showed that this instructional technique significantlyimproved students' ability to answer a second, isomorphic ConcepTest on the same concept,immediately after the first ConcepTest, even though the instructor did not supply the correctanswer to the first ConcepTest. For difficult questions, where only about 20% of the studentsanswered the first question correctly on their own, approximately 55% answered the secondquestion correctly on their own. This improvement demonstrates the value of ConcepTests andpeer instruction for improved learning.Questions that reflect the core concepts of a discipline are believed to be most effective inpromoting conceptual change, especially when answer choices reflect common studentmisconceptions. Eliciting those
Page 22.429.1 c American Society for Engineering Education, 2011 Design Education for the World of Near Tomorrow: Empowering Students to Learn How to Learn1. IntroductionThe world of technology is becoming increasingly complex and dynamic. The skills that wereconsidered valuable yesterday are becoming the commodities of today and tomorrow [1,2].Looking back at the past 20 years of engineering design and realizing how much the world haschanged it becomes apparent that this change needs to be better reflected in the way engineeringdesigners are educated [3-6]. Complex social networks, consisting of millions of individuals,have formed over the Internet through emerging Web 2.0
and responsibilities asthey relate to the missions of an institution of higher education, along with the type of institutionincluding community colleges, liberal arts colleges, research universities, and minority-servinginstitutions.The institutional data along with program evaluations reflect the efforts of these programs.Application, enrollment, and degree numbers are steadily increasing. The number of studentsparticipating in the program is also on the rise. Continued growth in the number of URMstudents receiving doctoral degrees will provide a more culturally diverse faculty, thus achievingthe AGEP program goals.Significance of Project and RationaleIt is projected that by 2050 the population that is now considered a minority will surpass
discussion of challenges is presented, the research team notes a few things that opticalengineering students agreed were helpful about their previous coursework. Optical engineeringis a hybrid between electrical engineering and applied physics. The NSU optical engineeringstudents complete a two-semester sequence in optics and a semester of materials science beforethey reach the lasers course. Based on these courses, there are a few terms that were notconsidered new or confusing by the students surveyed for this paper. These include reflectioncoefficient, reflectance and reflectivity, crystalline structure, conduction and valence bands,photon, and optical transformation matrix.Two general types of language challenges are discussed. The first is the
other states,mostly in the Midwest, were represented. Two of the students had not declared a specific majorin the College of Engineering. The others came from five departments in the College, includingsix students from the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering. All butone of the students continued in the program for the sophomore seminar.Freshman seminarThe fifteen-week freshman seminar consisted of three weeks devoted to each of the four pillarsand three weeks for a course introduction, team building, and reflection. The class met for onehour each week, and the first offering was in the spring semester of 2010. The module for eachpillar followed a KSA approach: knowledge in week one, skills in week two, and abilities
thereforebeen emphasized in a technical course, and a non-technical course was designed to exploresustainability issues in a global development context. Student participation in Engineers WithoutBorders (EWB), a service organization with a mission to provide sustainable engineeringsolutions for developing communities, also provides informal learning opportunities.These three venues provide different contexts in which to understand sustainability. Theirdifferent emphases produce varying perspectives on sustainability and different levels ofawareness, especially about the social impacts of engineering design and practice. This paperprovides a reflection on the ways in which the environmental, social and economic aspects ofsustainability appear to lend
obtainedopinions and descriptive data instead of reflective accounts. Interviews are difficult to dobecause people are not always honest or sometimes may not realise or be aware that theyknow something. In addition, the wording and the sequencing of the questions can alterthe answers to the questions.Qualitative studies begin with research questions and the research methodology andmethods are chosen to best answer these questions. The methodology could bephenomenology, case studies, participatory research and/or action research to name but afew. For example, action research is an iterative research process intended to change theresearcher’s own behaviour and hence is often employed in practitioner-based education
see in soap bubbles and the ‘rainbow’ effect in some oil slicks are examples ofthis same thin film phenomenon. Closely related are the iridescent colors that appear on CDsand DVDs, and in some bird feathers, butterfly wings, and some beetles. These result from thematerial having a regular, repeated structural unit that is about the same size as the wavelength oflight – a few hundred nanometers.How does this work?Why does the clear liquid become a colorful film?As the small drop of liquid spreads out on the water, its thickness decreases to a few microns. (Amicron is one thousandth of a millimeter.) The bright iridescent colors in the film result from theinterference of light reflecting back from the top and bottom of this thin film.Most light
relevance of the model to the real world - interpreting and verifying data produced by the modelThe intervention was implemented as the course material in conjunction with the students’ seniorcapstone design work. The general pedagogical approach taken with the activities was to allowthe students to attempt the activities followed by a discussion/lecture about the ideal processes. Page 22.688.3An added reflection component was implemented midway through the course based on instructorfeedback that suggested students were unclear about the purpose of the activities. The activitysimply asked the students to write a short reflection on why the
Education, 2011 Mentoring with Index Cards: an Early Introduction to Formative Assessment for New FacultyAbstractThis paper illustrates the experiences of three first-year faculty members as they acclimated totheir new educational environment through an unusual mentoring process involving the humble3-by-5 index card. The faculty members were instructed in how to utilize index cards forsoliciting comments from their students. The cards were then used for formative assessment ineffecting changes in course content through both instructor reflection and discussions with asenior faculty member. The index cards served as an effective framework for developing amentoring relationship, with the senior faculty member providing
could potentially accelerate the student’s learning of selected systems engineeringcompetencies.1.0 IntroductionSystems engineering educators are struggling to address workforce development needs requiredto meet the emerging challenges posed by increasing systems complexity1 and the widening gapin systems engineering expertise in the workforce.2 The systems engineering ExperienceAccelerator (ExpAcc) research project was conceived as a critical response to these needs andchallenges. The project was initiated to validate the use of technology to potentially create anexperiential, emotional state in the learner coupled with reflective learning so that time iseffectively compressed and the learning process of a systems engineer (SE) is
. Page 22.1723.1 c American Society for Engineering Education, 2011! “The Engineer as Leader” Course Design and AssessmentAbstractA course was developed in response to the needs of industry and society at large. This course istargeted to those developing engineering skills who will, in the near term, assume leadershiproles. This course uses the constructivist pedagogical model and was designed with the goal offacilitating “significant learning experiences.”The basic components of the course are a series of readings (24), videos (14), and interactionswith practicing engineering leaders applying a “leaders teaching leaders” approach (5) used asprobes to elicit responses from students who then reflect upon
detailed version of the paper13.FindingsAnalysis of the data yielded seven qualitatively different ways in which the students experiencedhuman-centered design within the context of “designing for others”. These different ways ofunderstanding are referred to as categories of description. Each category reflects a qualitatively Page 22.1156.5different way of understanding or experiencing human-centered design. Inclusion in the specificcategory was based on the student designers’ understanding of human-centered design as awhole as reflected in the experiences they shared in their interviews. The students themselvesare not assigned to that category, but
“line groups,” that visually correspond to what are commonly known as frieze patterns.Translations, half-turns, vertical reflections, horizontal reflections, vertical & horizontalreflections, glide reflections, and vertical reflections & glide reflections with half-turns constitutea practical visual manner in which to identify them (Table 7). Throughout our travels in Peru,students were on the lookout for examples of all 7 types. Table 7 Frieze patterns and their categorization Basic visual coding of all 7 types of frieze patterns using letters of the alphabet. Eight different Incan frieze patterns (top
pedagogical approaches which nurture these capacities.Traditional engineering curricula fail to adequately address the active, iterative, and process-oriented nature of design found in the ABET definition. The use of cornerstone and capstoneprojects does not sufficiently foster the transfer or application of technical knowledge or providerepeated, meaningful opportunities to practice the behaviors associated with design.Research on how students learn engineering design most effectively call for repeatedopportunities to engage in hands-on, open-ended problems. For example, Prince (2004) suggeststhat design and other engineering subjects are best learnt through hands-on, active pedagogy, e.g.project-based learning.6 Impromptu design exercises reflect
. Further investigation indicated that many FYEstudents could identify the superficial features from the problem statement, but they werenot able to identify the implicit logical steps or deep structure of the problem.Our current data provided the baseline of how FYE students abstract and interpretinformation from a design goal to generate a specific problem statement. We areinterested in treatments to improve students‟ ability to recognize critical features of agiven context and encourage taking multiple perspectives to identify alternative solutions.We are combining the use of graphical representational tools as organizational tools tosupport teams collaboration and we encourage opportunities to reflect and refine theirdesign process. This
the circuit diagrams for the two cases where the digitalI/Os are used in this project [4, 5, 7]. Page 22.270.5 Figure 4 Digital I/Os circuit diagrams for (a) Pushbuttons and (b) Reflectance SensorWhen the pushbutton is connected to a digital I/Os it can be used as a reset or start up controlsignal. In Figure 4 (a) pin PB1 is connected to VCC through the pull-up resistor R (20-50 k)which sets the voltage on the input pin to 5 V, so it reads as a digital 1. Pressing the buttonconnects the input to ground (0 Volts) through a 1 k resistor, which is much lower than the valueof R. This sets the input voltage very close to 0 V, so the pin reads
casestudy on the implementation of CPBL in the Process Control and Dynamics course for third yearchemical engineering students is reported. During the course, students go through six CPBLcycles to solve four problems that cover all the course outcomes in one semester. Selectedconstructs of Pintrich’s Motivated Strategy for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) relevant to aCPBL class, which are intrinsic and extrinsic goal orientation, task value, control of learningbelief, organization, critical thinking, effort regulation and help seeking, were administered todetermine the effect of CPBL. The results showed a significant increase in students’ engagementand motivation in learning. These findings are further supported by students’ reflections made atthe
/she indicated his/her “teaching methods, which do receive very goodratings by the students, were being challenged for no apparent reason”. This response provides Page 22.693.9good information on areas of improvement for future studies.What Students Learned from Doing the Faculty InterviewsAs part of their reporting, students were asked to reflect on what they learned from the interviewexercise. They uniformly reported they enjoyed the exercise and had a good discussion with thefaculty member. In many cases the discussion went well beyond the particular focus of thepublication and, per the classroom discussion, the original time requested
throughtransformation of experience. For him, learning is not a mere transmission of content but aninteraction between content and experience. His model of experiential learning cycle is based onLewin's problem-solving model of action research and drawing and Dewey's concept as well asPiaget. This cycle consists of four steps that delineate how learners transform an experience intoabstract knowledge, which is applicable to future decision-making or problem-solving situations.Those steps are concrete experience, observation and reflection, formation of abstract conceptsand generalization, and testing implications of new concepts in new situations. Kolb alsosuggested specific learning and teaching strategies to be used to facilitate each stage ofexperiential
students graphically communicate their design solution effectively? Will students work produce evidence to suggest that they understood the conceptual approach of a DCG brief (by comparative experience)? Is there evidence on completion of the process that the students have the capacity to reflect on the activity and derive an educational value/meaning?ApproachThis study was conducted with third year undergraduate students on the Materials &Construction and Materials & Engineering initial teacher education degreeprogrammes at the University of Limerick. The activity took place within theirEngineering Design Graphics 1 module in the first semester of year 3. The approachtaken to the graphics module was to divide the
similarities. To theextent that these factors seem to be correlated with administrative housing, perhaps theinstitutional context has shaped the character of the program more.Table 2 summarizes the data relative to the overall content of the technical curricular componentand the degree to which it reflects required coursework. Table 2(a) gives the relevant data forcomputer engineering programs, while Table 2(b) and Table 2(c) summarize this information forcomputer science and software engineering programs. Some interesting patterns emerge whenthis data is analyzed. First, the relative size of the technical component in the computerengineering and software engineering programs is similar – an average of about 51% of the totalcurriculum is technical in
in class, butdo not have the capability of capturing, archiving and annotating student Ink and audiocommentary in a way that allows detailed analysis of cognitive processes and error types thatwas needed for our research.The digital Ink software (MuseInk ©) has a playback function that allows students to replay theirentire problem solution which facilitates review of and reflection on their work. It is believedthat this functionality will help students become more aware of mistakes they made in theprocess, the strategies they used, and how they organize their work in order to identify areas forimprovement. There is also a means for identifying important features within the work byassociating tags at specific points in the solution. This can
based on theradiation patter.Figure 1 shows E- and H-field patterns present in the electromagnetic radiation, anddemonstrate some irregularities in the patterns, and helps the students to relate theory to theexperimental results observed. Had this experiment been performed in an anechoic chamberwhere reflections are eliminated no irregularities will be present. This demonstrates to thestudents the effect of reflections from objects that are present in the laboratory setting.Figure 1. E- and H-fields of a Half-wave (λ/2) DipoleFrom this, the students get to appreciate reflections from objects such as buildings in a reallife application of radio transmission. For this example, students can place objects at differentlocations in the
in developing theepistemic frame of many professions, especially those that require innovation, is some form ofprofessional practicum7,8, which is an environment in which a learner takes professional actionin a supervised setting and then reflects on the results with peers and mentors. Skills andknowledge become more and more closely tied as the student/learner learns to see the worldusing the epistemic frame of the profession. Cornerstone and capstone design courses inundergraduate curricula are examples of professional practica in engineering.Prior work has also shown that epistemic games—learning environments where students game-play to develop the epistemic frame of a profession—increase students’ understanding of andinterest in the
largest presence in the US),the demographics highlighted below will reflect the makeup of the U.S. Army. For FY 08: Female 16.3% White 61.1% Black 21.1% Hispanic 11.9% Asian 03.3% Other 02.6% High School Diploma 82.8%These demographics suggest that approximately one-third of the potential target populationcould be underrepresented students. It is our intention to use the cohort model, and supportcourses (supplemental instruction and peer mentoring) to attempt to address the needs of thesestudents. We believe that a veterans’ transition course
then linking concepts.Table 2. Comparison of the overall class averaged learning styles Active Reflective Sensing Intuitive Visual Verbal Sequential Global 68.4% 31.6% 84.2% 15.8% 89.5% 10.5% 72.2% 27.8% Figure 2 a – d compare the eight learning styles identified by in Richard Felder andBarbara Soloman3. The graphs show the preference level and the number of students with thatpreference. The engineering students in the course tended to prefer active, sensing, and visuallearning. Interestingly, the sequential and global learning preferences appeared to have a
also give a five minutes presentation and conduct class discussion/debate on acontemporary environmental issue as soon as it appears as a news item. Students maintain aportfolio/journal of all the articles on contemporary environmental issues they read over thesemester. At the end of the semester each student is required to submit his/her portfolio of sevenarticles along with his/her reflections and assessment of each articles. In addition, studentsconduct environmental caucuses similar to town hall meetings, and write two term papers oncontemporary environmental issues.Course OverviewThe Fundamentals of Environmental Engineering course is intended for sophomore /juniorengineering students at Trinity University1. This course is also open for
teacher scientific representational practices during STEM-basedelementary technology and science instruction. Many elementary schools make use of inquiry-based science kit curriculum2‐4 that supports standards-based STEM instruction. Theprofessional development was designed to enhance the use of these high-quality curriculummaterials. Through multiple modes of data collection—including classroom observations,photographing student science notebook pages, and teacher and student interviews— a research-based strategy to enhance student learning around core STEM concepts has emerged. Arecognition that professional development is cumulative and reflective, a number of cycles offormal workshops, classroom observations, interviews and analysis of
the class and progress toward learning goals at mid-semester. At the end of the course,students completed an RA activity designed to measure their self-reported progress in personallearning. RA activities reduce bias through the use of reflective response regarding increases inpersonal knowledge and are considered valid measures of programmatic change4 similar to thecurriculum innovation developed by our collaborative partnership. Sample RA tools are below.Purpose of the AssessmentToday’s engineer faces a complex assortment of challenges in the modern global businessenvironment. Awareness of these issues should be an essential component of any engineeringmanagement program. Through a NSF-funded, ongoing curriculum development effort