communication must be thoughtfully designed tohelp readers make meaning of data. Such visual design for readers requires our students tobecome metacognitive of their own experience as consumers of visual communication. Yet oftenengineering students are not prompted to think about or design visual data communication untilthey must present their own data, typically as part of a senior capstone project. Our students’ lackof experience leaves them without a solid foundation for critical thought about figures, and thuswith scant preparation to learn from the experience of creating and refining them. If capstonesare to be an opportunity to learn about visual communication rather than simply perform it,students are in need of a swift means to gain perspective
, conceptual ideas,design sketches, calculations, technical references, professional contacts, component sources,software information, etc. The logbook should be dated and signed. Technical reports: In their senior design/capstone projects students work on two semesterprojects. In these projects, they are usually required to design and/or build a new product, deviceor an engineering solution. As an output of their engineering process, they are required to submitthe final report at least a week before the end of the semester. The average length of a seniordesign report is 20 to 30 pages. PowerPoint presentation: Engineering students are required to deliver a group oralpresentation to department faculty and fellow students during the last
purpose is apparent. Accordingly, four classes areimplementing the current version of the writing guide (available once the pilot is complete,anticipated for June 2015, at http://www.d.umn.edu/civileng/writing_guide) during the Spring2015 semester: two required junior-level classes, the senior capstone design course, and onegraduate elective. The authors will seek informal feedback throughout the semester and formalfeedback at the end of the semester in each of the four classes from students enrolled in thosecourses. Additionally, the authors will seek feedback from members of the department’sIndustrial Advisory Board (IAB) and from local practicing engineers who frequently volunteer asmentors in introduction to civil engineering projects
Paper ID #12608Students Writing for Professional Practice: A Model for Collaboration amongFaculty, Practitioners and Writing SpecialistsProf. Susan Conrad, Portland State University Susan Conrad, Ph.D., is a Professor of Applied Linguistics and head of the Civil Engineering Writing Project. She has written numerous articles and books about English grammar, discourse, and corpus linguistics.Dr. William A Kitch P.E., California State Polytechnic University, Pomona Dr. Kitch is a Professor of Civil Engineering at Cal Poly Pomona. Before starting his academic career he spent 24 years as a practicing engineer in both the
to social responsibility, but theydon’t examine how faculty or departments believe that they are influencing such views. At the17 institutions surveyed, it would be beneficial for departments to see where their students saidthey were influenced and compare that to where they thought they were affecting student views.Departments could assess if the first-year or capstone projects were influencing the ethicaldevelopment that they expect. Possible single time interventions on ethical or professionalresponsibility are not enough to provide lasting impressions on students such that they wouldhighlight that course years later. This could be an impetus to change such approaches to ethicseducation. More broadly, this work provides a useful approach
, and type of reflection: how reflection is being operationalized. As aresult of our findings, it is evident that there has been a significant and recognizable upwardtrend in the explicit attention to reflection across the body of the ASEE conference publications.Understanding the trends of reflection across literature can help us further analyze its prevalenceand importance in the engineering education community.IntroductionIn engineering education, there has been an increase in pedagogical approaches that positionstudents at the center of the teaching practice, like problem-based learning, project-basedcourses, and capstone design courses.1,2,3 Such pedagogical approaches often engender reflectionby engaging students in reflection activities
experiences.Dr. Marie C Paretti, Virginia Tech Marie C. Paretti is an Associate Professor of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech, where she co- directs the Virginia Tech Engineering Communications Center (VTECC). Her research focuses on com- munication in engineering design, interdisciplinary communication and collaboration, design education, and gender in engineering. She was awarded a CAREER grant from the National Science Foundation to study expert teaching in capstone design courses, and is co-PI on numerous NSF grants exploring com- munication, design, and identity in engineering. Drawing on theories of situated learning and identity development, her work includes studies on the teaching and learning of communication
courseof study) (at least 8 units at the 300- or 400-level); 24 units of additional coursework in a liberalarts specialization; and at least 4 upper-level LSE courses: two on project-based learning, asenior project course, and a capstone. Students must also either study or intern abroad, orcomplete 2 additional upper-level courses in global studies.As of Fall 2014, 55 students have graduated with a B.A. in LSE at CPSU, and 55 additionalstudents are currently active in the program (48 as LAES majors and 7 currently on a one- ortwo-quarter individualized change of major agreement). (Two other students were denied theirdegree in Spring 2012, 3 students discontinued the program, and 1 student has completed all of
, dispositions, and worldviews. His dissertation focuses on conceptualizations, the importance of, and methods to teach empathy to engineering students. He is currently the Education Di- rector for Engineers for a Sustainable World, an assistant editor for Engineering Studies, and a member of the ASEE Committee on Sustainability, Subcommittee on Formal Education.Ms. Sarah Aileen Brownell, Rochester Institute of Technology Sarah Brownell is a Lecturer in Design Development and Manufacturing for the Kate Gleason College of Engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology. She works extensively with students in the mul- tidisciplinary engineering capstone design course and other project based elective courses, incorporating
that wouldplace fewer burdens on educators, while helping engineering students take the time to understandthe lessons that are afforded by engineering courses through reflective activities.To address these issues, a few researchers in engineering education have successfully designedor developed new methods and tools to support student reflection. For example, Chen et al.combined the use of weblogs and wikis with the creation of portfolios (Folio Thinking) tosupport learning and reflection in an introductory freshman seminar on design engineering atStanford University. Chen et al. indicate that a challenge in project-based design courses is thatstudents “see what they have produced but they do not see what they have learned.” They reportthat
(e.g., control of dynamicsystems, mass transfer). In this logic, students spend the majority of their time learning a longsequence of engineering “fundamentals” before they are deemed competent to engage in creativedesign problem solving in their final-year capstone projects.3 This approach is understood as“exclusionary” not in the sense of being elitist but in the more general sense of seeking to keepout that which does not belong, including those persons (or those facets of persons) not in linewith the dominant decontextualized, narrowly technical-analytic way of problem solving withinengineering. Lectures and focused problem sets remain the mainstay educational modalitieswithin university engineering education, even as wide-ranging