Paper ID #8570An Integrated Approach to Developing Technical Communication Skills inEngineering StudentsProf. Ronald S Harichandran, University of New Haven Ron Harichandran is the Dean of the Tagliatela College of Engineering at the University of New Haven. He leads the Project to Integrate Technical Communication Habits and implemented a similar program in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Michigan State University when he was the chair there. Dr. Harichandran received his BE in Civil Engineering from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and his MS and PhD from MIT. He was a faculty member
shared areas of interest, it is possible fordiverse faculty to develop close cooperation and collaboration.Stepping Outside the BoxEngineering faculty can also seek opportunities to become involved in projects and activities thatare more often seen as the purview of the liberal arts world. For example, for 18 yearsIndianapolis, Indiana has hosted a Spirit & Place Festival (S&P). The S&P describes itself as acivic collaboration of the arts, humanities and religion. The festival committee explains its goalby saying that it “mobilizes ideas, brings disparate people and organizations together to partnerand converse, and sparks action for the common good. Through growth of the human spiritCentral Indiana becomes a better place.”13 Not
learningoutcome into three components: reading comprehension [N/S LO2a], critical understanding [N/SLO2b], and informed judgment [N/S LO2c]. The blind evaluation used an aggregate figure [N/SLO2] for these three elements, which is compared against an average of the instructor’s threevalues at Times 1 and 3. This “critical understanding” learning outcome is the primary metric bywhich student performance was measured.In addition to course learning outcome evaluation, seven additional ASHE Education forSustainability (EfS) learning outcomes were assessed: 1) Each student will be able to define sustainability. [EfS LO1] 2) Each student will be able to explain how sustainability relates to their lives and their values, and how their actions impact
engineering student learns how language code translates into math code, the studentcan further develop his or her sentence-level skill set, learning how to combine, invert,manipulate basic sentence units into advanced sentences.The following is an illustration of sentence algebra being taught using engineeringcontent/context: Consider the sentence-algebra equation for a basic sentence (B2) … B2 = (Ns * Mn) + (Vt) + (No * Mn) where: Ns = subject noun word(s) Vt = transfer action verb word(s) No = object noun word(s) Mn = noun modifier word(s) Now, as complement to
current by referencing something recentlyin the news, and (3) add novelty to the prompt through unexpected information or an ethicaldilemma. These principles lie at the heart of EPSA scenario construction. EPSA scenario designis further scaffolded by the EPSA discussion instructions given in Table 2. The instructions inTable 2 are given to student groups along with a scenario in preparation for an EPSA discussion.From the discussion instructions, questions 1, 2, and 3 relate to ABET 3f, question 4 relates toABET 3h, and questions 5 and 6 relate to both ABET 3i and 3j.Table 2. EPSA discussion instructionsImagine that you are a team of engineers working together for a company or organization on theproblem/s raised in the scenario. 1. Identify the
. Christensen described growing need forboth “top quality engineering scientists” and “engineering statesmen,” arguing that the lattershould be “trained to have the breadth of social knowledge and technical excellence to transferAmerican know-how in civil engineering to underdeveloped countries.”8 Christensen clearlytook the position that some of this know-how should be developed at the undergraduate level,adding that “[t]he 20 per cent of humanistic activities so widely accepted is only a start towardwhat is needed.” S. S. Steinberg, Dean of Engineering at the University of Maryland, took asimilar position. Discussing how American engineers might support Truman’s “Point Four”program – which aimed to provide technical assistance to developing countries
tura tura tura ion trac -Struc i -S truc i -S truc Relat e d Abs P re Un Mul t end Ext Figure 1. Variations in CEE seniors’ sustainability knowledge (n = 63). Page 24.583.11Table 3. Examples of student sustainability definitions
. Bromme, R. (2000). Beyond one's own perspective: The psychology of cognitive interdisciplinarity. In P. Weingart & N. Stehr (Eds.), Practising Interdisciplinarity (pp. 115-133). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.17. Brown, J. (1992). The Definition of a Profession: The Authority of Metaphor in the History of Intelligence Testing, 1890-1930. Princeton: Princeton University Press.18. Brown, T. L. (2008). Making Truth: Metaphor in Science. Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press.19. Lawson, S. (2011). Surfing on the Edge of Chaos: Nonlinear Science and the Emergence of a Doctrine of Preventive War in the US. Social Studies of Science, 41(4), 563-584.20. Schön, D. A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner. New York: Basic Books
immigrants. On The Horizon, 9(5). Retrieved from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky - Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants - Part1.pdf2. Wesch, M. (2009). Participatory media literacy : Why it matters. Mediated Cultures. Retrieved from http://mediatedcultures.net/smatterings/192/3. Craig, D. V. (2009). Action research essentials. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.4. McIntyre, D. (2005). Bridging the gap between research and practice. Cambridge Journal of Education, 35(3), 357–382. Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/030576405003190655 Anderson, G. L., Herr, K., & Nihlen, A. S. (2007). Studying your own school. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.6. Hobbs, R. (2011). Digital and media
/ christiansandengineering/christian-engineering-conferences-ceec7 Adams, R. et al. Storytelling in engineering education. in ASEE Annu. Conf. Expo. Conf. Proc. (2007)8 For other examples of this format, see Adams, R. S. et al. Multiple perspectives on engaging future engineers. J. Eng. Educ. 100, 48–88 (2011).9 Chang, H., Ngunjiri, F. W. & Hernandez, K. A. C. Collaborative autoethnography. (Left Coast Press, 2013).10 Vatican Council II. Lumen gentium: Dogmatic constitution of the church. Conciliar Post Conciliar Doc. Austin Flannery, OP, ed., rev. Ed.(bost. St. Paul Ed. 1988), Par 32, (1964).11 Horkheimer, Max. Traditional and critical theory. Critical theory: Selected essays 188-243 (1972)12 Csikszentmihalyi, M. Flow : The Psychology of
for writing: Contributes to team meetings: Helps the team move forward Demonstrates a thorough understanding of by articulating the merits of alternative ideas or proposals. context, audience, and purpose that is Facilitates the contributions of team members: Engages responsive to the assigned task(s) and focuses all elements of the work. team members in ways that facilitate their contributions to meetings by both constructively building upon or synthesizing Content development: Uses appropriate, the contributions of others as well as noticing when someone is relevant, and
questions. Therefore, we did not remove participants thatneglected to answer between one (1) and five (5) questions. After removing a total of 574participants, 1574 participants remained for exploratory factor analysis.Survey Participants’ Demographics The demographic information we collected from participants included (a) age, (b) gender,(c) years working as an engineer, (d) years working within academia, (e) engineering degree, and(f) current engineering practice. The engineering disciplines participants could select from weredepicted by the specific degree offerings from the university through which the survey was beingdisseminated. Table 2 shows the profession(s) of survey participants at the time of the survey.For each question
namingpotential contradictions in our inherently messy world of cultural, social andorganizational complexity. While CHAT cannot develop universally correct solutions,by identifying common problems CHAT can mitigate some of the stress resulting fromambiguity and encourage a mutual exchange of strategies and techniques to rein in suchcomplexity. CHAT-based research may not solve managerial concerns outright but canprovide a foundation for dialogue and purposeful discussion of common concerns.References[1] ABET - Criteria for Accrediting Applied Science Programs, 2012 - 2013: 2011. http://abet.org/asac-criteria-2012-2013/. Accessed: 2011-12.[2] Albanese, M.A. and Mitchell, S. 1993. Problem-based Learning: A Review of Literature on Its
Technology Doug Carroll is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Missouri S&T and is the Director for the Cooperative Engineering Program, a cooperative effort with Missouri S&T and Missouri State University. Dr. Carroll founded the student design center at Missouri S&T and served as its first director. He also served as the advisor for the solar car project for 12 years, including two national champion teams. He has worked with many students on design projects in his career. Page 24.964.1 c American Society for Engineering Education, 2014
trained in thehumanities and social sciences, and most are familiar with Western culture and values. It maybring an impression to ethics instructors that the government has “endorsed” the instruction ofWestern professionalism, and this type of professionalism is acceptable to include in engineeringcurricula – although it is worth noting that there is not yet an accepted national ethics curricula inChina. Further, most Western engineering ethics textbooks that have been translated into Chinesereflect a strong professional tradition (e.g., Charles E. Harris et al.’s Engineering Ethics:Concepts and Cases29 and Mike W. Martin and Ronald Schinzinger’s Ethics in Engineering30).Yet these same ethics instructors must also often teach ideological courses
and 2nd courses. (iii) Develop clear grading rubrics and make the grading process more transparent. (iv) Implement peer evaluation among team members to get a better understanding of team dynamics. Hire consultants to coach students on team work. Use Meyers-Briggs personality type evaluation to develop teams and manage team dynamics. (v) Collect and synthesize feedback from industrial advisory board. Page 24.103.15References:1. Bradley, S. R. et. al. Models and methods for university technology transfer. The UNC-Greensboro, Economics Working Paper Series # 13-10, June (2013).2. http://www.federallabs.org
activities for undergraduate engineering students.IntroductionIn the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, scholarship in American engineering education underwent afundamental shift as a result of two distinct events: restructuring of the accreditationrequirements of ABET, Inc. (previously known as the Accreditation Board for Engineering andTechnology) in 1997 and the publication of the National Academy of Engineering “Engineer of2020” reports in 2004 and 20051. These reform efforts stemmed from calls from the Americanprofessional engineering community citing a consistent need for professional, communicative,and innovative engineers in the workplace2, and led to the creation of numerous experimentalpedagogies, programs, and other initiatives to encourage
who received humanities education tend to have better performance” in the workplace,based on pre-and-post surveys given to employers of graduates.In a recent blog post for Science [11] on the reasons to include the Humanities in careerpreparation, and even though writing about science careers, not engineering, Albert brings forthten enumerated reasons, many of which are relevant to engineering practice as well. Reason 2 isthat “[s]tudying the humanities allows you to become familiar with and use the creative ideasfrom great minds outside of science. As a poignant example in support of this argument, considerthe application of art-inspired mathematics to the applied chemistry of an oil-spill clean-up,presented at the Bridges 2012: Mathematics
students about various stakeholders, asdesign projects often require students to think beyond the product and to pay attention to thepeople: users, suppliers, manufacturers, regulators, and so forth. P1’s Design Clinic team workedon improving a ceramic water filter for households in Nepal. P1 and her teammates travelled toNepal, talked to engineers, NGO workers, potters, and went into local residents’ families to seehow the existing water filters were used. “Users” is one of the key concepts emphasized in thefirst DIS studio course. In order to design an environmentally friendly replacement for plasticbags, students went out to interview customers in grocery stores about their shopping habits. Foranother project aiming at improving education
adirect quotation, “Since the 1980s, science and engineering (S&E) communication has beendominantly geared towards educating a public perceived as misinformed and/or having a deficit ofknowledge.” 2 (p. 1) The perception of a public with a lack of understanding of engineering wasrelated by Wynne 3 to the term “deficit model”, which characterized a style of science andengineering communication based on the assumption that any public disinterest, skepticism, orcriticism towards science or engineering was based on being either misinformed or possessing Page 24.495.3insufficient information about the fields. As Bucchi & Neresini 4 wrote
whichresources students used to improve their writing, according to the post-course survey. Studentswere allowed to select all the help method(s) they used. Of the 101 students answering thissurvey question, 13 indicated they used multiple resources. Perhaps even more notably, 81indicated that they did not seek writing help from any source, despite the majority of studentsexpressing frustration about not knowing how to improve their writing scores. Table 2. Types of help sought by students for paragraph writing exercise Type of Help No. of Students* No Help 81 Professor 7 Teaching
documented in the two biographies of Skinner cited above. See especially Bjork(1993), chs. 4 & 6; and Wiener (1995), pp. 32-37.13 E Bradford Burns, A History of Brazil, 2nd edition. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980). The periodfrom Vargas, through Kubitschek, Quadros, and Goulart, is described in chapters 6-7.14 Fred. S. Keller, “An International Venture in Behavior Modification,” in Fred S. Keller and Emilio Ribes-Inesta,Behavior Modification: Applications to Education (New York: Academic Press, 1974), 143-155, 143-145; SérgioDias Cirino, Rodrigo Lopes Miranda, and Robson Nascimento de Cruz, “The beginnings of behavior analysislaboratories in Brazil: A pedagogical view,” History of Psychology 15/3(2012): 263-272. Available online
made was to use existing coursenumbers for the credits students would earn for the program; thus, it was not necessary toshepherd approval for new course(s) through the Curriculum Committee or develop a descriptionfor the Course Catalog. We (the faculty teaching the course) and the involved administratorssaw our program as an innovative program, and this led to several helpful effects: our sense ofaccountability was increased as this was the primary professional development focus and westrived to make the pilot a success in order to provide a pathway for future variations anditerations of the Summer Grand Challenge format.However, as Bernal notes in her response to the reflection question about drawbacks of pilotingthe program, there was extra
: Request for Your Feedback on Class Visits by UTREE1. Please describe how effective the UTREE students were at communicating the material of the class period(s) that they taught for you this semester? In particular, please describe their strengths as well as any ways in which their teaching could be improved.2. How would your students describe the effectiveness of the UTREE students at communicating the material of the class periods? On what basis, do you make this evaluation?References1. Neal A. Whitman and Jonathan D. Fife (1988). Peer Teaching: To Teach Is to Learn Twice. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report Number 4. Washington, DC: ERIC Clearinghouse on Higher Education.2. K. J. Topping (1996). The effectiveness of peer teaching in
-structured problem;students define the problem and identify the skills necessary for its solution; students build theirknowledge base both independently and cooperatively, and repeat the cycle until they havearrived at an acceptable solution. In both engineering design and other PBL processes, solutionsare non-unique and context-specific. And in both contexts, having students begin with the socio-technical concept of technology helps foster a more durable and culturally astute set ofconsiderations when those students perform the iterative process. We see this as corroboratingDym et al.’s labeling of PBL as the “most-favored” pedagogical model for teaching engineeringdesign, citing its potential for positive impact on retention rates, student
. She is the PI of an NSF S-STEM grant and helps to direct the un- dergraduate research program at SAU. She leads a study-abroad trip for engineering students to Ilheus, Bahia, Brazil every-other-year.Prof. Hank Yochum, Sweet Briar College Hank Yochum is the Director of the Margaret Jones Wyllie ’45 Engineering Program and Professor of Physics and Engineering at Sweet Briar College. Sweet Briar is one of two women’s colleges in the United States with an ABET accredited engineering degree. He earned his BS in Physics from the College of Charleston and PhD in Physics from Wake Forest University. Prior to joining Sweet Briar, he was a Member of Technical Staff at OFS Specialty Photonics in the Optical Amplifier
Multidisciplinary, Client-Based Pedagogy.” Journal ofTechnical Communication, Volume 2, Issue 1 (2001): 129-48.5. Ford, J.D. and L.A. Riley. “Integrating Communication and Engineering Education: A Look at Curricula,Courses, and Support Systems.” Journal of Engineering Education, Volume 92, Issue 4 (October 2003): 325-28.6. Anderson, J.L., S. Chenoweth, R. DeVasher, R. House, J. Livingston, M. Minster, C. Taylor, A. Watt, and J.M.Williams. “Communicating Sustainability: Sustainability and Communication in the Engineering, Science, andTechnical Communication Classrooms7. Berndt, A. “Exploring Sociotechnical Contexts in a Global Engineering Course.” IEEE InternationalProfessional Communication Conference 2013.8. Berndt, A. and C. Paterson. “Complementing
delivery reflect a slightly higher mean, the difference isstatistically insignificant. After some discussion, we arrived at some possible reasons why thisoccurred.Design presentations have been in place in ECE since 1978, when it was first implemented insenior design. In the mid 1990’s the practice was integrated into sophomore and senior design.Because the practice has been in place in all three courses for almost 20 years, it has becomeinstitutionalized as a disciplinary genre in oral communication. Student familiarity with theexpectations of the presentation—the team approach and the prescribed time limit of 20minutes—may explain the minimal difference between project and control students’performances. In addition, when we examine all of the
and/or safety aspects of the manufacturing process(s) illustrated in the work ofart, the production methods used to produce a particular product, or how a particular work of artwas produced. If the work of art illustrates a process from the past, a perspective on how theprocess (or environmental/safety considerations) have changed to the present is expected withmore weight on the present.Timeline:Initial choice for topic/work of art: due Monday, March 18th. If multiple students/groups havethe same choice, an alternative selection may be needed.Preliminary topics (short description of the focus of the paper with the title/artist of the work ofart and a minimum of 2 references outside the textbook) are due on Monday April 15th.Final papers are