Collection

2013 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Yanwu Ding

. How Project Helps Improve Students’ Critical Thinking SkillsPaul and Elder [1] from their institute, The Foundation for Critical Thinking, suggested thatthinking within any discipline generates purposes, raises questions, uses information, utilizesconcepts, makes inferences; makes assumptions, generates implications, and embodies a point ofview. Ennis [2] defines critical thinking as the following: “Critical thinking is reasonable,reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do.” Scriven and Paul [3] give amore detailed definition: “Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of activelyand skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating informationgathered from, or

Collection

2013 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Fred Guzek; Kathy Brockway; Troy Brockway; Sue Guzek

requires significant timeand effort by faculty leaders both in the planning stage and during the time abroad. During thetrip segment of the course, typical days began at 6:30 or 7:00 a.m. with group breakfast andpreview of the day’s activities, aggressive daily agendas that often included travel, gatheringpoints throughout the day to review and reflect on observations as a group and between studentsand faculty individually, and group activities ending with dinner and discussion between 8:00and 10:00 p.m. In addition, the faculty team believes that staying in small hotels or hostels andusing public transportation allows students the greatest opportunity to experience local cultureand interact with people in the target cultures. The team was able to

Collection

2013 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Scott Bell; Tim Frey; Angie Miller; Eugene Vasserman

that might alleviate some of the problems within a design without changing theoverall student concept. We also found that even though we attempted to avoid video games aspart of the instructional material, a majority of the final projects had a game-type theme.OutcomesPre-camp and post-camp surveys were collected from students to investigate changes in interestand self-confidence with respect to computer programming. Feedback from pre-service teacherswas also collected through reflective discussions. Response from participants (both students andteachers) was positive. Student confidence in programming ability, enjoyment of programming,and interest in continuing to program increased. Pre-service teachers discussed ideas for incorpo-rating more

Collection

2013 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Md. Mamunur Rashid; Mahbub Ahmed; Khalil Dajani; Jobaidur Rahman Khan; Haider Bhuiyan

students. Dee (2007) showed thatinteractions with students, teaching methods, and course preparation are important whereascourse workload is merely insignificant in measuring SET index.Students’ satisfaction is generally reflected in terms of their expected grades in a course.Landrum et al. (2004) found that “expected grade” in a course have more influence on instructorratings than the “actual grade”. In addition to “expected grade”, student provides higher rating toan instructor if they are motivated to learn and if they learn up to their potential (Wright et al.,2006).MethodologyThis study utilizes student evaluation data from several U.S. universities from the last severalyears. The evaluation data were collected from various engineering (civil

Collection

2013 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Thomas Mertz

consistent.  All user observed objects must use consistent capitalization and punctuation.  Appropriate form control types (e.g. combo box vs. text field) must be used to improve usability and reduce user error.A student’s grade for these criteria directly reflected the extent to which he or she used theindicators. An “acceptable” project used the indicators; an “unacceptable” one didn’t. I reservedthe highest grade, exemplary, for those projects that showed commercial quality, i.e. what Iwould’ve done had I been paid for it. Here’s the general rubric for criteria 2, 3 and 4: The Look, Feel and Internal Structure Standards Pts. Rank Description 4 Exemplary Project appears

Collection

2013 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Stephen A. Dyer; Frederick Burrack; Craig Weston; Kenneth Medema; Linda Head; Philip Mease

increases as well.This, then, is what we hoped for: a course whose contribution to its students’ experience wasthat of an environment and opportunity that  Exposed them to concepts important to their own and someone else’s discipline of interest.  Piqued their curiosity after noting the breadth of applicability of those concepts.  Gave them the challenge of working with someone from a different discipline, finding ways to communicate without having a common language, but undertaking the act of creation to produce something of value.  Allowed them to reflect on the connections and commonalities between the two disciplines, and as a result, increased their appreciation of both their own discipline and

Collection

2013 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Richard Zajac

illustrate to the reader and other potentialSTEM mentors that the reasoning skills needed to be an effective STEM mentor are in fact quiteaccessible.Since a standard Lego NXT Mind storms kit only contains but a single light sensor (which canquantitatively detect how much light is reflected from a surface), line following robots madefrom a standard NXT kit actually follow the black/white boundary on one edge of the laid-downelectrical tape, rather than the line itself. The measured intensity of light reflected from thetape/under layer boundary provides information about the relative surfeit of white area relative toblack seen by the robot under the sensor, and can then be used to infer the robot’s positionrelative to the tape edge. This information

Collection

2013 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Andrew Braham; Ashlea Milburn Bennett; Jeton McClinton

enhancethe student's experience in a Civil Engineering course using LinkedIn as the primary faculty-student mode of communication.MotivationElectronic communication is becoming more important in classrooms. In addition to the abilityto quickly update files and inform students of course changes, using electronic modes ofcommunicating also reduces paper use in the classroom. Because students are already veryactive on Facebook, it is tempting to use Facebook in the classroom as a formative instructionaltool. However, multiple research groups report reservations with Facebook, as they believe thatFacebook is a social tool, and privacy could be invaded by using it in the classroom3, 4, 6-9. Manystudents view Facebook as a reflection of their personal

Collection

2013 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Charles McIntyre

| University 4.094 0.870 42537------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In addition to the six (6) standard questions, instructors are permitted to ask additional ratingquestions on the SROI. For CM&E 111 an additional ten (10) rating questions were generated.These questions were provided to the students a week before the administering the SROI so thatthe students had an opportunity to reflect on their learning. These ten (10) supplementalquestions directly relate to the course objectives, as shown below. 7. How well can you define Construction Management and Construction Engineering and describe the differences? 8. How well can you describe the value

Collection

2013 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Kellie Schneider; Heath A. Schluterman; Candace Rainwater

presented with a briefdescription of each theme and allowed to select their Intro course based on either themepreference or the time the course was offered. Then, in the fall semester, students were requiredto register for a different theme to investigate for the spring semester. Sixteen sections of Introwere offered in Fall 2012 – four sections of each theme. In Spring 2013, there were four sectionsof robotics and structures and three sections of biomechanical and computing for a total offourteen sections.The original theme descriptions and project idea were presented in last year’s proceedings1.Below is an updated description of each theme and its associated projects. To better reflect theProceedings of the 2013 Midwest Section Conference of the

Collection

2013 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

E. Carl Greco; Jim D. Reasoner; Scott Jordan

practicumrelative to their partner.It has been shown that students exhibit different learning styles which contribute to theircomprehension and assimilation of instructional information especially in a classroomenvironment with a single dimensional presentation format[10] [11]. In order to mitigate a learningstyle bias on the dissemination of the laboratory procedures, the laboratory assignments wereprovided prior to the laboratory exercise and contained both explanatory figures and diagrams.Students had time to study and reflect on the assignment and to ask questions prior to thescheduled laboratory period. An audio-visual pre-lab brief accompanied each lab to preview thelaboratory assignment and procedures. The instructor was available during the

Collection

2013 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Cindi Mason; Janet Twomey; Lawrence Whitman

predication accuracy was 75% suggests that higheraccuracy could be achieved given additional student attributes. Although less tangible factorssuch as intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy may be reflected in data such as high school GPA,they are likely some of the highest drivers in ultimate student retention but are not specificallycollected in this study. A recommendation for future study would be to utilize questionnaires orsurveys to gather information pertaining to self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation, sense ofcommunity, and other less tangible factors for retention, along with an ultimate reason forleaving for those students who do not stay in engineering. Prediction accuracy may also beimproved with a larger number of students for training

Collection

2013 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Charles E. Baukal; Lynna J. Ausburn; John E. Matsson; Geoffrey L. Price

(e.g., verbally or visually), how information ispreferentially organized (e.g., inductive vs. deductive), how information is processed (e.g.,actively vs. reflectively), and how understanding progresses (e.g., sequentially vs. globally).7These styles are relatively stable and concern cognitive, affective and psychological behaviorsProceedings of the 2013 Midwest Section Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education 2about how learners perceive, interact with, and respond to a learning environment.8 Numerousprevious studies have considered learning styles for engineering students. One example is a studyof a small sample of