Conference Session

Survivor: The First Few Years

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Adrienne Minerick, Mississippi State University

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

AC 2008-2293: ADVICE FOR NEW FACULTY: STRUCTURING A SUMMER REUPROJECT AND MENTORING THE PARTICIPANT TO A PUBLICATIONAdrienne Minerick, Mississippi State University Page 13.162.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2008 Advice for New Faculty: Structuring a Summer REU Project and Mentoring the Participant to a Publication Adrienne R. Minerick Dave C. Swalm School of Chemical Engineering Mississippi State University Mississippi State, MS 39672Abstract – Due to strategic funding initiatives by the National

Conference Session

Off the Beaten Path

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Gerald Sullivan, Virginia Military Institute; Jon-Michael Hardin, Virginia Military Institute

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

at amilitary academy, where highly structured time schedules scatters study time through outthe day, and where students face all of the same hi-tech distractions as their civiliancounterparts. To compete for time in this new study-scape, the study of engineeringconcepts must be re-cast into exercises that entice students with interesting and evenentertaining results. In this paper we describe several projects that have been incorporatedinto the ME curriculum at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) to keep students engagedin their studies and improve the acquisition of engineering concepts as well as designskills. In this paper the authors examine case-study projects used at VMI and, based ontheir experiences with these projects, conclude

Conference Session

Been There/Done That: Advice for NEEs

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Gene Harding, Purdue University; Benedict Kazora, Purdue University; Robert Smethers, Purdue University

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

. Although they do not have graduate students, they are replete with undergraduates, andsome of those students can be great assets for improving the local educational environment.Why not capitalize on that opportunity?This paper describes a project that used two volunteer students, both upperclassmen, to do mostof the work developing a pair of lab manuals at one of Purdue University’s satellite campuses.The lab books, totaling over 200 pages, were customized specifically for the labs used by thebeginning circuits courses. We describe the genesis of the project, how each student becameinvolved, the experience of managing and coordinating the work, the lessons learned by all threeindividuals, and the costs/benefits for all involved, including the

Conference Session

Mentoring & Development:Creating Successful NEEs

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Wendy James, Oklahoma State University; Karen High, Oklahoma State University

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

AC 2008-1106: ENGINEERING FACULTY BECOMING ENGINEERINGEDUCATORS AND RESEARCHERSWendy James, Oklahoma State University Wendy James is a PhD student in the College of Education at Oklahoma State University. Currently she has a fellowship promoting collaboration between the College of Education and OSU's Electrical and Computer Engineering department on an NSF funded curriculum reform project called Engineering Students for the 21st Century. She has her M.S. in Teaching, Learning, and Leadership from OSU, and her B.B.S. in Mathematics Education from Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas. She has nine years teaching experience at the high school and college levels with courses in math and

Conference Session

Survivor: The First Few Years

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Elizabeth Creamer, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Tonya Saddler, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Margaret Layne, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

program is targeted to improving the recruitment and success offemale faculty members in science and engineering through program initiatives designed toimprove departmental and university climate. As part of the research and assessment componentof this project at Virginia Tech, a research project was launched to conduct yearly interviewswith the cohort of faculty entering faculty positions in engineering in the fall of 2003. A time ofsevere budget restraints, the cohort was unusually small, with only 12 new faculty members (5women; 7 men) hired in engineering. Each member of the cohort was contacted once a year toparticipate in an interview and to discuss the priorities, challenges, and support that were uniqueto that year.PurposeIt is rare to

Conference Session

Been There/Done That: Advice for NEEs

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Craig Somerton, Michigan State University; Laura Genik, Michigan State University

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

Black Engineers (NSBE), andAmerican Indian Science & Engineering Society (AISES). Finally there are theorganizations that focus on build projects that include concrete canoe, steel bridge,formula SAE, SAE Baja and challenge X competition teams. Many of theaforementioned organizations can fall into this final category, making advising two-fold: Page 13.163.2focusing on the tenets of the organization as well as an involved design and build. All ofthese organizations have an advisor or counselor, though in recent years there has been amove away from “faculty” advisors. ASME now calls their advisors “student sectionadvisors” and allow for ASME

Conference Session

Off the Beaten Path

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Edward Gehringer, North Carolina State University

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

their professors, and make itclear what is expected of them so they will not erroneously assume that educational practices arethe same as in their home countries. The educational systems they come from are very diverse,although some are adopting elements of the American educational model. In other countries,there is less emphasis on project work and other homework, and more on exams. While it seemsto be rare for final grades to be based entirely on the final exam, it is not unusual for them to bebased entirely on finals plus midterm exams. Homework counts for less, perhaps because thefew teaching assistants that do exist are responsible for lab sections, so there is no support forgrading of homework. In many places, a variety of homework is

Conference Session

Survivor: The First Few Years

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Ryan Beasley, Texas A&M University; Ana Elisa Goulart, Texas A&M University; Wei Zhan, Texas A&M University

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

previous work to extend or previouscontacts to build upon. Combined with a lack of experience, such freedom can be detrimental.For example, many projects may seem tempting or even urgent but it would be a mistake toperform a small amount of work in several areas without significant progress in any of them.Additionally, tenure-track problems are usually exacerbated by the fact that the faculty memberis new to the geographic location and starts with a limited social network. Regular discussions with peers in the same situation can accelerate the acclimation andthereby improve the chances of getting tenure.13-15 First, explaining and discussing anydifficulties often provides multiple approaches which can then be considered and debated.Second, and

Conference Session

Tricks of the Trade I

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Aly Tawfik, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Janis Terpenny, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Richard Goff, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

projected to students’ satisfaction.In addition, the two measures are different from one another. This means that if the two measureswere to be compared to one another, with the objective of following a time-series sort of a trend,this will be of no practical meaning. The authors would have liked to investigate the trend ofstudents’ satisfaction throughout the semester, the same way the test scores were investigatedearlier. However, this is not possible with the available data. The authors have communicatedthis concern to the Department of Engineering Education, and new evaluations forms arecurrently being developed for this semester. Hence, the mentioned trend analysis will be possiblein future similar publications.Comparing students’ satisfaction

Conference Session

Best of the NEE

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Edward Gehringer, North Carolina State University

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

, Regarding grading, I often find it useful to retroactively change disasters into extra-credit opportunities. That is, I explain that the problem won't count against anyone's grade, but that those students who managed against all odds to solve (or make substantial headway toward solving) a very difficult (or impossible) problem will be rewarded with extra-credit points.Students should not expect assignments to be perfect. Several instructors made the point that inthe real world, requirements are incompletely specified, change during the project, etc. As KathyRoberson9 put it, Up front, and several times during the semester, I explain to my students that they are preparing for a career where they will frequently be

Conference Session

Tricks of the Trade I

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Adrian Ieta, Murray State University; Thomas Doyle, McMaster University; Arthur Pallone

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

AC 2008-2427: EFFECTIVE TEACHING: THE STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVEAdrian Ieta, Murray State University Adrian Ieta holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering (2004) from The University of Western Ontario, Canada. He also holds a B.Sc. in Physics from the University of Timisoara, Romania (1984), a B.E.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Polytechnical University of Timisoara (1992), and an M.E.Sc. from The University of Western Ontario (1999). He worked on industrial projects within the Applied Electrostatics Research Centre and the Digital Electronics Research Group at the University of Western Ontario and is an IEEE member and a registered Professional Engineer of Ontario. He taught at the

Conference Session

Tricks of the Trade II

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Adam Chalmers, United States Military Academy; Eric Crispino, United States Military Academy; Joseph Hanus, United States Military Academy

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

sporting events, greeting andencouraging all of them to let them know we cared about them outside of the classroom. For thecivil engineering Firsties (seniors) we have a private social gathering where we teach them homebrewing in an informal atmosphere and they learn proper social etiquette and moderate alcoholconsumption. In addition, we perform duties as the Academic Officer in Charge (AOC) wherewe inspect cadet living and study conditions from 1930-2330 at least once a semester. Thisallows us to gauge how well cadets are able to study at night, and it allows us to visit ourstudents in their rooms and see how they are doing at a very personal level. Each instructor alsoparticipates in a CE489 Individual Study Project, that allows a group of

Conference Session

Best of the NEE

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Norman Fortenberry, National Academy of Engineering; Tylisha Baber, Michigan State University

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

other supporting resources). ‚ Materials that illustrate course content. (e.g., assignments, projects, exams, presentations). ‚ Materials that assess student performance and learning outcomes (e.g., samples of student work, student evaluations, student interviews).A fourth category can be related to the efforts to improve teaching: ‚ Materials that illustrate contributions to curriculum development. (e.g., workshops, seminars, courses, publications, description of teaching innovations, teaching awards). Page 13.577.7C. Who Should Evaluate?An important consideration in selecting a

Conference Session

Tricks of the Trade I

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jerry Samples, University of Pittsburgh -Johnstown

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

we are nowconcerned about the faculty’s currency in the discipline. So, researchers have to teach andteachers have to research – but we already knew that. There must be something else to thismodel idea.Before discussing the model further it is important to set the maximum and minimum parameterson the two functions of interest – teaching and scholarship. There is a difference betweenresearch and scholarship as research actually begets scholarship. Unfortunately, we haveclassified institutions of higher education by teaching and research, where scholarship is thedeliverable of a research project. Similarly, we have divided the primary parameter, teaching,along the same lines. It is not unusual for a faculty member at a “teaching” college to

Conference Session

Off the Beaten Path

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Rebecca Bates, Minnesota State University-Mankato; Denise Wilson, University of Washington

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

Education Conference: San Diego, California.2 McKinney, D. & Denton, L.F. (2005). Affective assessment of team skills in agile CS1 labs: the good, the bad,and the ugly. SIGCSE Bulletin, vol. 37, no. 1, March 2005, pp. 465-469.3 Hansen, Stuart & Eddy, Erica (2007). Engagement and frustration in programming projects. SIGCSE Bulletin, Page 13.324.7vol. 39, no. 1, March 2007, pp. 271-275.4 Gungor, Almer, Eryilmaz, Ali, & Fakioglu, Turgut (2007). The relationship of freshmen’s physics achievementand their related affective characteristics. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, vol. 44, no. 8, pp. 1036-1056.5 Denton, Leo F

Conference Session

Best of the NEE

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Beverly Jaeger, Northeastern University; Margaret Bates, Northeastern University; Brittany Damon, Northeastern University; Alison Reppy

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

University is unique in that in spans over the course of a five-year period, with students working at two to three co-operative education jobs throughout their academictenure. The benefit of co-op, however, causes complications in the development of course structure asstudents theoretically begin their academic career requiring a more pedagogical (instructive) approach tolearning and leave with a more andragogical (self-directed) approach –or they are at the bridging stage inbetween these two points4. Essentially, this implies that the teaching techniques used in the classroomshould evolve concurrently with students’ academic and professional maturation and in accordance withtheir general learning styles and perferences.This research project