Conference Session

Tricks of the Trade I

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Marshall, University of Southern Maine; William R. Marshall, Alief Independent School District

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

. The more ways we find toprocess information the stronger learning (i.e., neural connections between brain cells) becomes.Research is proving that to enhance learning, we should be involving students in lessons by Page 25.469.2providing a non-threatening environment which allows them time to ask questions, seek solutions,reflect, share thinking about a theme or topic, and respond to other's viewpoints.In short, as teachers, we need to be able to accomplish learning by doing. Action helps to growthe brain. The real value of subject matter can be heightened for students through activitiesthat combine the classroom instructional context with real

Conference Session

Tricks of the Trade II

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Robert A. Chin, East Carolina University; I. Richmond Nettey, Kent State University; Edem G. Tetteh; Philip Weinsier, Bowling Green State University, Firelands

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

, the funds should support travel to present the research findings and page fees for disseminating the findings. Funding is also part of the validation process.• Know when to talk about your accomplishments and when not. Keep in mind, your accomplishments are a reflection and reflect upon the department, college, and institution.• FolioWeb and like portals for managing online electronic portfolios—the future—vs paper portfolios.DiscussionThe topic of tenure and promotion continues to elicit interest and appears to be of value to ASEEAnnual Conference audience members, authors, and presenters. The intent of this paper was toshare the findings of a tenure and promotion panel discussion and forum that was offered duringa

Conference Session

Tricks of the Trade I

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Robert M. Brooks, Temple University; Jyothsna Kavuturu; Mehmet Cetin, Temple University

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

consisted of thenew educators’ self evaluations of their effectiveness as teachers as shown in Table 1. Thesurveys were administered before and after use of the pedagogical instrument. The secondconfidential survey asked students to evaluate the new educators’ teaching effectiveness asshown in Table 2. Table 3 contains several examples of critical thinking questions used in theactivities showing the core components of critical thinking.ObservationAttention plays an important part in observation. Students are encouraged to look at detailsbecause this is an important skill in all professions. Observation equips us with the materialnecessary for thought, reflection and judgment. Observation is influenced by experience,knowledge and emotion.Students

Conference Session

Off the Beaten Path

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Kathy Schmidt Jackson, Pennsylvania State University; Randy L. Vander Wal, Pennsylvania State University

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

Copyright © 2012 American Society for Engineering Educationliterature. This seeming panoply reflects the originality of information, innovativeness oftechnologies, high societal, political and commercial interests in light of an unconcluded path.The professor noted that remarkably many of the ScienceDaily articles that are of academicorigins turn into peer-reviewed journal articles, but a year later, further highlighting the present-day status and accurate targeting of this particular source. Yet expecting students to locate, readand keep current with these types of references is unrealistic. We requested funding to design amulti-media format to organize and easily distribute these references to the students for currentand future use.With the whole

Conference Session

Best of the NEE

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Brian M. Wade, U.S. Military Academy; Robert J. Rabb, U.S. Military Academy; R. Clayton McVay, U.S. Military Academy; Peter Hanlon, U.S. Military Academy

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

, for students to reference.Test Preparation Activity Survey ResultsNot all students have equal schedules, so time results were normalized to reflect the percentageof time students devoted to each activity rather than the number of minutes. Instructors compiledthis data from students and correlated it to the grades that each student earned on the exam.They then provided the compiled results from the entire course back to the students for them tocompare their individual efforts against the course averages. This was done both shortly after theexam and again before the next exam to help remind students of what they had learned from theprevious survey results as they prepared for the next test. Students were given aid in interpretingthat data, but

Conference Session

Tricks of the Trade I

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jenny L. Lo, Virginia Tech; Tamara W. Knott, Virginia Tech; Thomas D. Walker P.E., Virginia Tech; Vinod K. Lohani, Virginia Tech

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

. As a coordinator, encourage GTAs/faculty to gobeyond the normal teaching experience by discussing educational research and possiblyconducting an educational research study.Try to have weekly routines for GTAs to follow. In order to help prepare GTAs for theirupcoming teaching experiences, run the weekly “training meeting” as a workshop; have theGTAs do what you want the students to do. It is important to conduct short surveys or receivefeedback from GTAs to determine things that worked well or did not work well in workshops.This gets them in the habit of reflecting on their teaching and provides the coordinator quickfeedback. Also, provide opportunities to all GTAs through anonymous surveys to express theirconcerns regarding course (lecture

Conference Session

Best of the NEE

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Laurie S. Garton, Texas Engineering Experiment Station

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

language must be apparent to reviewers as they read the researcher’s proposal.Proposing something of no interest to a funder in terms that they do not support can doom anotherwise great idea. The mission and strategic plan of a group are usually published on theirweb site (such as, NSF5, NIH6, DoE7, EPA8). This information provides the basis for how theagency approaches research and is reflected in their proposal review criteria (see Review Processsection for more details). Most program solicitations are written with specific terminology andinclude cited references to describe the program.Send the proposal to the right program within an agency. The NSF has nine directorates (NSFhomepage9), each with multiple divisions and multiple programs within

Conference Session

Tricks of the Trade II

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Marcus L. Roberts, U.S. Air Force Academy; Randall Deppensmith, U.S. Air Force Academy; Ryan Jay Silva, U.S. Air Force Academy

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

technique may actually be the correct one to engagestudent learning. However, for most classes of this generation, those presentations may notpromote student learning and may be an ineffective use of instructor time. In fact, if this is thesole teaching method, why not just have the students read the presentation as a second text? Alearning-based method of teaching allows time for questions, discussions, and moments of pauseand reflection, not just presentation. At a minimum, these tools should be used sparingly andthey should only guide the discussion vice present the lesson word-for-word. Each instructor willscope their lesson differently, but we are certain that is an example of not properly scoping thelesson plan.Observation #4: Spoon-feeding

Conference Session

Assessments, Assessments, and Assessments

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

David B. Meredith, Pennsylvania State University, Fayette

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

. But if they forget the units or include inconsistent units, they lose some of these points. The final stepto successfully completing an engineering calculation is to “reflect” on the answer to be sure it makes sense.(“The cup of coffee has a mass of 247.38 kg, because that is what my calculator shows.”) I have triedunsuccessfully to incorporate that step as part of this final 30% by offering 5% if they write “ok” beside theiranswer to demonstrate they have completed this final reflection step. Some students thought they deserved thepoints because they had written “ok” without showing any work. I think they missed the purpose of the points.I do try to provide feedback directly on the test to show the student where they went astray. Sometimes a

Conference Session

Assessments, Assessments, and Assessments

Collection

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Waddah Akili, Iowa State University

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

activities that support declared goals and student learning, often referredto as educative assessment (8, 27) .This would include decisions on how to provideinformation on students’ strengths and their mastery of course material, as well asguidance on how to proceed with learning activities to insure compliance withdefined goals and how to improve students’ performance and their grasp of newmaterial. Students will eventually need reliable feedback on their performance thatallows them to move forward as learners and deepens their understanding of thesubject matter. This feedback could come from the instructor, their classmates, theirown self-reflection, or a combination of the three.(27, 28)Another important factor in the optimization process is to