Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Aaron S. Bradshaw; Gary N. McCloskey; Franklin Miguel

Development of a Civil Engineering Design Course Based On Reflective Action Aaron S. Bradshaw, Merrimack College Gary N. McCloskey, O.S.A. Merrimack College Franklin Miguel, Merrimack CollegeAbstractAdded to solid technical skills, there are a number of “soft” skills that a civil engineer must possess to besuccessful in practice. A concept for a course is proposed where students can develop technical and non-technical practice skills using the learning approach of reflective action which was first introduced byDonald Schon in the 1980’s. Reflective action is demonstrated through a design problem involving

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

theexisting plug flow activated sludge tanks, and development of an educational poster explaininghow nitrogen is removed in the wastewater treatment process.Informal feedback and assessment data indicate that the service-learning projects have beenextremely helpful in exposing students to professional practice issues in the water quality field,in deepening student understanding of water and wastewater treatment processes, and ininspiring students to use their technical expertise to serve the public. The Civil Engineeringfaculty hopes to expand involvement in service-learning projects in the future.BackgroundService-learning has been defined as “a method of teaching, learning, and reflecting that tiescommunity service with academic learning outcomes

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

their work.In response to student end of course feedback, the capstone project options increasedfrom two to three. The competition still existed and students continued to mention in theircomments that they would prefer that projects were unique to each group.During the EOCR at the conclusion of the Spring 2000 semester, a recommendation wasmade to change the courses name from “Planning and Design of Construction Projects”to “Civil Engineering Design”. The new course name more accurately reflected theevolving nature of the projects chosen which spanned an increasingly diverse set of sub-fields within civil engineering. Based on student feedback and instructor observation,more guest speakers and more field trips were added to the course.As CED

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Dean Aslam; Aixia Shao

, sothat white light impinging on the film isreflected with a hue that changes with thickness.As shown in Fig. 8, the light is reflected fromthe top and bottom surfaces of skin of the bubble.Just before the bubble bursts in the air due toevaporation, it usually shows destructiveinterference for visible light of shorterwavelengths. For example, as shown in Fig. 8,upper skin of a large bubble is thinner leading toconstructive interference of yellow color.Depending upon the angle of incidence, the skinthickness in upper part may be in the range of200 nm. Questions: Can our eyes see a film of 200nm? How can you explain the reflections of lightfrom the top and bottom surface of the film?Does the light reflected from the bottom surface Fig. 7 The

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Christopher W. Swan; Julia Carroll

occurredvia self-reflective evaluations. For example: 1. an initial survey asked students to reflect upon the relative importance of all the skills involved in an engineering career 2. the DiSC and Myers-Briggs assessment methodologies were used so students could assess their own leadership traits or skills as well as those exhibited by others; 3. questionnaires were routinely used during team projects, both having individuals assess intra-team efforts as well as students evaluate the performance of other team’s oral presentations An example of the assessment of individual team members’ performance during the termproject is presented below. Final Term Project

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Bahram Nassersharif

problem. That is, learning must have a purpose beyond, "It is assigned". 2. Support the learner in developing ownership for the overall problem or task. 3. Design an authentic task. 4. Design the task and the learning environment to reflect the complexity of the environment they should be able to function in at the end of learning. 5. Give the learner ownership of the process used to develop a solution. 6. Design the learning environment to support and challenge the learner's thinking. 7. Encourage testing ideas against alternative views and alternative contexts. 8. Provide opportunity for and support reflection on both the content learned and the learning process.The implementation of our discovery-based

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

David A Gray

context of control charts provides significant feedback that allows primary employees to evaluate their own process, and 3) The only way to improve the output of a process is to change it, ergo, “If you do not like your grade, change your process.” These three ideas paint a realistic picture of the college enterprise, and provide the students with context that allows them to evaluate their own progress and to make decisions directed toward improvement.Messiah College’s engineering department has long had concern for successful transition of first yearstudents into the academic rigors of our engineering program. Reflecting this concern, we

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Jennifer Zirnheld; Adam Halstead

of engineering is quite difficult. Thesurvey data reflects the students’ perceptions of their understanding more so than it does their actualunderstanding. However, it can be argued that the students’ perceptions of their levels of understandingof engineering are crucial to their abilities to make important decisions early in their engineering careers.Perception of understanding leads to confidence in decision making. Therefore, a student who believeshe understands engineering is more likely to be comfortable with the decisions he makes in engineeringthan is someone who does not believe he has an adequate understanding of engineering. Although somemay say that a more holistic view of engineering is preferable to a compartmentalized view, the

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Roger Chapman Burk

computerlabs used orbit simulations that provided beautiful and absorbing visualizations, and also gave experiencein mission design. As a final integrative experience, teams of students quantitatively evaluated spacetravel proposals and presented their results to the rest of the class. The students enjoyed the class andcame out of it with a much more sophisticated understanding of space flight and of engineering ingeneral. Reservations and difficulties include: finding qualified lecturers for the diverse set of topics;integrating their presentations into a coherent whole; and a lingering question how well such a coursewould work with a less gifted set of students.IntroductionThe purpose of this paper is to convey and reflect on the author’s experience

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Barrie Jackson

Development.Jackson has been a member of ASEE for many years which reflects his profound interest in Education.During his Shell career he attended Ontario Institute for Studies in Education as a part time Masters ofEducation student. As a result of a transfer out of the country he was unable to complete this degree.

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Imin Kao

podcast publishing requires a morecareful planning of the sequence and length of production in order to make it more effective inthe utilization of what the technology offers. As can be appreciated, the modules 2a~2n can beflexibly managed and controlled by the instructor to reflect the learning appetite of the class, andto adjust in both real-time class teaching and/or asynchronous delivery.3.2 Relationships and Interaction with StudentsOn of the potential problems of asynchronous delivery of course contents is the danger ofremoving the relationships and interaction between the faculty and students in a lively classroom.Once the interaction stops, it becomes only a one-way instruction of information, and ceases topromote a healthy learning

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Elif Kongar; Tarek Sobh

goals are achieved attheir corresponding aspiration levels. This also implies that embedding Eq. 15 into the model is notrequired since the results would remain unchanged.5. Conclusions and Future ResearchThe proposed paper attempts to find “best” solutions to factors that would ensure sustainability of theSchool of Engineering at the University Bridgeport. In this regard, a Preemptive Goal Programmingmodel is applied to the first five goals of the School. Even though it is mathematically cumbersome toformularize the relationships between the goals and model variables given that the model reflects reality,it provides interesting results depicting the effects of various goals on the remaining system variables andgoals. Hence, the model can also

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Bassem Alhalabi; M.K. Hamza; Ali Abu-El Humos

facilitated in learning the material 70 Performing the experiment via on CL has facilitated in learning the material 80The equity between remote labs and software simulation reflects the fact that remote labs need moreenhancements in terms of the hardware and software used to develop the remote labs environment shouldthe remote labs be able to relinquish software simulation and be at the same time a substitute for realphysical labs. Segment 4- Questions Set 4 Result (%) The experiments procedures and purpose was clearly understood using RL. 75 The experiments procedures and purpose was clearly understood using SS. 67.5 The

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Hudson V. Jackson; Evelyn A. Ellis

demonstrated by students’ performance on standardizedachievement tests poses a special challenge due to the rigid instructional schedules that are often used intoday’s classrooms. Career imprinting will require teachers to have more latitude in their dailyinstructional schedules so that they can guiltlessly deviate from “test-prep or time on task driven” agendasto “capitalizing on teachable moments” and “student interest-driven” agendas which will afford learnersthe opportunity to reflect on what they are learning. This will not only make it possible for them to puttheir newly acquired knowledge into the context of what they already know but will also motivate them to 7think outside of the

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Elif Kongar; Paul Kontogiorgis; Nancy L. Russo; Tarek Sobh

other invited speakers at society-sponsored events reflect the diverse membership of thesociety5.Industry also has a responsibility to accelerate readiness of the female workforce, which will helpalleviate skills availability issues, and bridge the communication gap between IT functional jobs andbusiness leaders’ vision with academic institutions.Honorary societies, funding agencies - including federal agencies and foundations, along with thecongress, should take the necessary steps to encourage adequate enforcement of female workforcedevelopment.Women are well positioned to make major advances in interdisciplinary research. They like to integrateacross various academic fields and use multi-pronged, multi-disciplinary approaches. They work well

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

John Hartke; Robert Kewley; Greg Kilby; Greg Schwarz; Gunnar Tamm

engineering solutions included moving to more eye safe wavelengths for the laser, includinga power control mechanism so that the laser emits the minimum power required to accomplish themission, and developing a system that allows the operator to know if any off-axis reflected light becomesblinding to those in the area.[5] These solutions were fed back to the engineering teams for integrationinto the system as a whole. Once the engineers on this project completed their component designs, systems decision processsupported assessment of the relative value of these designs in order to make a recommendation to theclient. Figure 4 shows the results of this analysis for each of the design alternatives

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Ashraf Ghaly; Megan Ferry

Chinese andthe role technology played in achieving this goal. Close attention is paid to China’s drive to modernize animpoverished region. This segment takes a specific look at the Yangtze during the height of socialism inChina.Political History and the CCP Legacy: Building Another Great Wall. This segment compares thebuilding of the Three Gorges Dam to another monumental technological feat, the Great Wall. While bothendeavors reflect the political and historical conditions of the governments in power we will examinewhat precipitated the CCP’s drive to create a modern legacy.The CCP and Ecology: Mao’s purported swim across the Yangtze River constitutes one of the mosticonic images of China’s modernization project: man conquering nature. This

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Saikat Ray

. ConclusionComputer based testing enables an instructor of a course for M.S. students in a teaching oriented school tocondition them to the habit of regular studying without increasing the grading load. The author has usedthem in class successfully with increased student attendance and attention. There are issues with computeraccess, some time is lost if the class has to go to a computer lab for the test, possible web outages duringthe test, etc. However, the benefits of CBT significantly outstrip its disadvantages in creating bettermotivated students at the M.S. level.DisclaimerThis article reflects author’s personal scholarly view on the subject and is written based on his personalexperiences at different schools and anecdotes gathered from various sources

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Richard B. Mindek

section 4.0 of this paper, and then summarize their results in a brieftechnical memo. It should be noted here that only one of the seven graduate students in the course hadany previous experience using PLCs, and none had any experience using the RSLogix software.Although not conclusive, the results of the project were very encouraging. The students were able toexplore some of the capabilities of PLCs, within the design limitations of the platform, and required verylittle external input. On the project itself, students’ scores averaged 86%, indicating they generallyunderstood the basic operation of the PLC as they completed the project. And feedback on the projectwas also very good from the students, as reflected in their end of semester