Conference Session

Engineering for Nonengineers: Ideas & Results

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Vince Bertsch, Santa Rosa Junior College

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

://busapp02.santarosa.edu/SRCurric/SR_CourseOutlines.aspx?mode=1&CVID=7203&Semester=20087Vince Bertsch1/18/08 Page 13.1185.3 ENGR 12 Course Outline as of Fall 2008ENGR 12 HOW STUFF WORKSFull Title: How Stuff Works - The Science Behind ThingsUnits Course Hours per Week Nbr of Weeks Course Hours TotalMaximum 4.00 Lecture Scheduled 3.00 17.5 Lecture Scheduled 52.50Minimum 4.00 Lab Scheduled 3.00 17.5 Lab Scheduled 52.50Title 5 Category: AA Degree ApplicableGrading: Credit Course for Grade or CR/NCRepeatability: 00 - One

Conference Session

Service Courses for Non-Engineers

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Krupczak, Hope College; David Ollis, North Carolina State University

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

context.IntroductionIn publishing “Technically Speaking [1],” The National Academy of Engineering hasemphasized the need for all Americans to understand and appreciate our technologicalinfrastructure. The National Science Foundation’s “Shaping the Future” challenged science andengineering faculty to insure that: “All students have access to supportive, excellentundergraduate education in science, mathematics, engineering and technology [2].”This call for technological literacy has resulted in some action; however, the national efforts arethus far directed largely toward the pre-college population. The International TechnologicalEducation Association (ITEA) with support from the NSF and NASA has produced a set ofstandards that help define the concept of

Conference Session

Service Courses for Non-Engineers

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Krupczak, Hope College; Timothy Simpson, Pennsylvania State University; Vince Bertsch, Santa Rosa Junior College; Kate Disney, Mission College; Elsa Garmire, Dartmouth College; Barbara Oakley, Oakland University; Mary Rose, Ball State University

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

. In addition to thesethree cognitive dimensions, four content areas were defined: (1) technology and society, (2)design, (3) products and systems, and (4) characteristics, concepts, and connections. Finally, anassessment matrix was proposed that combined the four content areas (the rows of the matrix)with the three cognitive dimensions (the columns of the matrix), and it is this matrix that spurredthe development of the proposed framework (see Section 3).Simultaneously, the International Technology Education Association (ITEA) also developed aset of standards (ITEA 2000) for technological literacy, which was published in their report Page

Conference Session

Improving Technical Understanding of All Americans

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Elaine Cooney, Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis; Karen Alfrey; Steve Owens, Indiana University - Purdue University-Indianapolis

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

ethical responsibility; andunderstanding the impact of engineering solutions within a contemporary and societalcontext. Furthermore, IUPUI, like many universities, explicitly recognizes theimportance of critical thinking as a component of undergraduate education by identifyingit among the university’s Principles of Undergraduate Learning (PULs). However, theability to think critically and independently is cited by employers as one of the greatestdeficiencies in recent engineering graduates [1, 2]. We may believe we are fosteringcritical thinking skills in our engineering and technology curricula – but are ourundergraduates developing those skills as we intend?Background and Motivation“Critical thinking” is the ability to analyze carefully and

Conference Session

Engineering for Nonengineers: Ideas & Results

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Kathryn Neeley, University of Virginia; W. Bernard Carlson, University of Virginia; Sarah Pfatteicher, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Bruce Seely, Michigan Technological University; Douglass Klein, Union College; Ronald Miller, Colorado School of Mines

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

AC 2008-1732: TECHNOLOGY IN CONTEXT: INTEGRATINGTECHNOLOGICAL "LITERACY" WITH SCIENCE REQUIREMENTS FORNON-MAJORSKathryn Neeley, University of VirginiaW. Bernard Carlson, University of Virginia Chair of Technological Literacy Constituent CommitteeSarah Pfatteicher, University of Wisconsin - Madison Former chair of Liberal Education Division of ASEEBruce Seely, Michigan Technological UniversityDouglass Klein, Union CollegeRonald Miller, Colorado School of Mines Page 13.1190.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2008 Technology in Context: Integrating Technological “Literacy”1 with Science Requirements for Non

Conference Session

Engineering for Nonengineers: Ideas & Results

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Deborah Mechtel, U.S. Naval Academy; Andrew McCue, U.S. Naval Academy; Keith Kintzley, U.S. Naval Academy; Robert Voigt, U.S. Naval Academy

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

literacy ofstudents with majors as diverse as English, Political Science, Economics, Mathematicsand Chemistry by offering a two course overview of fundamental Electrical Engineeringtopics. The goal of this course sequence is not to train engineers, but to introducestudents to the language and concepts of electrical engineering so that they are effectivein their role as future Navy or Marine Corps Officers. An additional goal is animprovement in their problem solving and critical thinking skills. These goals correspondto some of the traits that characterize the knowledge and capabilities components oftechnological literacy.1 As pointed out by Ollis and Pearson2, it would be difficult to findany person that exhibited all the characteristics

Conference Session

Engineering for Nonengineers: Ideas & Results

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

David Ollis, North Carolina State University

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

examplesJacquard’s invention of automated weaving, and the modern computer A computer program is a non-repetitive series of instructions which can beexecuted by an appropriate machine to produced a desired outcome. The origins of themodern computer hark back to Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace, his companion. Atthe base of all calculating machines is ultimately a binary system, typically represented aszeroes and ones. The earliest use of such an information encoding system occurred not incomputing but in weaving, and was promulgated in Lyon, France, during the industrialrevolution. Lyon was Europe’s silk capital, and the weaving of silk produced remarkably softfabrics. The fineness of the silk thread meant that, at 1/20,000 of an inch in

Conference Session

Service Courses for Non-Engineers

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

William Suchan, United States Military Academy; Susan Schwartz, United States Military Academy; Edward Sobiesk, United States Military Academy

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

accomplishment of ourinstitution’s IT literacy goal, which states that “Graduates understand and apply informationtechnology concepts to acquire, manage, communicate and defend information, solve problems,and adapt to technological change.”1 The course accomplishes this by emphasizing both thetheory and the practice of information technology. From a theoretical perspective, it is criticalthat our students understand the general concepts involved with acquiring, communicating,managing, and defending information. From a more pragmatic viewpoint, though, we strive toalso produce students who have the skills necessary to apply various IT tools in finding practicalsolutions to diverse problems in often unpredictable problem domains. Ideally, we want

Conference Session

Engineering for Nonengineers: Ideas & Results

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Gregory Zieren, Austin Peay State University; John Blake, Austin Peay State University

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

who specialize in other fields can point tocases where a technological innovation was a critical element in the course of history. The paperwill also explore areas where the engineer’s ability to understand how technology works isneeded, and how the expertise of the engineer and the historian can complement each other.IntroductionIn the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) publication “Technically Speaking,”technological literacy is described as giving people the knowledge necessary to understand, thinkcritically about, and make informed decisions about technology.1 The report describes this ashaving the dimensions of knowledge, ways of thinking and acting, and capabilities. In thisdescription, knowledge includes understanding of how a

Conference Session

Improving Technical Understanding of All Americans

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mary Kasarda, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Brenda Brand, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Michael Collver, Montgomery County Public Schools; Gabriel Goldman, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

into the next phase of their design process in whichthey incorporate the high-school students.This year, the capstone design project is titled “Farmbot.” The goal of the capstone project is tore-design a donated lawn tractor for autonomous operation. The as-received tractor, without thecowling, is shown in Figure 1. Ultimately, the Farmbot will be used as a tool to help teach high-school students aspects of autonomous robot operation which is directly related to one componentof the FIRST robotics competition. Initially, the VT capstone design students and high-school Page 13.1282.4students worked collaboratively to get the donated tractor into

Conference Session

Improving Technical Understanding of All Americans

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Daniel Engstrom, ITEA/Cal U

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

learning resources based onselected technological and science literacy standards; and disseminating the units to teachers intraining workshops and distance learning. Each unit has standards-based content, suggestedteaching approaches, and detailed learning activities including brainstorming, visualizing, testing,refining, and assessing technological designs. Students learn how inventions, innovations, andsystems are created and how technology becomes part of people’s lives.The primary goals of the project were to: 1. Create a model for standards-based instructional units addressing the study of technology and science to be implemented in grades 5 and/or 6. 2. Align contemporary classroom/laboratory instruction with technological literacy

Conference Session

Engineering for Nonengineers: Ideas & Results

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mani Mina, Iowa State University

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

awareness of technological issues has beenrecently brought up to the forefront of engineering education circles. There are numerousmanagers, CEOs, policy makers, and leaders who are making critical decisions on technologicalissues related to technology and are not trained in the technical fields.Technological literacy and public technological awareness have been gradually becoming themost important items on national education agenda. It is generally accepted the nations that aremore technologically capable would play a more active role in international market place andfuture production [1-5].The future advancements and developments in the US is bound to be more in the hi-tech areawith high technically trained workforce. Due to the labor prices, the

Conference Session

Improving Technical Understanding of All Americans

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Kara Harris, College of Technology - Purdue University

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

females are grossly underrepresented. But how does one increase the number of females teaching in ETTE? Or what type ofrecruitment activities or motivators would be effective in attracting females to the ETTEprofession? According to Shanahan (2006): The secret to increasing females in technology is not to “fix” the girls Page 13.1029.2 but to make the technology classroom and profession more appealing to and welcoming of girls. Rather than trying to replicate the approaches 1 and interests of the small number of girls successful in

Conference Session

Improving Technical Understanding of All Americans

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mary Rose, Ball State University; Jim Flowers, Ball State University

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

humans modify nature to meet their needs anddesires [1]—enables efficient economic productivity and a very comfortable standard of livingfor U.S. citizens. However, with each new technological innovation, humans, deliberately orinadvertently, alter the balance of biotic and abiotic systems in the environment which oftendegrades the ability of ecosystems to persevere. In addition, the adoption of technologicalinnovation necessitates changes within our social systems (e.g., educational, legal, political, andeconomic systems) as individuals and communities coordinate their efforts to design, manage,use, and dispose of these technological products and by-products.As technology grows more complex and ubiquitous, it is increasingly important that all