Journal to General: Teaching Graduate Engineering Students to Write for All AudiencesAbstract - The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) identifies “anability to communicate effectively with a range of audiences” as a critical learning outcome forengineering programs. This underscores the importance of engineers learning to articulate theirideas clearly, not only to peers within their field but also to non-specialist audiences. Whilerecently developed generative AI tools offer support for crafting written documents, they are nota substitute for mastering the foundational skills necessary for clear and effective technicalcommunication. Moreover, students frequently find themselves unprepared for the
Paper ID #47096Fruitful Endeavors: Continuous Peer Feedback to Develop Positive TeamDynamicsBrian Patrick O’Connell, Northeastern University Dr. O’Connell is an associate teaching professor in the First-Year Engineering program at Northeastern University. He studied at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 2006 then worked in industry as a Mechanical Engineer working on ruggedized submarine optronic systems. He returned to academia in 2011 at Tufts University planning to work towards more advanced R&D but fell for engineering education and educational technologies. His research now focuses on developing
. ©American Society for Engineering Education, 2025Mentoring You Supports My Development as a Professional Engineer: How Peer Mentors Benefit from Mentoring PeersIntroductionPeer mentoring programs have become common on college campuses. Frequently, peer mentorsare hired to work in writing centers or math learning centers to tutor students on learning andcompleting assignments. Peer mentors have also been integrated into courses such as with theLearning Assistant (Barrasso & Spilios, 2021) and Supplemental Instruction (Dawson et al.,2014) programs. It is also common for peer mentors to be involved in laboratory courses such aschemistry (Damkaci et al., 2017) and physics (Rehse et al., 2020). More recently, peer mentorsare
$1M in research grants to study writing transfer of engineering undergraduates. For technical research, he has a long-standing involvement in research concerned with the manufacturing of advanced composite materials (CFRP/titanium stack, GFRP, nanocomposites, etc.) for marine and aerospace applications. His recent research efforts have also included the fatigue behavior of manufactured products, with a focus on fatigue strength improvement of aerospace, automotive, and rail structures. He has been the author or co-author of over 200 peer-reviewed papers in these areas.Dr. Charles Riley P.E., Oregon Institute of Technology Dr. Riley has been teaching mechanics concepts for over 10 years and has been honored with
interdependence among the group members.At this point in the term, teams may not have fully established norms or agreed oncommunication methods.Teams with students requiring accommodations had nearly double the number of comments oncommunication challenges and poor team dynamics compared to their peers. One student noted,“I think we could probably have more communication between members while writing thereport. We’ve been dividing and conquering sections of the lab report, but I think a lot of thestuff should be more cooperative in nature amongst sections.”when reflecting on early struggles. Another mentioned:“My group mates stopped working at about 8:30 pm on Friday night when the report was due.The report was not done. I believe they think they had
experiences ofgraduate students, these studies less often distinguish between domestic and internationalstudents. International students experience additional unique challenges that further affect theirgraduate school experiences in comparison to their domestic peers [18]. Some of thesechallenges include differences in institutional culture leading to lower language, writing, andleadership self-efficacy, geographical separation and reduced social support from family andfriends, language barriers, and adjustment to climatic, cultural, and social differences [6], [7].These unique challenges result in isolation, disconnectedness, and lower self-confidence amonginternational students [6].However, studies examining peer mentorship programs designed to
Paper ID #48209WIP: A Peer-Taught Course to Lower Barriers to Undergraduate ResearchExperiencesMs. Grace Hellen Ford, University of Virginia Grace Ford is a third-year undergraduate student pursuing her bachelors in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Virginia.Dr. Brian P. Helmke, University of Virginia Brian Helmke is Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Virginia (UVA), where he teaches courses in diverse topics such as physiology, mechanobiology, biotransport, and bioelectricity. Brian also serves as Faculty Consultant to the UVA Center for Teaching Excellence, acting as facilitator
writing,and writing ability in the context of engineering graduate education that includes systematicwriting instruction and intervention structures. The four components of the Writing SySTEM are(1) workshops to teach writing skills and promote the recruitment of diverse participants intoother components, (2) discipline-specific graduate writing courses, (3) peer writing groups, and(4) writing resources hosted on a publicly available Open Educational Resource (OER). Data forthe quantitative analysis of the effects of program components on self-efficacy is still beingcollected for this work-in-progress. The anticipated outcome of this work is to equip graduatestudents with strategies and resources for writing effectively in STEM fields and to
significance level of 95 % confidence level to determine descriptive and inferentialstatistics. At the same time, thematic analysis was utilized for the qualitative data to reveal periodicthemes and distinctive strategies used by the participants. Results showed that participantsstruggled with writing methodology, logically integrating information, and articulating their ideaseffectively. Despite these challenges, they implemented various adaptive techniques, includingreviewing prior literature, utilizing online platforms like ResearchGate and YouTube, workingwith peers and mentors, enrolling in formal writing courses, and employing AI tools to enhancegrammar and structure. External motivation, such as awards and prizes, and maintaining supportivework
Paper ID #47975Exploring the Role of Peer and Faculty Interactions in Shaping the Sense ofBelonging among International Graduate Engineering Students (IGES) at anHBCUTolulope Iyanuoluwa Abiri, Morgan State University Tolulope Abiri is a graduate student in Civil Engineering at Morgan State University, where he also serves as a Research Assistant. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA). His current research focuses on the sustainability and resilience of transportation infrastructure in the face of sea level rise, with a particular emphasis on coastal
rather than the use or development of educational equipment, or lackedrigorous peer review, such as catalogues or whitepapers, were also screened out. This process wasconducted to ensure only relevant research was included for further analysis. In the full-text review phase papers were excluded for focusing on course design over kitdesign (n =19), focused on the technical development of a remote lab server (n=15), did not appearto be applicable to engineering students (n = 10), were for a demographic that is younger than thescope of this review (n=10), did not have significant relevance to BME or engineering students(n = 11), did not have significant educational use (n = 5) or were not formatted in a way that wascompatible with the review
progress, this is also in-tended as a call to action inviting collaboration, feedback, and shared learning among peers,researchers, and engineering educators who are similarly committed to driving meaningfulchange in this area. By fostering a network of engaged contributors, we hope to build astronger, more resilient foundation for long-term impact.References [1] The Aula Fellowship, “The aula fellowship,” 2025, accessed: 2025-05-01. [Online]. Available: https://theaulafellowship.org/ [2] D. C. North, “Institutions, institutional change and economic performance,” Cambridge University, 1990. [3] J. P. Olsen, “Institutional design in democratic contexts,” Journal of Political Philoso- phy, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 203–229, 1997. [4] C. R
Publishing for Two-Year College Faculty and StudentsThe Journal of Advanced Technological Education Special Project (J ATE) was a one-year pilotfunded through NSF’s DUE ATE program whose goal was to build a community of peer-reviewed published authors from technical and community colleges. The “publish or perish”academic aphorism of the 4-year university tenure system does not cross over to communitycolleges, and community college faculty face many barriers to pursuing scholarship [1], [2]. Twoof this project’s objectives that directly impact two-year college faculty were 1) providing newwriters with professional development interactions with experienced writing coaches to supportthem in writing and publishing their work in a peer
class module was conducted todemonstrate multiple methods of how to use genAI to improve writing and editing. This lecturealso covered how AI was being adopted across various engineering disciplines and industries toexpose students to broader trends in AI usage. This exposure allowed students to understand howtheir peers and future employers are integrating AI, potentially influencing their own decisions toadopt or reject AI in future tasks. This module relied on students having independentlycompleted written assignments prior to the start of the lecture. During the lecture, the instructorsshowed how to access the genAI tool Microsoft Copilot through an institutionally supportedwebsite. The lecture included demonstrations of how differently
improve thementee’s technical writing skills and gain general guidance about college life [5]. A near-peerframework in a mechatronics camp highlighted the importance of underrepresented minoritystudents being able to identify with a mentor [4]. A study of the impact of near-peer mentoring inan introductory engineering course found that “some students gained a better sense of placewithin engineering over the course of the semester” [6].Project ApproachThe authors did not plan this project as a research study. It was a response to a perceived need tohelp students acquire skills that employers expect them to have but report that recent graduatesoften lack. These non-technical, yet vitally important, skills are not formally taught in theircourses. In
instructors to maximize peerlearning and communication skills in a third-year mechanical engineering course. Thisincorporates both (peer-to-peer) design reviews and reflection work for a computer aideddrafting (CAD) design project. To determine effectiveness, an anonymous Qualtrics survey wasdeveloped and administered to students to determine the impact on their learning experiences,skills, and engineering identity in Part I of the study. Previously, there was only one open-endedquestion that did not yield many responses regarding its impact. The continued study (Part II)seeks to address some of these issues and includes a re-administration of the Qualtrics survey toa second cohort of students in the class. The revised survey contains six new
assignments leading up to the technical report,students are asked to either write a draft section for the report and/or revise a previous draftbased on instructor feedback. With each draft section, students were also asked to select anexcerpt from their draft that showcased at least one of the techniques from the Civil EngineeringWriting Project [13] that were covered in class. When revising their drafts, students were askedto provide a statement describing how they addressed the feedback received on their draft. Thepurpose of these statements is to encourage students to reflect and intentionally consider howthey can implement good writing practices.For both the policy memo and Op-Ed assignments, students are assigned to peer review two oftheir
equation [2], StudyHabitsi represents the number of hours a student i spends onacademic activities including studying, reading, writing, completing homework, and conductinglab work. Xi includes covariates that measure experience with high school and college academicwork for grade in addition to the student characteristics described in equation 1.Gradesic = 𝛼 + 𝛽1Xi + 𝛽2SenseofBelongingi + 𝜀 i (3)In this third equation [3], SenseofBelongingic measures the sense of belonging of student i incourse c. This includes various measures of sense of belonging, such as peer support, facultysupport, comfort in the classroom, and sense of belonging in the classroom and STEM field. Keymeasures incorporated in
” and communicate that forward to their peers. Our tentative plan is to ask next year’s(now this year’s) students to test and comment on the revised versions and iterate further.Grant writing The third deliverable was again collaboratively written on teams; this time, the task wasto draft a grant proposal to a fictional government agency offering funds for projects usingmagnets in novel ways. In this case, we provided a lecture content and recommendations aheadof the project to familiarize students with typical features of grant proposals, with particularemphasis on establishing the need, using key evidence from their lab work to support theirproposal, and building a cohesive credible argument for their proposed idea across all sections
Schenectady, NY 12308AbstractFemale representation in mechanical engineering remains a critical challenge for academicinstitutions committed to fostering diversity and inclusivity. At Union College, the genderdisparity is evident, with female enrollment in the Mechanical Engineering departmentdeclining from 22.5% in the freshman cohort to only 13.3% by senior year. To address thisgap, the department has introduced initiatives aimed at supporting and retaining femalestudents through structured mentorship, peer support, and career development programs.Key among these efforts is the Female Student Mentor Project, which pairs senior studentswith underclassmen to foster academic confidence and professional growth. Additionally,regular networking events
Education, 2025 Implementing Mini Modules in Core Mechanical Engineering Courses to Enhance Student EngagementAbstractActive learning promotes student engagement by emphasizing their active role in the learningprocess, contrasting with traditional lecture-based teaching. This study explores theimplementation of four active learning strategies in a senior-level Mechanical Engineering course(Heat Transfer) at Western New England University: peer discussions, weekly self-assessedquizzes, flexible assignment deadlines, and self-selected team formation for collaborativeprojects. These strategies were designed to be easy to adopt without compromising lecture timeor content coverage. Surveys and feedback help to understand the
State University in Bozeman MT.Prof. Eva Chi, University of New Mexico Eva Chi is a Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering Department at the University of New Mexico. The research in her lab is focused on understanding the dynamics and structures of macromolecular assemblies including proteins, poMs. Catherine Anne Hubka, University of New Mexico Catherine (Cat) Hubka, MFA, is a Ph.D. student in Rhetoric and Writing. Her focus is Writing in the Disciplines (WID), specifically in STEM environments. She is a research assistant in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, where she has taught writing in the labs and worked closely with faculty on developing writing
. ResultsNonbinary Identity Supports FrameworkInterviews revealed how nonbinary STEM graduate students utilized their social networks(consisting of TNBGNC, cis and nonbinary alters) to obtain identity-based expressive support inthe form of validating their gender identity and encouraging them to persist in their graduatestudies, as well as instrumental support in the form of advice on navigating STEM environments,writing articles, and preparing for conferences. The nature of support that they received wasdistinctly different from cisgender alters (faculty and peers) and nonbinary alters (peers). In thefollowing paragraphs, we depict how participants described receiving identity-based support(i.e., affirmation, advocacy, insider knowledge, and kinship) from
a sense of purpose that supports their decision to persist toward graduation [8], [9].Tinto’s theory of individual student departure, which encompasses the stages of separation,transition, and incorporation, is widely utilized to describe student success and underpinsnumerous intervention programs in higher education [10]. This theory underscores thesignificance of academic and social integration, highlighting that students’ perceptions ofinteractions with faculty, staff, and peers in both academic and extracurricular contexts arepivotal to their success [7].Nevertheless, critiques of Tinto’s theory point out its inadequacy in addressing the variedexperiences of students, emphasizing the importance for these students to feel a sense
, loops, and functions. Additionally, itaddresses the need for improvements in course design, instructional effectiveness, and theinstructor’s professional growth. The study employs qualitative and quantitative data collectioninvolving two-course sections with a diverse group of students, engaging in 75-minute pairprogramming sessions where they alternate roles as driver (who writes the code) and navigator(who reviews and guides). The C programming language is used to facilitate collaboration andreal-world skill development. The unique aspect of this study is the structured reflection processapplied after each pair programming session. Students were asked to answer three questions: (1)what they learned, (2) what areas they needed more practice
few partners also provided academic year remote computational researchprojects. Students received support in preparing for and applying to these “internal” as well as“external” research opportunities (those not affiliated with MNT-CURN) from a team of near-peer mentors who had themselves started research in community college.Each cohort met online weekly with center staff to hear speakers from universities, projects, andnational labs talk about current research and opportunities for summer research related to microand nano technologies or participate in workshops on technical and professional developmentskills. Workshop topics included Python and MATLAB coding, writing a resume, establishing aLinkedIn presence, requesting a letter of
majors. Student services included peer mentoring, career development, anda science communication learning community. The project emphasized community engagementthrough first-year courses and faculty and alumni mentoring. Evaluation findings indicated thatself-reported survey data showed that 75% of the initial program participants stayed with theprogram the second year. Additionally, scholars demonstrated a strong commitment tocompleting undergraduate and graduate STEM degrees, with likelihood ratings ranging from 3.0to 3.5/4.0.At Tennessee State University (TSU), a public R2 land-grant HBCU in the southern UnitedStates, the 5-year S-STEM project — Scholars to Attract and Retain Students (STARS) inGraduate Engineering and Computer Science
research over pedagogy.The Resilient Innovator’s story highlights the transformative potential of communities of practicein supporting faculty collaboration and driving systemic change, even in the face of institutionalresistance.The Writing Integration ChampionThe Writing Integration Champion’s journey began with a shared frustration over students' poortechnical writing skills. Reflecting on initial discussions with colleagues, he recalled, “We weresaying, ‘The students had poor technical writing and they’re not getting better. What can wedo?’” These conversations revealed a lack of understanding about teaching technical writingeffectively. He explained, “We realized we don’t really understand how to teach technical writingand that we need to
engineering pursue? d. Choose one of the engineering society and learn about their goalsTools & a. Visit the Writing Center What have you learned about theResources b. Tour a Library, Labs or Career Services resources available to you to c. Visit Raystown Field Station, EcoHouse assist you in meeting your d. Visit SPOT or Unity House academic or professional goals?Relationships a. Meet with an academic advisor to discuss
Education, 2025 The Process of Applying to Graduate School as an Undergraduate: A Scoping Literature ReviewAbstractAs engineering graduate programs increasingly adopt holistic admissions strategies to fosterdiversity and equity, understanding the nuanced experiences of applicants and the evaluationpriorities of admissions committees becomes critical. This scoping literature review (ScLR)explores research published since 2000 to examine how the admissions and application processesfor engineering graduate school are structured, perceived, and evaluated. Through a systematicsearch across multiple databases, 16 peer-reviewed publications were selected and thematicallyanalyzed into three domains: admissions process