AC 2009-1027: THE DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF ANANOTECHNOLOGY MODULE INTO A LARGE, FRESHMAN ENGINEERINGCOURSEVinod Lohani, Virginia Tech Vinod K Lohani is an associate professor in the Engineering Education Department and an adjunct faculty in the Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech. He received a PhD in civil engineering from Virginia Tech in 1995. His research interests are in the areas of knowledge modeling, water and energy sustainability, engineering learning modules for freshmen, and international collaboration. He leads a major curriculum reform project, funded under the department-level reform program of the NSF, at Virginia Tech. A spiral curriculum approach
AC 2009-1431: TUTORIALS AND IN-CLASS ACTIVITY FOR IMPROVINGSTUDENT PERFORMANCE IN A FIRST-YEAR ENGINEERING COURSELisa Benson, Clemson University Lisa Benson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering and Science Education at Clemson University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Bioengineering. Dr. Benson teaches first year engineering, research methods, and graduate engineering education courses. Her research interests include student-centered active learning in undergraduate engineering, assessment of motivation, and how motivation affects student learning. She is also involved in projects that utilize Tablet PCs to enhance student learning. Her education includes
AC 2009-270: A LEGO ROBOT PROJECT USING CONCEPT MAPS ANDPEER-LED TEAMS FOR A FRESHMAN COURSE IN ENGINEERING ANDENGINEERING TECHNOLOGYMehrube Mehrubeoglu, Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi Dr. Mehrubeoglu received her B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, and her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Bioengineering and Electrical Engineering, respectively, from Texas A&M University. After working as a research engineer and software engineer at Electroscientific Industries, where she developed new algorithms for machine vision problems, she joined Cyprus International University as the Chair of Department of Computer Engineering. After returning to Texas she
constructivist theory wereused as theoretical frameworks. Twenty-five first-year engineering students (six teams)participated in the study and their team discussions were video and audio recorded betweenFebruary and May 2007. During the study, students worked on three design projects: a firerescue project, a pharmaceutical lozenge design project, and a street-crossing problem. A three-stage sequential mixed-methods approach (qualitative quantitative qualitative) was used fordata analysis. The first and second stages involved the coding of student talk and correlationanalyses between self-efficacy, achievement, and discourse type. Results from these two phaseswere presented in detail in a previous paper. In summary, the analyses showed a
Engineering at the University of New Haven, received her Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is currently serving as the Coordinator of the First Year Program. Her professional interests include modeling the transport and fate of contaminants in groundwater and surface water systems, as well as engineering education reform. Page 14.735.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2009 Infusing System Engineering Concepts and System Engineering Approaches into a Multidisciplinary Freshman Project-Based Introduction to Engineering CourseAbstractThe
AC 2009-1444: MATHEMATICS AND PHYSICS FACULTY CONCEPTIONS OFTEACHING IN A FIRST-YEAR INTEGRATED PROJECT-BASED ENGINEERINGCURRICULUMCasey Canfield, Franklin W. Olin College of EngineeringYevgeniya Zastavker, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering Page 14.867.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2009 Mathematics and Physics Faculty Conceptions of Teaching in a First-Year Integrated Project-Based Engineering Curriculum Abstract This paper examines the experiences, perspectives, and concerns of mathematics and physics faculty involved in implementing a first-year integrated project-based engineering curriculum. Carried out at a
AC 2009-1899: ENGAGING EARLY ENGINEERING STUDENTS (EEES):BACKGROUND AND GOALS OF AN NSF STEP PROJECT TO INCREASERETENTION OF EARLY ENGINEERING STUDENTSJon Sticklen, Michigan State University Jon Sticklen is the Director of the Applied Engineering Sciences major, College of Engineering, Michigan State University. Dr. Sticklen also serves as the College Coordinator for engineering education research, and is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department, MSU. Dr. Sticklen has lead a laboratory in knowledge-based systems focused on task specific approaches to problem solving. More recently, Dr. Sticklen has pursued engineering education research focused on early
Engineering Design: An Emphasis on Communication For the last eight years, the Introduction to Engineering Design course at the Universityof Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) has evolved from a traditional lecture and design-on-paper course, to an active learning lecture and project-based learning engineering design course.The importance of learning teamwork skills and communication skills are emphasized in thecourse. Every effort is made to ensure that the design teams are diverse, interdisciplinary, yetacademically balanced. The design teams are required not only to research, design, construct,evaluate, test and present (through oral presentation and written reports) their product, but also todevelop a mathematical model to predict their
engineering degree. For students at MichiganTechnological University, this decision primarily occurs during their first or second year.Therefore, the contents of the first-year engineering courses make a crucial first impression.The first-year engineering program at Michigan Tech consists of a two course sequence that wasdesigned to give the students the engineering skills necessary to succeed at any engineeringdiscipline while providing the opportunity to learn more about the different majors. From 2000to 2006, students were scheduled for their engineering courses as part of a cohort with calculusand physics. While the material covered in the first semester was common throughout thesections, the design projects for the second semester course were
initial team building activity. Many of the designs were entered in a competition to raisemoney for Pennies for Peace (an organization that builds schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan).The students completed a basic statistical analysis on the funds collected and summarized theresults. In ENG1101, students were introduced to the engineering design process as theyprogressed through an eight-week, design/construct, team-based project that focused on greenengineering. Design constraints for the project imposed a 50% lower limit on post-consumermaterials used in construction, and the student teams were instructed to keep the environmentalimpact of their design very much in mind from the beginning of the design process and as theymoved through to
Introduction to Engineering – Project-Based is taken by all incoming engineeringfreshmen first semester at the University of New Haven as part of the Multi-DisciplinaryEngineering Foundation Spiral curriculum. Throughout the course, students are introduced tobasic engineering concepts through a series of hands-on projects. Student understanding isenhanced as these topics are revisited in subsequent courses taken during the second semesterfreshman year and through the sophomore year. This approach requires significant collaborationbetween faculty involved in the spiral curriculum courses in order to achieve the program’sintended results, namely, academic consistency across sections, and the need to adequatelyprepare students for the next tier of
Page 14.359.1 Michigan State University. She co-advises computer science undergraduate students and is the Support Coordinator for the EEES research project. Denise is an advocate for women in engineering and is currently the co-coordinator for the 2009 Michigan Celebration of Women in Computing. Denise earned a Master's degree in Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education from© American Society for Engineering Education, 2009 Michigan State University in 2005.Timothy Hinds, Michigan State University TIMOTHY J. HINDS is an Academic Specialist in the Michigan State University College of Engineering Undergraduate Studies and Department of Mechanical Engineering. He is the lead instructor
for Entrepreneurship and Information Technology (CEnIT).Patricia Brackin, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Dr. Patricia Brackin is Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Rose-Hulman University. Her research interests are engineering design and assessment. Page 14.619.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2009 The Facilitation of Lifelong Learning Skills through a Project- Based Freshman Engineering CurriculumAbstractEngineering accreditation criteria, as well as the Engineer of 2020 report, list lifelong learning asa critical attribute of future engineers. While exercises
Programs at Michigan State University. In that role, she works with academic units, housing and residence life to create and sustain living-learning programs. She has worked in residence life in various capacities for over 25 years. Cindy is also an adjunct assistant professor in the higher education program at Michigan© American Society for Engineering Education, 2009 State and teaches courses in student affairs administration and higher education. She has been involved with several research projects related to student outcomes through participation in living-learning programs and faculty involvement in living-learning programs
holistic “cradle to grave” approach Do things right, having decided the right thing to do Beware cost reduction masquerading as value engineering Practice what you preachThe third lecture builds on Egan Review Skills for Sustainable Communities7. This is included tostimulate student thinking about their skills development, the other professions who they may beworking with in the future and to support their year-long first year design project which is Page 14.800.5looking at conceptual design of an eco-town for 20 000 people.The Egan Review presents seven components that are core to realising a sustainable community.They are
Deviation 2008 Participants Deviation Participants The type of project was 4.4 0.9 4.4 0.9 appropriate for the class Level of difficulty was 4.1 0.9 3.8 1.1 appropriate for the class Amount of given time was 3.9 1.2 3.5 1.1 adequate Project encouraged to 3.6 1.1 3.9 1.0 continue as ME major Percentage of the grade corresponds to work put 3.6 1.2 3.5 1.1 into it Project
. That is, students in EGR120 are not seen again in the engineering programuntil their second year.The ET department lies within the College of Science and Technology, yet EGR120 drawsstudents from around the university who are interested in engineering, technology, or just afun design project. The course is offered both semesters and has no prerequisites, although itrecommends Intermediate Algebra or higher. The syllabus covers introductory material suchas the engineering profession, problem solving, measurement and units, ethics, economics,and basic mechanical and electrical concepts. Traditionally, the course includes one largegroup design project of either a cardboard boat race in the fall semester or a robot King-of-the-Hill competition in
to a variety of criteria, including learningobjectives, tags, and resource type. In this way, instructors can easily find resources that matchthe particular requirements of their course, as well as make it easy to contribute materials thatcan be readily located by other instructors. Instructional resources include homework problemsand solutions, lecture slides, videos, project descriptions, and discussion and help topics. Thesite has been initially seeded with materials to accompany a commercially-published textbook1,but both the publisher and the author have agreed to make the site available to any confirmedinstructor of an introductory engineering course, independent of whether or not they adopt thetextbook for use at their school.The
semester, began modifying ChE 2213 Chemical EngineeringAnalysis (hereafter referred to as ―Analysis‖). Originally offered to mid-/upper-level chemicalengineering students subsequent to the traditional Mass and Energy Balances course, the coursewas re-examined as a vehicle for engaging students in a variety of topics and activities inaddition to the original scope of the course—namely numerical and statistical techniques usingMicrosoft Excel and Visual Basic. Topics including team-building, engineering problemsolving, and project design and development have been added. An interesting feature of thecourse was the addition of LEGO NXT robotics systems with a growing cache of chemicalengineering applications. Such an addition has energized student
engineering society in England and the introduction to civilengineering. This naturally sparks a discussion as to the importance of professionalsocieties and when and how do they get involved. The coverage of steamboats andrailroads leads to discussions about mechanical engineering, while the coverage of thetelephone and electricity sets the stage for discussions about electrical engineering. Theuse of computers and research requirements on the web throughout the course and theintroduction of sensors within the design project set the stage for the introduction ofcomputer science. Even though the computer science majors do not currently take thecourse, the intent is to introduce the engineers to computer science while developing acourse that can serve
© American Society for Engineering Education, 2009 ENG2: Engineering Engagement for Student Success Building a Community for First Year Freshmen in the College of Engineering Research has shown that engineering retention and graduation rates are enhanced throughfirst year experiences that actively incorporate and engage faculty and students. 1-5 Based on thispremise, the STEM Talent Expansion Project at Louisiana State University (LSU), funded by theNational Science Foundation, has focused the majority of its efforts into the first year experienceof incoming freshmen in order to increase retention and ultimately graduation rates in theCollege of Engineering. This will be achieved by
survey14,conducted over 35 institutions, revealed that eleven institutions offered, or will offer in thenext year, a first-year program, of which at least 75% of the courses were taught byacademics from within Engineering. All of the first-year programs surveyed include anintroduction to the engineering profession and engineering life-cycle and/or an EngineeringDesign course, with some excellent examples of active and project based learning based onreal-life engineering problems.The longest-lived of these integrated, common first-year programs is that offered by theUniversity of Auckland (hereafter named U of A), taught entirely in-house since 1996. Thispaper charts the evolution of that program from its first incarnations in 1996
betterperformance (10%) on equivalent final examination problems than the LabVIEW students. Asecond result showed that both groups of students performed equally in MATLAB programmingexercises – their ‘second’ programming language. A third result compared the programmingbeliefs of the pilot and control groups with the instructors’ beliefs. The beliefs survey wasadministered at the beginning and end of the quarter. The pilot group of students exhibited ashift to more expert-like beliefs. This paper provides details about the processes and problemsused in this investigation. The work described here began in early 2007 and was completed in2008. This project was funded by the National Instruments Foundation.IntroductionOhio State’s First-Year Engineering
opportunity.”Other community building activities throughout the week included group projects and eveningsocial activities such as trips to downtown and a local amusement park, all with the intendedlearning outcome of knowing how to navigate the campus shuttle and city/county publictransportation systems.Orientation components of the program, while somewhat traditional in nature, were designed toeducate students about the resources available to aid them in academic and personal successwhile at UCSC and beyond. Toward that end, students attended presentations with professionalstaff from the Financial Aid Office, the Science & Engineering Library, the Career Center, andthe Services for Transfer and Re-Entry Students office. ETTP participants were
at the University of North Texas (UNT). Our mandatory freshman coursesequence, Mechanical and Energy Engineering Practice, includes exposure to practicing engineersas a significant component of the first-year experience by highlighting activities and responsibilitiesthat engineers encounter after college as they join the profession. Classes are team-taught by theMEE faculty in concert with practicing engineers from local industries. Faculty share their careersas research engineers, whereas practicing engineers expose students to industry work. Through datacollected from students enrolled in this course sequence, we test the hypothesis that educating newengineering students about the responsibilities, activities, and projects they may
(Brainard and Carlin2). According to the National Research Council in 1998, the inadequaciesand inconsistencies of collection and maintenance of evaluation and retention data are majorhindrances to projecting future manpower needs and identifying problems in the sciences field.Without access to consistent data which predicts success, engineering programs lack the abilityto pinpoint deficiencies within their academic program and keep talented students. In addition toincreasing attrition rates within engineering majors, another problem faced by departments isattracting talented high school applicants. Felder et al.5 in their study on longitudinal engineeringperformance and retention found that both the increasing difficulty of attracting high
-Engineering and Mechanical. Because of thisdiverse student population and potential interests, efforts are made to make the case studysubjects as general as possible with detailed discipline specific technical analyses minimized.Generally, the case study work concentrates on the evaluative nature of engineering work such asidentifying important variables in a problem, project assessment, and system analysis. Highlytechnical aspects of engineering such as detailed design, process development, and detailedanalysis are avoided.Case studies are organized as portions of three or four class periods. In the first class period, apresentation/lecture introduces the case study giving the historical and background informationconcerning the subject. During this
college campuses, and in programswhich tend to share 3 common elements: (1) activities based on a STEM knowledge domain, (2)an element of socializing, and (3) a guided structure. These programs develop, capitalize on, orprovide a knowledge base as the fundamental ingredient. They also may create a discovery paththrough hands-on, building, and problem-solving activities. These educational programs are verydeliberate in generating a great deal of interaction, which in turn promotes the notion ofteamwork along with enjoyment and a sense of collective pride in engineering project work.Finally, the fun and accomplishments are directed and overseen by individuals seeking to ensurethe safety, education, and enjoyment of the participants. Dozens of camps
Robotics Research Group and teaches in the Mechanical Engineering Department. As a researcher, his efforts have focused on software development for robotic systems. Recent research efforts include human/robot interactions, mobile manipulation, and robotic workcell integration including projects funded by NSF, DARPA, DOE/NNSA, and ONR among others. In the ME Department, he has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in programming, numerical methods, and robotics, as well as co-developed a nuclear automation interdisciplinary graduate program. Additionally, he has received academic development funding to study presence and stability in online PSI courses.Cameron Booth, University of
Program two week summer program. Thegoal of the Academic Success Class, which had an emphasis on underrepresented minority andwomen students after the first year, was to retain the freshmen in good stead for the sophomoreyear. The students were taught time management. Not only were the students taught study tipsand given help on writing a resume, but the mere fact that the students met together every weektheir first semester helped the students cope. The students did a small team project during thesemester (incorporating the group work principle). At the beginning of the meetings, thestudents were often asked how they were doing academically. As a student would hear anotherstudent say they were struggling in a particular class, they would be