adviser focused on further approaches to integrating writingprocess and heightening students’ awareness of audience and purpose earlier in the researchprocess. These observations led to the course change described above that assessed draftsections of the report throughout the semester.For the Spring 2009, 1 credit portion of the CDE course three writing assignments are beingadded to the course. The Spring portion of the course was chosen since it is generally lessintensive than the second part of the course, which hopefully allows the students more time toreflect on the writing process. Two of the assignments focus on understanding the content of thewriting and the last assignment is on peer evaluations.The first assignment provides the students
Paper ID #18835Designing a Course for Peer Educators in Undergraduate Engineering De-sign CoursesMs. Gina Marie Quan, University of Maryland, College Park Gina Quan is a doctoral candidate in Physics Education Research at the University of Maryland, College Park. She graduated in 2012 with a B.A. in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include understanding community and identity formation, unpacking students’ relation- ships to design, and cultivating institutional change. Ms. Quan is also a founding member of the Access Network, a research-practice community dedicated to
Paper ID #11199Evaluating the Pre-Professional Engineer: Exploring the Peer Review Pro-cessJoy M. Adams, University of Michigan Joy Adams is the Program Manager for the Multidisciplinary Design Program at the University of Michi- gan. In this role, she focuses on Corporate Sponsored Projects, Communications and Student Performance Appraisals. She has seven years of diverse professional Human Resources experience, including prior roles in Training & Development, Campus Recruiting and Talent Management/Leadership Development at various Fortune 500 firms.Mical D. DeGraaff, University of Michigan Mical DeGraaff is a
towards a design studio environment evolving from traditional mentor-apprentice relationships [2].Significant prior research has explored the role peer feedback plays in student learning. Cho andMacArthur [13] found that peer feedback provided by multiple peers was more effective inimproving students’ writing performance than feedback provided by a single expert, or a singlepeer reviewer. Although some students held negative perceptions of the fairness and reliability ofreceiving feedback from peers, they derived benefits from participating in peer assessment,exemplifying a higher degree of reflection and more effective revisions of their own work [14].More recently, studies have investigated the role of peer feedback in design reviews/critiques
a team of 4 or 5students). Thus, based on the technical quality of the bridge designs, the lower peer ratings forMiddle Eastern students may reflect biased ratings by peers, while the lower peer ratings ofChinese students appear to have some objective justification.It is possible that in fact Middle Eastern and Chinese students contributed less to the team projectthan majority peers, on average. Putting together the written report and completing the groupdiscussion elements could be distributed unevenly among team members. For example, thosewith better writing skills may naturally take on these tasks. While the quality of the bridge itselfcreated by Middle Eastern students was comparable to average students in the course, the MiddleEastern
AC 2009-1474: PEER AND SELF ASSESSMENT IN DEVELOPING TEAM SKILLSIN A CORE DESIGN SEQUENCEKeith Sheppard, Stevens Institute of Technology Keith Sheppard is a Professor of Materials Engineering and Associate Dean of Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology. He earned the B.Sc. from the University of Leeds, England and Ph.D. from the University of Birmingham, England, both in Metallurgy. As Associate Dean, Sheppard is primarily responsible for undergraduate programs. He is a past Chair of the ASEE Design in Engineering Education Division.Edward Blicharz, Stevens Institute of Technology Edward Blicharz is a Distinguished Service Associate Professor in the Electrical and Computer
Paper ID #33164”Adding Stuff From Other People”: How Peer Comparison InfluencesConceptual Modeling in Precollege Engineering ContextsMs. Katelyn Stenger, University of Virginia Katelyn Stenger is a Ph.D. fellow in the Behavioral Science for Sustainable Systems program at the Convergent Behavioral Science Initiative at the University of Virginia. She researches behavioral designs for complex systems. Previously, she worked as a mechanical engineer helping design and construct high-rise buildings. She received her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.Prof. Jennifer L. Chiu, University of
Paper ID #9073Student Experiences In An Interdisciplinary Studio-Based Design Course:The Role Of Peer ScaffoldingMs. Bushra Tawfiq Chowdhury, Virginia Tech Bushra Tawfiq Chowdhury is highly motivated, focused and result oriented individual, pursuing a career which provides a challenging and a dynamic environment. Holding a Master’s in Information security and having a strong leadership attitude.Takes advantage of communication, organizational, multitasking and technical skills with a diverse work experience involving academics and in the IT industry. Currently a PhD student in the in the Department of Engineering Education
University. Recent research has focused on 1) using writing and communication assignments to improve the teaching of engineering design and 2) developing a flexible mobile studio pedagogy using the Mobile Studio Instrumentation Board.Dr. Matthew W. Ohland, Purdue University, West Lafayette Matthew W. Ohland is Professor of Engineering Education at Purdue University. He has degrees from Swarthmore College, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the University of Florida. His research on the longitudinal study of engineering students, team assignment, peer evaluation, and active and collaborative teaching methods has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the Sloan Foundation and his team received Best Paper
academicsemesters. Each project generally involves more than two members. The final group report,presentation, and oral interview are the usual methods to evaluate each member’s contribution tothe project. Since these tools sometimes do not suffice, peer assessment questionnaires have alsobeen suggested by researchers to evaluate each student’s contribution to the project. The goal ofthis research was to evaluate each student’s participation in a team based project from the oralpresentation performance. The result will provide an additional assessment tool for an instructorto effectively evaluate each student’s performance in a group. To accomplish this, team projectdata was collected from freshman and senior level courses from two universities
faculty and staff. Since students are usually more willing to share concerns with their peermentors, the peer mentors are an invaluable resource for determining student needs, and thefeedback allows the instructional team to adjust each semester accordingly to best serve students.Reflections on Teamwork Topics. In the course management system, students complete weeklyreadings and reflections on teamwork topics. Reflection is a critical component of learning fromexperience [18], and we believe that directed reflection helps students to abstract lessons fromtheir teamwork experiences. Most of the weekly lessons include a link to an outside reading;topics included collaborative writing tools, giving and receiving feedback, the value of diversityon
paperintends to show a set of report outlines along with evaluation tools and rubrics used in a one-semester senior design capstone course.The author of this paper has taught the senior design capstone course in Electrical and ComputerEngineering at the University of Kentucky for several years. During this time a set of reportingoutlines for the students were developed. The course is offered as a one-semester class and thestudents need to write a proposal, a midterm executive summary, and a final report. For all ofthese reports the students are given an outline to follow. The students also need to hand inself/peer evaluations three times per semester. These self/peer evaluations have been adaptedfrom different self/peer evaluations found on the
Innovation at NYU Tandon School of Engineering, and is affiliated with the Department of Management and Organizations at NYU Stern Business School. Her research interests involve commu- nication, collaboration, culture and space, with a focus on interactions, particularly those between people and technology. Her work has been published in several leading journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly, Information System Research, Organization Science and Organization Studies. She is also the co-author of a book on The Power of Writing in Organizations. She holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive Science from the Ecole des Hautes-Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris), an M. Phil. in Cognitive Science from Ecole Polytechnique (Paris
focused on students getting to know themselves. It is important todevelop self-aware individuals to understand how to be a teammate and a leader [34]. Self-awareness allows students to reflect inward to allow them to identify, process, and storeinformation about oneself [35, 36]. The value of self-awareness is obvious as it means having adeep understanding of one’s emotions, strengths, limitations, values, motives, and perceptions[37]. The first assignment for the class is to write a biography to allow for students and theinstructor to get to know one another. The text of the biography focused on experiences bothprofessional and personal that the students thought would be relevant to their peers. The studentsposted these biographies to the course
teaming skills through a sequence of core design courses starting inFreshman Year is discussed. In the first course in the sequence basic concepts are given foreffective teamwork and related individual behaviors. A survey is used at this point to assessstudents’ prior team and group work experience as well as their attitudes toward team-basedwork. After participation as a team member in the major design project, students are given a firstexposure to a peer feedback questionnaire in which they assess their own attitudes andperformance on the team and as well as those of their team-mates. This thread in teaming iscontinued in the second design course by revisiting the peer-feedback questionnaire at mid-semester and the use of team charters where
class were to provide better formativefeedback more quickly to students, to continue to integrate authentic work in the class throughcase studies, and to provide a more active and collaborative learning environment.The blended experience for this class has several components, including • Student teams recording presentations with video-capture software (instead of just turning in PowerPoint files for feedback). • Peer review of aforementioned recorded presentations and other deliverables, utilizing an online peer-management system (called “PRAZE”) to reduce the complexity of administering peer review for a large number of students • In-class polls using Google Docs • Discussion board forums for student questions
the participants. In early after actionreviews a large number of students alluded to “being so close to success but not making it”.Another common sentiment was that the teams had made a large number of avoidable mistakes,none of which was fatal in and of itself but which in combination doomed the project. Reflectingon these statements and making inquiries of other faculty and students in the program it wasdiscovered that nowhere in the degree program was there formal instruction in the process ofengineering design. Comparisons with programs at peer universities found similar curricula.Information on the design process is available in several textbooks that have been published inthe past five years 3,5.There were two hurdles to adoption of
limit on the numberof courses or degree credit hours. Consequently, teaching communication skills must be infusedin required courses adding to the general education portion of the curriculum and withoutreplacing cognate or core engineering material. The challenge is to provide a solid and modernengineering education where students will naturally and ubiquitously acquire efficient andmodern communication skills.This presentation discusses some of the research results of this project including the developmentof a modern technical writing course, the integration of communication skills into engineeringmaterials, and multidisciplinary methods that combine students enrolled in the Arts, Media, andCommunication Studies with engineering
working). These peer comments and thenumerical peer feedback grade are used along with reported hours as part of the instructorevaluation grade described below.Instructor Evaluations. In aerospace senior design classes, 20% of the grade comes from"Individual Participation", which consists of two instructor evaluations each semester along withattendance, in-class exercises, and individual writing assignments. As stated in the syllabus, "Theinstructor evaluation considers time card data, input from staff members, faculty and industryadvisors, feedback from student leaders and peers, and the subjective assessment of the courseinstructor." To come up with a grade, first the instructor develops a formula using a weightedcombination of hours worked
25.250.2abstractEngineering students begin their education with varying understanding of the engineering designprocess. Effective engineering education will require us to understand how students developboth skills and a concept of engineering design. At a large Midwestern public university wecompare 100 students’ initial conceptions in design and response to design tasks both before andafter a 2-day, peer mentor led, design activity program which preceded the beginning of the firstyear in engineering. During the program, students were led through two design activities: onefocusing on idea generation and customer requirements; the second focusing on a design, buildand test activity. In addition, there were faculty presentations and discussions led by peermentors. We
settings, the workshop provides studentswith an opportunity to learn about and practice giving and receiving feedback on peers’ projectplans, and chosen design methods and artifacts.In the remaining sections of this paper, we describe the contents of the workshop in detail andsummarize student feedback on each implementation. Further, we reflect on how the workshopcan be further developed to better meet its intended learning outcomes and suggest ways inwhich instructors can alter it to suit different student disciplines, academic levels and courseobjectives.Importance of FeedbackFeedback is reaction or opinion regarding a product, the performance of a task, etc., that is usedto support improvement or confirm success. The education literature
article“Integrating Written Communication Skills in Engineering Education,” author Marc Riemerstated that writing about previous work not only strengthens critical thinking and problem-solving skills but that it allows engineers to recognize and address personal errors [4]. Writingallows for the ability to come together, understand where there are misunderstandings in thework, and fix any errors before they have the chance to affect anyone. Misinterpretation,inefficiency, and wasted time due to ineffective or poor communication negatively impactsproblem resolution [4]. Design review will give peers the ability to read each other’s work toensure they communicate their work effectively.The Engineering ProblemDesign review aids in one’s ability to
with little design experience or understanding ofengineering practice. This paper provides suggestions on how these challenges can beovercome and, in particular, how self-assessment rubrics can help eliminate much of thetraditional design course assessment workload for teachers. This paper provides suggestionsfor preparing incremental self-assessment rubrics for a capstone design course. While bothself- and peer-assessment can provide significant assessment time-saving for tutors, self-assessment also promotes student learning, according to recent education research.Appropriately designed rubrics can also provide students with guidance on levels ofattainment required for design tasks and students also learn to assess design
there is a diversity of concerns Page 23.1131.4about grades (those working for an ‘A’ and those happy with a ‘C’), it is more likely that thegrade-focused members will control most of the work and ‘enable’ the other members to do littleor none of the report writing. In this case some members get additional report writingexperience, some get little or no experience, and no members develop good group report writingskills. Although project-focused grading is easiest and therefore is a common approach forteam-based design projects, it can unintentionally reward project-obsessed teams. Gradingpractices that include peer ratings do serve to increase
notask specifically about advisement of capstone design projects, there are several questions closelycorrelated to capstone course topics as well as the opportunity to submit written comments. Thestudent comments, whose purpose is to “help the faculty to improve the quality of the educationthey provide,” are the most telling data from the surveys administered prior to the 2008/2009academic year. The survey instrument is included in Appendix A.The Department chair is responsible for analyzing the survey data and writing an annual programimprovement report. The purpose is to examine the survey data and plan corrective action andprogram improvement activities. The report also updates the status of improvement initiativessuggested in the previous
withpeer evaluations, each student was also asked to write a reflective memo. Both the reflectivememo and peer evaluation questions were designed to force the student to think critically abouttheir team experience. The words used for the assignment are shown in figure 3 below.For this assignment you should reflect upon your participation on the project and comment onyour key strengths and how it has contributed to the overall effort. You should also describepossible weaknesses and opportunities for improvement, the major challenges and issues faced,and what you have learned from the experience. Comment on what might have been donedifferently to make your learning experience more productive.In addition, you should prepare a peer evaluation for
course. Revision is also encouraged, forexample in an early assignment where groups of students write instructions for building a given Page 12.621.4Lego mechanism, which are then marked by another group who try to follow the instructions andgive feedback. The groups learn from their peers the importance of accuracy and clarity inwriting as well as drawing, then get a chance to revise their instructions before handing them into the instructor. We believe these activities not only help to improve the students’ performanceon subsequent projects, but to increase students’ awareness of the skills they have gained.Team evaluationsThe students work
toprovide training and real world, small-scale project experience through the completion ofa full-project lifecycle from conceptualization to prototype. Brief discussion of thoseprojects that resulted in provisional patents, refereed journal publications, and conferencepresentations will be given. Some of the features of the course, such as University andindustry guest speaker series and final project evaluation by the department’s IndustrialAdvisory Board, leading professionals, faculty, technical staff and peers will beexamined. The paper concludes by outlining a set of short term and long term goals forthe future direction of the course.IntroductionEngineering and engineering technology disciplines consider senior project courses animportant and
team andassume they are a professional is to overlook the much needed education in basic professionalism.As with any pedagogical method we have identified perpetual problems with problem studentsand specifically address these through project team design. The general categories that weencounter with students at our institution are listed below in relative frequency/importance. Theyhave been developed using personal interactions during, and peer evaluations after studentprojects from a variety of courses and faculty. Each school will have a different list. For example,our list obviously excludes cultural differences. • Working - Students working outside school 20 or more hours per week often have schedules that do not fit with regular full
two phases of the team dynamics cycle.The new set of changes to the course is not as effective as had been hoped. The amount ofbookkeeping is tremendous due to all the reports and presentations. Students are unable to workefficiently on their technical project due to the overload on report writing. Students alsocomplain that one semester is not enough time to produce a professional prototype. The basicfeedback from the Self/Peer-Reviews also indicates that one semester might not be enough togive the students a positive team experience, which would include the last to phases of normingand performing.Intermediate Conclusion:All changes in phase 2 have been introduced in the author’s first semester teaching the seniordesign course. Even though