reflection includes details about what made themthe “best” presentations and what was learned from each presentation.Though the effectiveness of this instructional approach has been evidenced through anecdotesand previous research findings [1], [2], specific outcomes of the Exploring Engineeringassignment from the perspective of students have not been systematically investigated.Subsequently, this paper aims to answer the following research
Professor and the As- sessment and Instructional Support Specialist in the Leonhard Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Education at Penn State as well as a co-founder of Zappe and Cutler Educational Consulting, LLC. Her primary research interest include faculty development, the peer review process, the doctoral experience, and the adoption of evidence-based teaching strategies. American c Society for Engineering Education, 2021 Work-in-Progress: Short Online Films to Help First-Year Students Write Reports as EngineersIntroduction From grade school through first-year composition, engineering students take
engineering students and develops aconceptual model focusing on STEM Identity for conducting further research. The College ofEngineering at an urban research university is acutely aware of the increased need for retentionprograms in engineering colleges across the US. To respond to this need, a unique mentorshipprogram, the LMP, was established as one of the main components of an Engineering LearningCommunity (ELC) for first-year engineering students. Students self-select into the ELC programand, upon being registered, are assigned a peer mentor. The peer mentors are sophomorethrough senior-level undergraduate engineering students in the college who hold looselystructured meetings with the mentee students. The peer mentors are in turn supported by
discussionsto write rules and norms for their teams helps to raise awareness in students of these issues. Theresults show a positive impact of the introduced interventions, especially around teamwork andcollaboration with peers. The results offer insights on how we can continue this study and followthe cohort of students through time to see if the impact lasts beyond the first year.Pre-/Post-survey data ResultsResults from comparing the pre- and post-survey results are shown in Table 2. A value of 1indicates No Agreement and 7 indicates Strongly Agree. There was no significant difference inthe survey results for Question 1 either from the beginning to the end of Fall 2020 or between theend of Fall 2019 and Fall 2020. When comparing Fall 2019 (no
their non-ELC peers.BackgroundPrior research has suggested several potential contributing factors to lower rates of academicsuccess and retention within undergraduate engineering. These include lack of support andrecognition [2], inadequate advising [3], and feelings of disconnection to peers and faculty [4]–[6]. In addition to these factors linked with negative student outcomes, research has alsoidentified a host of best practices linked to positive student outcomes. Called high-impactpractices, these include learning communities, first-year seminars, writing-intensive courses,problem-based learning, collaborative assignments, and research and service opportunities [7].Specific to engineering, the use of hands-on collaborative design projects
Paper ID #33359Examining In-Person and Asynchronous Information-Seeking BehaviorInstruction Among First-Year Engineering StudentsDr. George James Lamont, University of Waterloo George Lamont is a member of the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Waterloo. George is one of many instructors who teach first-year communications courses to engineers and sciences, in addition to courses in writing and rhetoric.Ms. Stephanie Mutch, University of Waterloo Stephanie Mutch works in Information Services and Resources at the University of Waterloo Library. Stephanie holds an MA in Criminology and
Paper ID #34889Development of Multidisciplinary, Undergraduate-Led Research Program inSoft RoboticsMs. Adia Radecka, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign I’m an undergraduate student studying Electrical Engineering at the University of Illinois. My focus is in the bioengineering subdivision: imaging and sensing. I have experience working with SoftRobotics, Arduino, and writing literature review. Traveling is a passion of mine, I have studied abroad in Rus- sia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Italy. I love meeting new people, developing new experiences, and solving problems.Ms. Alyssa Bradshaw, University of Illinois at
-authorship, decision-making, and thedevelopment of a Personal Action Plan.The synchronous weekly discussion sections, led by near-peer mentors, provide structuredopportunities for students to explore their interests, values, and goals while building acommunity of peers who are partaking in the same type of exploration. Within this supportiveenvironment, students choose from a wide variety of asynchronous modules to explore the fieldof engineering. Students first complete a series of mandatory Foundation Modules that introducestudents to core course themes. Students then proceed to the Exploration Modules andEngagement Modules. Importantly, students choose which Exploration and EngagementModules to complete. Through Exploration Modules, students
evaluations: two peer evaluations were collected during each module. Most of the students commented that class activities and the project work helped them improve their teamwork skills. However, one student commented that “The peer evaluation papers are the least valuable component of this course, since if you think that one of your teammates is slacking or not putting in enough effort you can just say something to them in person and work it out instead of writing it down. If it really becomes a problem then you can tell the teacher directly.”The fourth statement of the survey is on whether working on a design project increased students’interest in engineering or not. Student survey results in Table 3 show
moremanagerial and writing tasks (Strehl & Fowler, 2019). This type of behavior was only observedin non-technical tasks.Male Perceptions of Engineering TeamsTo understand team dynamics, researchers may ask male students about their experiences andobservations on sexism in their teams. In one study, male engineering students were seven timesmore likely than female engineering students to agree that their male peers treated female peersin engineering as equals (Osborne, 2008). This suggests that male students are less likely toobserve inequality in their own contexts and in their own teams, and they likely do not believethey play a part in gendered behavior and discrimination in engineering teams. Another studyobserved a man who had described himself
presenting their projects to their classmates via an oral presentation, eachteam is given approximately one month to conduct background research on their challenge and toreceive peer feedback from other groups. Student groups are asked to create slides to accompanytheir presentation and are required to include a reference slide listing the resources theyconsulted during this process.Project-based learning assignments like this one, in which students develop their own questionsand propose potential solutions to real-world problems, often benefit from information literacyinstruction (ILI) [4], [5]. Successful ILI interventions empower students to explore the contextssurrounding a problem and to synthesize the information they find in order to identify
experiencein a face-to-face (FTF) instructional setting. Inspired by well-established FYE curricula [4], [8]–[10], the learning objectives for the course focused on the engineering design process [11], [12],interdependency of the engineering disciplines through NAE’s Grand Challenges of Engineering[13], cross-cutting theoretical concepts such as mathematical modeling and conservation ofenergy, and durable professional skills like teamwork and technical writing. Delivered in a large-enrollment section format (ca. 350 students per section), the course was co-taught by 2-3 facultyinstructors and leveraged a cadre of undergraduate teaching assistants (25:1 student-to-TA ratio)to provide personalized coaching to student teams as they worked through the two
of the International Education Committee and elected member of Leadership Organizing Physics Education Research Council (PERLOC) in the period 2015-2018.Dr. Esmeralda Campos, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico Dr. Esmeralda Campos is a postdoc researcher at Writing Lab at Tecnologico de Monterrey, and she has taught undergraduate physics courses at the School of Engineering and Sciences. She obtained her bach- elor degree in Engineering Physics at Tecnologico de Monterrey in Mexico. She studied a Master degree in Education, with a specialization in Science teaching and learning, and moved forward to the PhD in Educational Innovation, both at Tecnologico de Monterrey. She has focused her research in
with many students having myriad interests requiringsupport and would benefit from a solid, online, asynchronous course to inform both students andadvisors about what an engineering career involves. The latter course will be driven through theparticular college’s new student conference program and acceptance letter matriculationprocesses.“Impetus for this study is comprised of literature-based studies, peer and performance-evaluatingadministration observations, and my personal experiences regarding the chasm existing between(1) the understanding of engineering and the supporting knowledge and skills of the typicalcollege of engineering-bound high school students, and (2) the level of knowledge and skill setsexpected to exist in first-year
drawing out content as a set of linked ideas, effectively visualizing the constructivistperception of knowledge gain. Jigsaw places more responsibility on the students, breaking theclass into groups and assigning one person from each group to become a subject-area expert on asubtopic (such as reading a specific journal article), and subsequently having each group memberteach their peers in the group the piece of the overall puzzle that they mastered. Finally, student-generated exam questions allow students to work through the key concepts learned during a unitthat deserve attention on an exam, anticipating many of the topics they will face while creatingone question that may be on the exam itself. These CATs provide an extensive list of places
architecture schoolsconduct these events publicly and with peers [4]. Between 1919-1932, the Bauhaus in Germanydeveloped a new form of studio pedagogy: a focus on giving students technical skills throughworkshops and preparing students for these workshops with “foundation courses” [3].While studio pedagogy has been used in fine arts for over a century, elements of the studio havebeen recently advanced as beneficial for engineering education. Wilson and Jennings [5] reportextensive efforts to use studio pedagogy to, among other goals, reduce emphasis on lecture.Other motivations for engineering studio pedagogy range from improving student employability[6], facilitating concept transfer [7], and familiarizing students with the use of experimentationand
ofperspectives and lived experience to the challenge at hand. Research shows that having diverseteams working on complex challenges produces more effective and impactful solutions thanworking in uniform teams or as lone individuals [31-35]. In the case of predominately onlineinstruction environment, teams also offer the opportunity for social connection and peer support.The class was divided into teams with the assistance of the Comprehensive Assessment forTeam-Member Effectiveness (CATME), an online tool that aides instructors in forming studentsteams based on best practices, and stayed in their assigned team for the entire semester.Synchronous class sessions: These sessions were held on Mondays via Zoom. This time wasdedicated to discussing and
training of mathematics teachers that is at the core of this problem. Since enrollment at UIC, Janet had dedicated her studies and research efforts on Mathematics Socialization and identity amongst pre-service elementary teachers, an effort at understanding the reasons for lack of interest in the subject with a view to proffer solution and engender/motivate interest amongst this group that will eventually reflect in their classroom practices. She is currently a Graduate Assistant with UIC Engage, a commu- nity focused project that provides help for less-privileged students from K-8 in mathematics, reading and writing. She continues to work as a substitute teacher occasionally to keep abreast with current practices
sit through a lecture on basic circuits as a mechanicalengineer if you know that next week the topic will be forces and mechanical work. Similarly,visiting a potential employer site which employs many or all of the disciplines in the coursemakes it easier for students to envision how the skills they are developing will interface withthose of their peers in another discipline and how all the disciplines work together to developengineered solutions.One way that was simple to communicate which content “belongs” to a discipline was to usecolor codes on the schedule to show what activities/lessons apply to all disciplines(communications, ethics, engineering design process, etc.) and which are more specificallyfocused on a given discipline
be mitigatedthrough scaffolded assignments, regular peer evaluations, and more frequent opportunities forindividual and team-based self-reflection [2], [8], [12].The transition to online instruction due to the COVID-19 pandemic this past year onlycompounded the pre-existing logical and pedagogical challenges associated with engineeringdesign in FYE courses. The most pressing challenge for these courses in an online-onlyenvironment was ensuring students access to essential equipment and materials to design andconstruct a physical prototype. In general, programs responded to this challenge in one of threeways: (1) abandoning physical prototyping for an entirely “paper design” project; (2) requiringstudents to purchase third party construction
, and have developed and/or co-facilitated several faculty development workshops, including UBC’s three-day course design institute, and, under the guidance of Bill Oakes, the one-day ASEE Service Learning workshop. I am a trained peer reviewer of teaching, and have over 10 years experience providing both formative and summative peer reviews. Currently, in addition to being curious about how best to train engineering students to work effectively in transdisciplinary teams, I am working with the Municipal Natural Asset Initiative to embed natural asset management techniques into engineering education.Dr. Peter M Ostafichuk P.Eng., University of British Columbia, Vancouver Dr. Peter M. Ostafichuk is a professor of
instructors and graduate engineering students. Students also takea weekly two-hour course in which the focus is on writing and oral presentations. This courseinstructs students on how to write reports and give oral presentations about their projects. Bothcourses use undergraduate course assistants, who have been through the 1st-year program, toassist the instructors. Engineering students choose from one of five engineering disciplines atBinghamton University, when they declare their major at the end of the fall semester.A two-question survey was given to the 1st-year engineering students in the first week of class inthe fall semester. Two multiple choice questions were asked: (1) currently, what engineeringmajor do you intend to declare in December
" ismotivated by a "strategic search for meaning" [11], [12].Approaches to learning are often manifested in the practice of learning strategies, which arebehaviors that students use for studying and learning course material, such as memorizing, re-writing course notes, planning and organizing materials, questioning self and others, andreflection [13]–[15].When students describe their approaches to learning and related strategies, they are answeringthese two questions [11]: What do I want to get out of this? (i.e., the product of study) How do I get there? (i.e., the process of studying)The former question is task-, motive-, and goal-oriented, while the process-focused questioninvolves choices of learning approaches and strategies in view of
]. • “My career was spent programming within teams, so the new design is right on target as to what careers will be like” [5].The deployment of peer teaching assistants (TAs) to grade the new courses provided an idealsource of evaluation. They had just completed their first two semesters of college with theprevious curriculum, and were then contracted to provide guidance and grading support in thenew classes. They were tasked with learning Python just ahead of the new students, whichprovided a running commentary of comparison to their first year courses.Peer teaching assistants are insatiable learners, so the opportunity to explore and guide a newcurriculum deployment was enthusiastically embraced. They provided constructive
create a mathematicalmodel to meet particular criteria and constraints for a stakeholder based on provided, relevantdata [1]. While MEAs have demonstrated success across a broad spectrum of characteristics(e.g., improved retention of women, increased experience with peer review, improvedprofessional skills attainment), adoption of MEAs can be challenging, in part because MEAs aretime consuming to meaningfully implement and evaluate, as well as initially design and develop[10-12]. Not only is there a lot of resistance for faculty buy-in, many students complain about theworkload required to complete the activities. In part of this larger project, the team has workedon utilizing the Models and Modeling Perspective (M&MP) design principles and
author of nine chapters on an ecological psychology approach to instructional design and has authored more than two dozen peer reviewed research papers. His work has appeared in many major journals including the Journal of Educational Computing Research, the Journal of the Learning Sciences, the Journal of Research on Science Teaching, Instructional Science, and Educational Technology Research and Development. American c Society for Engineering Education, 2021 Paper ID #33866Mike’s research concerns how people think and learning, and specifically how technology can
management skills, effective learning strategies, and positive habits of mind.Dr. Jon Harcum, Clemson UniversityLaurel Whisler, Bristol Community College Laurel Whisler is Associate Dean of Library Learning Commons at Bristol Community College in Fall River, MA. In this role, Whisler provides strategic leadership for developing learning capabilities through the services and resources of the library and the tutoring/writing center. Previously, Whisler had served nearly ten years at Clemson University as Coordinator of Supplemental Instruction and then as Assis- tant Director and Coordinator of Course Support Programs in the Westmoreland Academic Success Pro- gram. In that capacity, she provided vision and direction for the
. theywould be able to obtain a higher score.While objective, this scale helps to better understand the state of the classroom culture. Forexample, if many students are receiving high scores in Connection, this can be an indicator ofhealthy classroom culture and shows students are actively listening to their peers. Conversely, ifstudents are receiving low confidence scores, this may indicate there is an issue with students notbeing comfortable responding and could identify room for improvement in the classroomenvironment.Two independent raters observed the introductory activities. To normalize scoring techniques,both raters scored all respondents in the first week of class and compared scoring, and thenalternated attendance.Implementing the Activity
problems on which computer scientists work. - I can describe the use of algorithms in computer science. - I could explain to a friend what it means to solve a computer science problem at the conceptual level. - I can describe how geographic information systems relate to spatial data, attribute tables, and temporal data. Excel Functions - I can write a formula in Excel. - I know several options for visualizing data in Excel. - I know how to nest formulas in Excel. 3D Modeling - I have seen