Conference Session

Information Literacy Integration and Assessment

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Donna Riley, Smith College; Rocco Piccinino, Smith College

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Libraries

substantive introduction to information literacy, building on first-semester writing intensive courses and a college-wide online quiz-tutorial to offer discipline-specific instruction in information literacy. This course lays the groundwork for additionalinformation literacy instruction throughout the engineering core curriculum and in the capstonedesign clinic.Information literacy topics are integrated with course material in mass and energy balances usingthe organizing vehicle of a semester-long project on Life-Cycle Assessment. The engineeringlibrarian taught a class that was tailored to the course and the LCA projects; developed a course-specific web site to direct students to relevant library resources they would use in completing theproject

Conference Session

Graduate Student Experiences

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jin-Hwan Lee, Georgia Institute of Technology; Carla Purdy, University of Cincinnati; Ian Papautsky, University of Cincinnati

Tagged Divisions

Graduate Studies

who worked as teaching assistants for a laboratory class discussedteaching skills and safety issues in laboratory classes. In the final course, The AcademicProfession, the academic job search process and writing actual job applications were explored.The samples of cover letter, curriculum vita, statement about teaching, and statement aboutresearch from the PFF coordinator helped us prepare our applications. Peer reviews wereperformed, with the students giving useful feedback to each other. Student members whoalready had finished their final defense and tried to find a position discussed their experiences.The offered forums with faculty and students offered very helpful discussions of pedagogicalethics, faculty roles, and responsibilities

Conference Session

Capstone Design II

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Regina Hannemann, University of Kentucky

Tagged Divisions

Design in Engineering Education

two phases of the team dynamics cycle.The new set of changes to the course is not as effective as had been hoped. The amount ofbookkeeping is tremendous due to all the reports and presentations. Students are unable to workefficiently on their technical project due to the overload on report writing. Students alsocomplain that one semester is not enough time to produce a professional prototype. The basicfeedback from the Self/Peer-Reviews also indicates that one semester might not be enough togive the students a positive team experience, which would include the last to phases of normingand performing.Intermediate Conclusion:All changes in phase 2 have been introduced in the author’s first semester teaching the seniordesign course. Even though

Conference Session

Engineering Ethics: An Interdisciplinary Endeavor

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Brocato, Mississippi State University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

AC 2009-1565: TWO WAYS OF USING CASE STUDIES TO TEACH ETHICSJohn Brocato, Mississippi State University John Brocato serves as Coordinator and Instructor in the Shackouls Technical Communication Program in the James Worth Bagley College of Engineering at Mississippi State University. He designed and helps teach GE 3513 Technical Writing and works closely with engineering departments on enhancing the technical communication content in their curricula. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from MSU and previously taught in the English Department there. He is a member of ASEE and serves as its Campus Representative for MSU

Conference Session

Faculty Development and Research in ET

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Denton, Purdue University; Nancy Denton, Purdue University

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Technology

, conforming to the requirements for training and certification of personnel specified in ISO 18436.2. Certification examinations are offered in over 20 countries through the Vibration Institute and cooperating societies in Canada, Japan, Korea, and Great Britain10. This certification program began in the 1980s as a three-level five-year specialty certification program meeting the needs of VI members and their employers. The Vibration Institute has attempted to include at least one academic member on its certification examination committees to provide expertise on question writing and a more general perspective on the discipline. I joined the fifteen-member Vibration Institute certification examination committee as they transitioned

Conference Session

Student Attitudes and Perceptions

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Farrokh Attarzadeh, University of Houston; Deniz Gurkan, University of Houston; Miguel Ramos, University of Houston; Mequanint Moges, University of Houston; Victor Gallardo, University of Houston; Mehrube Mehrubeoglu, Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi; Reddy Talusani, Houston Community College System; Shruti Karulkar, University of Houston

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

results of an NSF sponsored program to implement an undergraduatepeer-to-peer mentoring model using concept mapping at the College of Technology-ComputerEngineering Technology (CoT-CET) program of the University of Houston. Realizing thebenefits of combining peer-to-peer mentoring with the use of concept mapping as a learning tool,the CoT-CET program launched a pilot program in fall 2008 to its freshman course in order toimplement and assess the impact of incorporating the two models. The study compares skillsreported by the students at the beginning of the semester with those collected at the end of thesemester. It also presents the results of the performance achieved by the mentored students in thepilot group and the performance of students who

Conference Session

Improving the Teaching Skills of Graduate Students

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Erin Crede, Virginia Tech; Maura Borrego, Virginia Tech

Tagged Divisions

Graduate Studies

an academic career. The GTFprogram currently being assessed was designed to combine elements from other successful Page 14.975.3programs into a holistic approach to graduate student training that focuses on the integration ofteaching, research and service. The research questions will be investigated using the concept of a community of practice11, 12 to address the mentoring and teaching communities, as well as the social and academicinteraction of the fellows with their mentors and peers. The final question concerning thepreparation of fellows for faculty careers will be addressed using the model of a “steward of thediscipline

Conference Session

Computer Education Innovations

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Thomas Cochrane, University of Canterbury

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

technical material. To tackle this problem and improve presentation skills, aprogram called Virtual-i Presenter (ViP) was created. ViP allows students to create, review, andevaluate oral presentations using a webcam and a PowerPoint presentation outside of lecturetime and still receive peer and academic feedback. The program has NO video or audio editingcapabilities and thus the presentation becomes closer to how live presentations are given. ViPfeatures a system to evaluate presentations, enabling the presenter to receive both technical andpresentation skills feedback from peers and lecturers. ViP was successfully tested in classes of19 natural resources and 78 civil engineering students. Survey results showed that studentsrepeated (practiced

Conference Session

Communication and Collaboration

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Michael Alley, Pennsylvania State University; Are Magnus Bruaset, Simula Research Laboratory; Melissa Marshall, Pennsylvania State University; Marianne M. Sundet, Simula Research Laboratory; Sarah Zappe, Pennsylvania State University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

in Norway has collaborated with faculty fromPennsylvania State University to pilot a national workshop (given in English) forNorwegian Ph.D. students on communicating scientific research. Funded primarily byNorwegian industries, the 3-day workshop was divided into three segments: (1) makingresearch presentations to a technical audience, (2) writing research papers anddissertations to technical audiences, and (3) making research presentations to generalaudiences. The first two segments, on making research presentations and writing researchdocuments to technical audiences, were based on a workshop series that was developed atnational laboratories in the U.S., taught to more than 1000 professionals and graduatestudents, and formally

Conference Session

NSF Grantees Poster Session

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

David Bahr, Washington State University

in with presentations from faculty around campus on their research activities) 2. Discussions of intellectual property, scientific integrity and ethics in research 3. Understanding the difference between popular, textbook, and peer reviewed literature 4. Selection of information sources and use of library resources 5. Making and presenting posters for research symposia 6. Improving technical writing skills 7. Improving laboratory notebook techniques 8. Developing time management skills 9. Long term career options for research, including how federal and state funding options impact research activities In the interests of providing a snapshot of the activities carried out it is instructive

Conference Session

Potpourri

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Summer Dann Johnson, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; John Scalzo, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; Sarah Jones, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; Kelly Rusch, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; Warren Waggenspack, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

, Yr 1 45 Participants 80/20% male: female 5 Peer Mentors 22% minority E2 Camp, Yr 2 84 Participants 82/18% male: female 18 Peer Mentors 6% minority ENGR 1050, Yr 1 56/ 3 sections 69/31% male: female 33% minority ENGR 1050, Yr 2 74 74/26% male: female 28% minority ERC, Yr 1 110

Conference Session

Capstone and Senior Design in Engineering Technology

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Ivana Milanovic, University of Hartford; Tom Eppes, University of Hartford

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Technology

Page 14.1051.7All capstones use peer assessment administered at the end of the semester during the finalpresentation. MET capstones employ an external panel of judges, a natural extension of industry-sponsored projects. The quality of assessment and interaction between the panel and the teamsduring the final presentation is good since some judges have been indirectly involved in theprojects. The peer and panel assessment data is both semantic (comments) and objective(numerical). The writing consultant provides input on the final grade to the instructor. EETcapstones do not use a judging panel therefore assessment of student work rests solely with theinstructor. Table 6 lists the pros and cons of assessment techniques. Peer

Conference Session

Graduate Student Experiences

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Catherine Hovell, University of Texas, Austin; Kimberly Talley, University of Texas, Austin; Kathy Schmidt, University of Texas, Austin

Tagged Divisions

Graduate Studies

joining a research project at FSEL, a new student is assigned a desk looking out over thelab floor. For new masters’ students, the desk is located in a “bullpen” style (or cubical-farm, ifyou’d rather) room – a large room divided into five short isles with two to four desks per aisle.This personal space is highly beneficial to a new student: not only does it provide an out-of-home location to work on schoolwork, but the student is surrounded by his or her peers, who arealso newcomers to the program.A small conference room is also available to the students, which aids in teamwork for groupprojects. The room isn’t very fancy, but has enough space for five or six students to cometogether and talk, with a white-board for writing up ideas. A printer

Conference Session

New Research on Retention of URM Groups in STEM

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Terrell Strayhorn, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Tagged Divisions

Minorities in Engineering

careers.3 The expressed purpose of URPs is criticallyimportant given that minorities tend to have lower self-efficacy, lower confidence in their mathand science skills, and less access to scientific courses and highly technical learning experiencescompared to their majority peers.4 And while previous research has focused on the intendedpurpose and general nature of URPs, as well as sex differences in URP participants’ perceptionsof the program,5 no studies were readily uncovered that measured the influence of URPparticipation on specific learning outcomes such as research self-efficacy. This is the gapaddressed by the present study.PurposeThe purpose of this study was to measure the influence of background traits and research-relatedexperiences

Conference Session

Communication and Collaboration

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Sally Blomstrom, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University; Hak Tam, University of California, Santa Barbara

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

accountability.The overall assessment plan included direct and indirect measures gathered as formative andsummative assessments using quantitative and qualitative assessments [3]. The portion of theplan presented in this paper is a quantitative, indirect assessment used as a pretest and posttest.We recognized the importance of alignment [4] and examined the university’s mission, thegeneral education goals, and the student learning outcomes for the course. The instrument usedin this study was developed to align with the course outcomes and the course content. Evaluationforms used by the instructor, the student for her/his own reflection, peers, and audience memberswere developed to reflect the same criteria. The instrument reported on in this paper

Conference Session

Aerospace Workspace: Current and Future 1

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Debbie Mullins, Texas Space Grant Consortium; Wallace Fowler, University of Texas, Austin

Tagged Divisions

Aerospace

participants usingTDC methods that guide and motivate student teams through each phase of project development.The program accomplishes this by providing resources that are directly tied to the successfulcompletion of required milestones called “Levels” and optional opportunities called “OptionAreas.” Guidelines and awards attached to milestone deliverables provide schedule structure,motivation, instruction, and funding to the team as design projects mature from the preliminaryidea-stage to a sound design solution. Graduate student peer reviews complement academic andtechnical guidance provided by both faculty and project mentors/customers. The semesterculminates with a professional-style conference, called the Design Challenge Showcase, whichprovides

Conference Session

Tricks of the Trade II

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jerry Samples, University of Pittsburgh, Johnstown

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

efficiency of time to add perspective.The “Effective Time” may include items such as: teaching, grant and proposal writing, journaland paper writing, discussions with peers, discussions with graduate students, basic research, Page 14.835.3meetings with research teams and research colleagues, and service requirements. Any of thesecan turn into “Wasted Time” without agendas or clear goals and time limits on topics ofdiscussion. “Effective Time” can include time to de-stress, time for reflection, personal time,preparation of lists and agenda items, time to respond to questions about teaching or research,preparation of presentations, networking, and

Conference Session

Been There, Done That: Advice for NEEs

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Susan Murray, Missouri University of Science and Technology; Elizabeth Cudney, Missouri University of Science and Technology; Suzanna Long, Missouri University of Science and Technology; Katie Grantham Lough, Missouri University of Science and Technology

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

which services or activities at MissouriS&T improved their proposal writing ability. Overwhelmingly, 61.1% responded “a mentor”.(Yet remember nearly half do not have a mentor!) The remaining breakdowns were 33.3% forFreshman Faculty Forum (FFF), 33.3% for the New Faculty Teaching Scholars Program(NFTS), and 11.1% for the Promotion and Tenure Writing Group. The first two groups are a Page 14.1367.4structured program lead by senior faculty and the last is a peer group that provides feedback onproposals and other papers. The respondents were also asked to list any other services oractivities they felt improved their proposal writing ability. A

Conference Session

Innovative Methods to Teach Engineering to URMs

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Beverley Pickering-Reyna, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

Tagged Divisions

Minorities in Engineering

with Life and Career Skills Intervention and Retention Applications Matter in Educating New Minority FreshmenAbstractSTEM and urban education along with educational psychology scholarship established fourcritical research areas that needed judicious exploration to systematically increase the exercise ofeffective instructional programming for minorities: 1) Early access to and sustained engagementwith salient concepts (e.g., logical reasoning, managing complexity) that practically applyclassroom theories, 2) Curriculum that supports cognitive development in proportion to students’learning styles, 3) Peer and expert-model pedagogical agents as learning companions and socialmodels, and 4) Considering sociocultural

Conference Session

Learning as a Community

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Janet Meyer, Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis; Patrick Gee, Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis; Laura Masterson, Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

received from enrollment in a LC. Most notably, they reportthe following7: 1. Making connections with other students, peer mentors, faculty, and advisors. 2. Academic advising (e.g., knowledgeable, available when needed assistance). 3. Experiencing environment that promotes and respects diversity. 4. Becoming familiar with campus and academic support resources. 5. Deciding on a major or future career. 6. Adjusting to college.As part of “making connections,” LCs also provide a chance for students to create a network atIUPUI since LCs consist of an instructional team of a faculty member, academic advisor,librarian, and peer mentor. Tinto illuminates the importance of student engagement andnetworking on campus, “The frequency and

Conference Session

ECE Poster Session

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Eric Freudenthal, University of Texas, El Paso; Frederick Kautz, University of Texas, El Paso; Bivas Das, University of Texas, El Paso; Luc Longpre, University of Texas, El Paso

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

as building blocks.Portable USB storage devices are becoming faster and holding larger quantities of data (for ourprototype, we used an eight gigabyte Corsair Flash Voyager GT). Copy-on-write (COW) imagesprovide a mechanism for efficiently storing file systems that are very similar (see Figure 2.) Weinstantiate multiple virtual machines using the same base image, with any changes to each virtualmachine’s file system being stored to a separate file. Copy-on-write semantics can beimplemented either within the virtualization system or within the host operating system’sfilesystem. Our implementation utilizes virtual disk-image COW facilities provided by VMWare.With this, students are free to perform experiments using most computers that support

Conference Session

Attitudes, Self-Confidence, and Self-Efficacy of Women Engineering Students

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Moshe Hartman, Retired; Harriet Hartman, Rowan University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

] The ways in which the genders vary in the respectivedisciplines is of particular interest, as it may give us a clue as to why so few women enter certaindisciplines and are attracted to others disproportionately [1,10]. Further, in at least one study,gender differences in engineering GPA’s (women’s being higher) disappeared when major wascontrolled [7]. In other words, sometimes observed gender differences are artifacts or inflatedbecause of the differential distribution of the genders across engineering disciplines. Weenvisioned writing a paper entitled, “It’s the Major, Stupid!” But it isn’t that simple, as our datashow. Gender matters, and major matters, and year in the program matters, and they eveninteract in instructive ways.The question

Conference Session

Design Projects in Mechanical Engineering I

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Tim Brower, Oregon Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Mechanical Engineering

in a wind tunnel using a pitot/static probe. Here thestudents made use of the Bernoulli Equation that had been developed in class to calculatevelocity. The twist was that the report generated in Activity One was given to a differentteam to use, i.e., not the team that generated the report. The Activity Two studentsprovided a peer review of the Activity One report regarding ease of use and technicalcorrectness. The instructor then used this peer review to grade Activities One and Two. Page 14.1118.5The use of student generated reports, utilized by different students, is extremely valuablein emphasizing the importance of writing an industry report

Conference Session

Developing Young MINDS in Engineering: Part II

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Cindy Foor, University of Oklahoma; randa shehab, University of Oklahoma

Tagged Divisions

Minorities in Engineering

interactions with peers and university? ≠ What strategies do mixed-race engineering students reporting Native American status use to adapt to, resist or negotiate the boundaries around identity based social spaces? ≠ How effective are student organizations and university programs in providing all Native American students small social enclaves of other students with similar backgrounds and interests? Page 14.679.2 ≠ How does finding community contribute to mixed-race Native American engineering students’ successful completion of a degree?The insights gained from this paper can be used to

Conference Session

NSF Grantees Poster Session

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Rick Williams, East Carolina University; Stacy Klein-Gardner; Loren Limberis; Stephanie Sullivan, East Carolina University

approaches: Peer Instruction andJust-in-Time Teaching. These approaches are designed to provide students “with greateropportunity for synthesizing concepts while instructors get timely feedback that can help focus Page 14.408.3instruction on the points that are most difficult to learn.”13 The strategies also maximize theefficacy of the classroom session, where human instructors are present, structure the out-of-class time for maximum learning benefit, and create and sustain team spirit.14 In their study of ten years of peer instruction, Crouch and Mazur11 report: “PeerInstruction engages students during class through activities that require each

Conference Session

Programming for Engineering Students I

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Christiaan Gribble, Grove City College

Tagged Divisions

Computers in Education

primitives such as barriers, locks, and higher-level constructs can beconstructed using pthreads mutexes. Primitive mechanisms for inter-thread communication viashared data structures are available as well.In general, the pthreads execution model treats threads as peers. Only the main thread, which iscreated by the operating system when it instantiates the multithreaded process, has slightlydifferent properties, but these differences can typically be ignored: all of the threads in well-designed pthreads program will thus cooperate to execute the task at hand in a manner thateffectively utilizes the underlying resources of the processor. Page

Conference Session

First-Year Advising and Transition

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Charles McDowell, University of California, Santa Cruz; Adrienne Harrell, University of California, Santa Cruz

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

primary program staff for ETTP included two student Peer Mentors who are now currentseniors who had transferred into the School of Engineering from a community college. BothPeer Mentors also had participated in our 2006 “Summer Bridge” program, our last effort tocombine transfer and first-year students in the same program. The School of EngineeringOutreach Coordinator/Transfer Advisor served as the program director, building upon the rapporthe had already established with some of the students during the outreach season and transferadvising sessions.The community building components of ETTP were especially important to address because ofthe structure and nature of our campus. Comprised of several residential colleges, most studentsentering as

Conference Session

Methods and Techniques in Graduate Education

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Robert Brooks, Temple University; Berk Ayranci, Temple University; Keerthi V. Takkalapelli, Temple University

Tagged Divisions

Graduate Studies

within the scope of the syllabus for the course. In this study, a courserepeated over three years was considered. Students were directed to undertake engineeringdesigns in specialized areas of transportation engineering, technology and management. Designtopics related to these areas ranged from Flexible Pavements, Rigid Pavements, Asphalt PavingTechnology and Pavement Rehabilitation, to Signalized Traffic Intersections. These topicscovered not only conventional transportation systems but also intelligent transportation systems.The students’ presentations were peer-graded.The extent of improvement in design, discovery, and learning was documented extensively byapplying appropriate statistical tests. Assessment, grading formula and results are

Conference Session

Entrepreneurship Education: Assessment and Integrating Entrepreneurship into the Curriculum

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Andrew Gerhart, Lawrence Technological University; Melissa Grunow, Lawrence Technological University

Tagged Divisions

Entrepreneurship & Engineering Innovation

motivation for being a leader.Again, comparison yields a shift in perception. Upon completion of the course, the studentscompleted a course evaluation survey to aid the course developer in determining if the course ismeeting the university’s leadership education goals. In addition, the students completed a peerassessment of leadership skills and characteristics near the beginning and at the conclusion of thecourse. The peer assessment yields some shifts in leadership development. Finally, as a finalassessment at the conclusion of the final team course project, the students completed a peerperformance evaluation, and the results are reported.1. IntroductionEntrepreneurshipLawrence Technological University (LTU) has offered students entrepreneurial

Conference Session

ERM Potpourri

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Olga Pierrakos, James Madison University; Julie Trenor, Clemson University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

undergraduate research, the students as the newcomers workunder the direction of faculty mentors and graduate students as the old-timers. The old-timersprovide expertise and resources to enable the student newcomer to engage in the practice ofresearch. Peer undergraduate researchers being a part of the research laboratory community alsoplay a key role in fostering a successful experience. Figure 1 illustrates the data collected duringthis effort in the context of the CoP theoretical framework. The two main tools utilized were theNational Engineering Students’ Learning Outcomes Survey (NESLOS) and weekly self-reflective journal entries. The figure illustrates that pre-NESLOS was administered at thebeginning of the REU experience (during the first day