untenured faculty member should (andlikely will) spend most of their time. Page 11.256.3Tip #1: “Invest In Yourself” – When you successfully defend your doctoral dissertation,you are one of the best in the world in your field of Topic X. Thus, you have the bestchance to make an immediate scholarly impact by: • writing one or two more papers in Topic X. This keeps your publishing record intact and shows you can publish papers on your own (usually a key “deliverable” of a national research grant) • making a “lateral move” into a new, but parallel field of research. When you submit a proposal for review, the reviewers of your proposal
-2005. She is currently Program Director for Mechanical Engineering Technology in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the College of Engineering, Technology, and Architecture.Natalie Segal, University of Hartford Prior to her appointment as a full-time teacher of technical communications at S. I. Ward College of Technology at the University of Hartford, Assistant Professor NATALIE SEGAL worked for more than 20 years as a technical writer and taught technical writing part-time at Ward College for eight years. She holds her Bachelor's Degree in English Education from the University of Connecticut, a Master's Degree in English from Trinity College and a Master of Fine Arts in
timelines, and high risks of failure. Managingthese risks is possible only by adopting good software engineering practices as part of the gamedevelopment process. Discussion of agile software process models and software quality practicesas they apply to game development is an important part of this course.The student work for this course includes the completion of several projects. All projects includedesign activities and students make use of several existing programming tools. Making use ofexisting programming tools and libraries allows students to focus on software engineering designrather writing all source code from scratch. The final project requires students to go through allphases of system life cycle: specification, design, implementation
themselves.Students were encouraged to post articles of interest. Instructors also prompteddiscussions on topics relevant to the course, such as writing case studies, providingStrength, Improvement, Insight11 (SII) feedback to peers, and interviewing for a job. Thejob interview discussion, for example, happened during a week of on-campus interviewsand two groups contributed to an article on the topic that week.InstrumentsThree instruments were used to collect data: (1) Industry/Advisory Board survey,questionnaire and interview; (2) student focus group discussion; and (3) an online wikiarchive. These instruments were selected based on best-practice methodologies ineducation assessment8 and best fit for the scope of the study.Three College Advisory Board
demonstrations of team communication skills and written assignments such as meetingminutes and agendas, project presentations in the form of a design review and test plan, and ateam final report. The students are seen applying course-supplied techniques in their teamprocess and design and test of their robotic solutions. The course is structured to allow for peer-reviewed writing assignments, professional development, and team skills coaching. The coursealso provides a convenient opportunity to discuss relevant professional issues such asprofessionalism, ethics, registration, and engineering societies. Student feedback on the coursehas been positive, and students carry enthusiasm into subsequent design sequence courses.IntroductionEngineering is a
) Satisfied Page 11.719.13 - Conducting an experiment on the theme found in a self-directed manner was interesting. - We learned a series of experiment processes. - A poster session gave us a good opportunity to learn about the experiments of our peers. - It was a hard lesson for me, but it gave me a sense of mastery. - I acquired report writing skills. - I learned the merits of a team-based activity.(2) Not satisfied - The self-directed work was too difficult for me. - It took too much time for me to work on this course and not enough time left for studying other courses. -There was variation in grading standards among instructors. - A wider
green engineering and environmentally-conscious manufacturing. Environmentalawareness discussions are included to make clear the perspective of why engineering studentsneed to learn about green design. The writing components in each course are more involved thanthose in other engineering courses.Whereas each course has undergone student and faculty assessments, an accounting of the resultsreveals similarities and differences in student reactions to environmentally considerate material.This paper includes numerical analysis of student assessments and faculty reviews for thepurpose of measuring progress towards common objectives. The paper also discusses qualitativedata for understanding the direction sustainable engineering education might take
study was to understand reported motivation and learning strategies forstudents enrolled in an introductory computer science course (n = 111). Comparisons were madebetween freshman (n = 57) and other undergraduates (n = 54) [sophomores (n = 24) and juniors(n = 30)]. A commonly used instrument called the Motivational Strategies for LearningQuestionnaire (MSLQ) was used to assess motivations (value, expectancy, and affective) andlearning strategies (cognitive/metacognitive and resource management strategies) of thesestudents. Results showed variations in both motivation and learning strategies between the twogroups with freshman reporting a greater task value in the course, while other undergraduatesreported a greater reliance on peer learning
attention by being made aware of the basic structure of what is to be learned. Here, the priorities of content are stressed while the subject matter is discussed. 3. Students are asked to write down specific learning goals and compare them with their peers and also the instructor. Students are encouraged to set and maintain realistic goals that can be accomplished in a given time frame. 4. Students are asked to meaningfully connect new information to knowledge acquired previously in relevant courses. Students are required to provide multiple examples, analogies and metaphors. 5. Students are asked to successfully identify and unlearn erroneous previous knowledge if any. 6. Students are encouraged to
involvement byencouraging each member of the group to help their peers learn. These identified groups werethen used across the linked courses to accommodate in class learning activities. In addition, tofurther support and encourage academic group activities, team building and the discussion ofbasic team skills were incorporated into the curriculum for First Year Experience (FYE). Thesocial engagement dimension was promoted by scheduling several out-of- class social events. Page 11.225.3Student’s suggestions and input were used to select and structure these social activities.Learning Community ModelThe learning community model used by the CpET program
created over time, toshow the changes and advancement of their writing skills. These two types of portfolios areconsidered to be the basis of the portfolios used in engineering discipline.Besides these two commonly used portfolio models, there are several other types of portfoliomodels being suggested and used in the practice. Cress and McCullouogh-Cress1 designed astudent portfolio as a collection of student goals for learning, works in progress, peer andinstructor feedback, and reflections on the work and processes. Gottlieb2 pointed out thatportfolio designs, contents, and purposes could take on many forms, all of which areeducationally defensible. In order to clarify the variety of portfolios, he proposed adevelopmental scheme, which includes
and to introduce the next activity. The activitiesin the cross-curricular program included: a) learning about portfolios in general, b) evaluatingother portfolios, c) writing a professional statement, d) finding artifacts, e) deciding whichartifacts to include in the portfolio, f) writing annotations for the artifacts, g) getting peer andprofessional feedback, and h) presenting the portfolio to others. The interaction amongst peersand the teaching faculty member provided ample opportunity to deeply explore the issuesstudents faced, the component activities, and how those issues and activities interacted during theportfolio creation.Six students participated in this study. These students included two seniors on the verge ofgraduating, two
attend monthlyluncheons with their mentors to talk about issues that concern them. In addition, all tenure trackwomen are invited to attend brown bags lunches in which topics such as how to negotiate the Page 11.647.4challenges of maternity leave, grant writing, and progress towards tenure are discussed. Thebrown bags provide a venue for peer mentoring among women faculty.Participants report that they find support from the program in ways that departments cannot orare not providing. Participants mention that being able to meet other pre-tenure women outsidetheir department helps them to discuss and solve problems and to feel less isolated. In
, students are exposed to such topics as ethics in the workplace, global issues inengineering practice, engineering economy review, proposal and report writing, presentationcoaching, sustainable design, kinematics and suspension highlights as well as other topics ofgeneral interest to seniors working on any design team. The course also includes two 1-hour and Page 11.306.3fifteen minute “laboratory” meetings. In these meetings the individual project teams meet andwork through project business that include design group formation and design sessions, designissues, progress presentations, purchase requests, publicity and fund raising, etc.This
. This year, we have adjusted one of the designprojects so that it is meant for individuals in a catastrophic disaster, like a tsunami or a category5 hurricane.At the time of this writing, we have only completed a third of the second freshman cohortexperience. However, surveys of the students after the first quarter of their freshman sequenceshow that we have successfully begun to build strong connections with their peers, helped themsee the value of their “engineering support” courses, given them hands-on experience withengineering and design, and enabled them to pick up useful skills. Roughly three fourths of thestudents indicated that the course gave them more confidence in their potential engineeringabilities. However, at this point, we are
18%Factor 2: Familiarity with DET 2.19 0.58 10.9%Factor 3: Stereotypical Characteristics of Engineers 2.71 0.62 7.4%Factor 4: Characteristics of Engineers and Engineering 3.60 0.36 7.3%Importance of DET. As a whole, the teachers thought that DET was important. As indicated byitem means of three or higher, teachers were more interested in learning more about DETthrough workshops than through in-service, peer training, or college courses and believed thatpre-service education was important for preparing them to teach DET. The teachers’ mainmotivations for teaching science were: to promote an enjoyment of learning, to promote an understanding of the natural and technological world
presentations?45. Are written communication skills enhanced through report writing?46. Are reading assignments frequently used in and out of class?47. Is the use of computers and modern engineering tools encouraged?48. Are both information gathering skills and modern on line search techniques encouraged?Instructional Methods to Address the 5th Pillar of Active/ CooperativeLearning: “Group Processing”49. Are the students encouraged to reflect on their learning experience (using journals, portfolios, etc)?50. Are the teams encouraged to self-assess their own work before being assessed by the instructor?51. Is the student-student peer assessment used to evaluate some written or oral assignments?52. Are the students encouraged to give positive
in the course. Not only would thishelp engineers better communicate to others the benefits engineering provides, something theCommittee on the Engineer of 2020 also says is necessary, we, as instructors, could begin theconversation. To accomplish this objective we required numerous writing assignments, requiredoral presentations, and ensured that there was ample class discussion. For the second version ofthe course we added the requirement that each student read a national newspaper on a regularbasis and, at some point of their choosing in the semester, provide a copy of an article they readrelated to engineering and public policy and their analysis of the article and the policy issue.Course DesignAlthough the course was designed to meet the
of computational fracture mechanics. Page 11.429.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2006 Developing a Freshman Introduction to Engineering TextbookAbstract What should a freshman introduction to engineering course achieve and how will anappropriate textbook help meet the course goals? In this paper, we summarize our experiencessearching for a text and ultimately how and why we decided to write our own book. It can be said that the primary purpose of a first year introduction to an engineeringcourse is to win the hearts and minds of first year college students who are considering anengineering
code captured any decision points that educators made that would impact all students in the college including those that they had no direct contact with. For example, one faculty member while seeking assistance in writing a large research grant proposal considered options that would create potential learning opportunities for all students. Page 11.388.6 Magnitude students affected Increase in
, 2006 MENTOR: Motivating ENgineers Through Organized RelationshipsIntroductionIn the fall semester of 2005 the First Year Engineering Program at North Carolina StateUniversity initiated a new and exciting mentoring program for all ~1200 of our first-semesterengineering students. MENTOR (Motivating ENgineers Through Organized Relationships) is aground breaking program in terms of its size and scope, whose aim is to increase student successin engineering through early connections to a positive peer network. The successes of mentoringprograms is widely documented in the literature, and indeed in the college of engineering at NCState we have two very successful mentoring programs aimed at women and minorities. Themotivation for initiating the
in student being removed from the program. To demonstrate theimportance of the student’s academic performance, when ever the GPA of the student falls below3.0, his/her place is replaced by some other student based on the high school teachers’recommendation. This is implemented to encourage students to work hard while in middle andhigh school and maintain a minimum 3.0 GPA. This also creates peer competition, which in turnencourages hard work necessary to secure admission into the program.Hands-on Experience The human mind grasps concepts better when an activity is performed in real time comparedto when read from a book. Hands-on experience provides students an opportunity to learn bydoing, which also enhances their ability to think
acceptance of the report, teams undertake construction ofthe project. In this phase, teams build the device they designed and test performance, comparingmeasurements to numerical modeling. Project construction is key to developing effectiveteamwork skills. A module ends with a written final report which is used for assessment; toensure consistency in project evaluation a rubric is given to students. Written, rather than oral,reports are used since research indicates group work by students is a more positive experiencewhen oral presentations are not required [17]. The final report includes peer evaluation, a vitalpart of team learning [14].In contrast to the first introductory course, the second course of VECTOR, ECEN3623, isdesigned for students who
data sets collected by other students. Students work in groups, collect data, and preparedetailed reports summarizing their efforts. Students also perform a peer review of submittedprojects, providing another valuable learning experience.Assessments of the first three semesters of the project clearly indicate that the students enjoyedthe hands-on project and clearly felt that they understood the material in much greater depth as aresult of the project.I. ProblemUnderstanding basic STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) material is criticalto a student’s ability to progress satisfactorily in upper level courses. Earlier courses oftenappear to have no relevance, from a student’s perspective. As a result, students feel that they
principles are reinforced through open ended, student conducted, multifacetedmechanical and thermal/fluid system experiments. The students work in a collaborative mannerto develop mathematical models, create test plans, apply measurement techniques, perform dataanalysis, and write comprehensive technical reports. In this paper, an overview of the threeexperimental systems and accompanying student learning objectives will be presented. The firstexperiment features the modeling, testing, and analysis of a single degree-of-freedom systemsubject to excitation from a rotating unbalanced mass. The student teams are tasked toanalytically and experimentally investigate the system and design a dynamic vibration absorber.In the second experiment
official has been vital to the team’s success. Page 11.1286.3 Each team member brings a unique area of expertise and culture to the organization. Thisgroup’s dynamic has added to the skill set of the enterprise program and has therefore made theteam more marketable and attractive to a wider variety of industry areas. The team’s expertiseincludes programming languages, software development and testing, peer-to-peer networking,database development, and multimedia platforms. In addition, the program has one of the mostculturally and cross-disciplinary diverse groups on campus. ITOxygen draws upon teammembers from Africa, Europe, Malaysia, and
2006-853: USING RUBRICS FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF SENIOR DESIGNPROJECTSJohn K. Estell, Ohio Northern University JOHN K. ESTELL is Chair of the Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Department at Ohio Northern University. He received his doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His areas of research include simplifying the outcomes assessment process, user interface design, and the pedagogical aspects of writing computer games. Dr. Estell is a Senior Member of IEEE, and a member of ACM, ASEE, Tau Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu, and Upsilon Pi Epsilon.Juliet Hurtig, Ohio Northern University JULIET K. HURTIG is an Associate Professor of Electrical
business. ALIVE provides a practical and consistentmeans of developing realistic problem solving skills in engineering and business studentsreaching a variety of learning styles.Student assessment within the ALIVE system is achieved through an authentic assessmentprocess. The process uses instructor, industry, and student/peer feedback according to the sixlevels of authentic assessment: Basic Knowledge, Inquiry, Explanation, Problem-solving,Representation of Knowledge, and Metacognition. Rubrics are developed for each evaluationsource to encourage development of skills relevant to practice throughout the curriculum. Ascoring mechanism is described to alleviate the tension in student peer assessment betweenloyalty and honesty. Though this paper
theaddition of streaming videos for asynchronous instructions. Qualitative feedbackindicates a positive response from students. Rigorous assessment is planned forevaluating the efficacy of these technologies.IntroductionBoyer1 in his report talks about reinventing undergraduate education by taking severalsteps which include the use of information technology creatively for enhancingundergraduate education. Hake2 has shown that interactive engagement increases theconceptual understanding and problem solving ability of students in a mechanics course.Cooperative learning3, 4, and peer instruction5 have shown to be beneficial in classroomsand in the enhancement of student learning. According to Patricia Cross (a leadingeducator), “We have more information
• • Rotation and reporting of individual team member roles for each laboratory exercise (i.e. data taker, equipment operator, editor, responsibility for draft section(s) of report, etc.) • Bringing any team conflicts to the instructor’s attention only after failing to resolve such issues as a team • Individual team member accountability addressed by the peer evaluation conducted at the end of the course • Self-governance of teamsBenefits to downstream courses in curriculumFaculty have commented on how much better students write in various courses and labs aftercompleting ENGR 317, but equally important is that successful completion of the ENGR 317course benefits students in that they are able to apply the technical