Conference Session

Professional Skills for Graduate Students

Collection

2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Wendy Roldan, University of Washington; Jennifer A. Turns, University of Washington

Tagged Topics

Diversity

Tagged Divisions

Graduate Studies

effective teach- ing decisions, and the application of ideas from complexity science to the challenges of engineering education. c American Society for Engineering Education, 2018 “I came in thinking there was one right practice”: Exploring how to help graduate students learn to read academic researchAbstractIn the fall of 2017, an engineering educator with many years of experience offered a course toincoming doctoral students. The course was focused on helping the students explore approachesto reading published scholarship and develop their own scholarly reading practice. The coursewas taken by a student who documented her experiences in a reflection journal. Against thisbackdrop, this paper uses

Conference Session

Developing Teaching and Mentoring Skills

Collection

2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Joseph C. Tise, Pennsylvania State University; Kirsten S Hochstedt, Pennsylvania State University; Sarah E. Zappe, Pennsylvania State University; Esther W. Gomez, Pennsylvania State University; Manish Kumar

Tagged Topics

Diversity

Tagged Divisions

Graduate Studies

well [laughter].” Other challenges encountered by mentors included: the mentor did not know much aboutthe student’s project, differential goals between the mentor and student, different preferences forwork time (early vs late in the day), communication, and having enough of a “heads-up” aboutgetting an REU student. This last challenge may be a factor of lack of communication betweenthe mentor and the supervising faculty member, as all faculty members were provided withinformation about their REU student prior to the start of the program.Discussion The purpose of the current study was two-fold: 1) to explore the ways in which graduatestudent mentors approach mentoring REU students; and 2) to study the impact of the

Conference Session

Design and Implementation of Graduate Education

Collection

2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Meredith Welch-Devine, University of Georgia; Ramana Pidaparti, University of Georgia; K. Paige Carmichael, University of Georgia; Janet E. Rechtman, University of Georgia; Brandy B. Walker, University of Georgia; Julie A. Coffield, University of Georgia

Tagged Topics

Diversity

Tagged Divisions

Graduate Studies

first cohort of doctoral students participating in thepilot program.Training ModelTraining in professional or “soft” skills, although not new in graduate education, is commonlydone on an ad hoc basis, as a ‘bolt on’ to a student’s program of study. Further, professional skillstraining is often targeted towards career placement and generally offered to students who areadvanced in their graduate studies. While there has no doubt been some success in following thisimplicit approach, we sought to explore how a more explicit approach might better serve STEMgraduate students.The innovative model (see Figure 2) piloted through the GS LEAD program challenges thatparadigm by positioning critical professional skills development [15], [13], [5] at the

Conference Session

Design and Implementation of Graduate Education

Collection

2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Ben D. Radhakrishnan, National University

Tagged Divisions

Graduate Studies

the Capstone Project Capstone Project Proposal Duration 8 Weeks Formal Presentation Duration 4 WeeksProject Sponsor Advisor Instructor Figure 1 – Two Phases of the Capstone Project Courses FrameworkThe course outline for Part A clearly lays out the details for both parts of the capstone includingthe presentations to be made at the end of each part by all members of a student team.Teams also select a Faculty Advisor during Part A. The Advisor is Subject Matte Expert (SME)in the field. The Advisor can be any one of the

Conference Session

Graduate Studies Potpourri

Collection

2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Robert Graham, Johns Hopkins University; Pamela H. Sheff, Johns Hopkins University; Evelyn Carolina Torres-Alfaro, Johns Hopkins University

Tagged Topics

Diversity

Tagged Divisions

Graduate Studies

choose one graduate program overanother remains largely unexplored. Kallio (1995) identified factors for choosing a graduateprogram that appear similar to the criteria for selecting an undergraduate program – “academicreputation of the program, program quality and size, price/cost, financial aid, geographiclocation, contact with faculty, and a student’s individual characteristics such as academic abilityand achievement” [8]. Kallio also noted that graduate students differ from undergraduates in thatspouses, family and work considerations more heavily influence their graduate program choices. In the same research, Kallio asked graduate enrollees in the University of Michigan theirmotivations for choosing the school in a survey exploring 31

Conference Session

Graduate Studies Potpourri

Collection

2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Erika Mosyjowski, University of Michigan; Shanna R. Daly, University of Michigan; Diane L. Peters, Kettering University

Tagged Divisions

Graduate Studies

into academia from the workforce. They often have less recent experience withadvanced mathematics curriculum [11], have different work style preferences than their youngerpeers [12], and may be more likely to have significant family responsibilities like care forchildren or aging parents that make balancing their academic and personal commitments morechallenging [13], [14].Our team’s earlier research used Eccles’ Expectancy Value Theory (EVT) to explore the factorsthat might influence returning and direct-pathway students’ decisions to enroll and persist inengineering doctoral programs [7]. Expectancy-value theory suggests that individuals’achievement related choices are motivated by their expectations of success (or competencebeliefs) given a