Conference Session

Professional Skills and the Workplace

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Margaret Huyck, Illinois Institute of Technology; daniel ferguson, Illinois Institute of Technology; Elizabeth Howard, Illinois Institute of Technology; June Ferrill, Rice University; Lisa Getzler-Linn, Lehigh University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

AC 2008-2812: ENHANCING ETHICAL AWARENESS WITHINUNDERGRADUATE MULTIDISCIPLINARY TEAMS BY PREPARING CODESOF ETHICSMargaret Huyck, Illinois Institute of Technology Margaret Hellie Huyck, Ph.D., is Professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology, within the Institute of Psychology. Her graduate work at the University of Chicago focused on life span human development and the sociology of education. Her academic specialities are adult development and program evaluation. She has major responsibility for the evaluation of the IPRO Program at IIT.daniel ferguson, Illinois Institute of Technology Daniel M. Ferguson, MBA, MSIE, is a Senior Lecturer in the IIT Stuart School of Business, and

Conference Session

Student Engagement and Motivation

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Elizabeth Howard, Illinois Institute of Technology; Daniel Ferguson, Illinois Institute of Technology; Margaret Huyck, Illinois Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

roughly at the beginning, middle, and end of thesemester. Each Reflection assignment included seven to ten questions, and the three questionsused in the current analysis were: The Solution Question: Included on Reflection One, Question Six “Is there more than one way to solve the problem your [team] faces? What are other possible solutions? How do you know which one is best? Can you ever be completely sure that solution is the one that should be implemented?” The Ethics Question: Included on Reflection Three, Question Three “What other possible solutions are there to the ethical problem? Which solution to the ethical problem do you think is best and why? How confident are you in the solution

Conference Session

Assessment

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Olga Pierrakos, James Madison University; Maura Borrego, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Jenny Lo, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

is the co-coodinator of the first semester engineering course at Virginia Tech, and her research interests include undergraduate research, curriculum development and engineering ethics instruction. Page 13.231.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2008 Assessing Students’ Learning Outcomes during Summer Undergraduate Research ExperiencesAbstractHighly promoted and funded by NSF and other agencies, undergraduate research experienceshave many benefits to students and also present a great opportunity for them to learn globallycompetitive skills. Having recruited 22 NSF REU sites

Conference Session

Professional Skills and the Workplace

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Ashley Ater Kranov, Center for Teaching, Learning & Technology; Robert Olsen, Washington State University; Carl Hauser, Washington State University; Laura Girardeau, Washington State University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

thesix professional skills to the ABET engineering criteria, engineering education in the US today is“falling far short of preparing engineering graduates for practicing—and leading—in a change-driven, knowledge-intensive, global society that will characterize the decades ahead.”3In Restructuring Engineering Education: A Focus on Change, the NSF recommends thatengineering courses include early and continued exposure to environmental, political and socialissues and their international and historical contexts, as well as legal and ethical implications ofengineering solutions.4 Oberst and Jones argue that engineers shape and are shaped by “theemerging realities of a truly global workforce. Engineers as a professional group are thuscanaries in the

Conference Session

Student Engagement and Motivation

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Linda Vanasupa, California Polytechnic State University; Trevor Harding, California Polytechnic State University; William Hughes, California Polytechnic State University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

in which it occurs13. In Figure 2, “mastery” is placed at the intersection of Page 13.1231.4cognitive and psychomotor development and “moral and ethical development” at theintersection of social and affective domains. When viewing the diagram, developmentallyadvancing in mastery or moral development would equate to moving along an axiscentered on the construct and coming out of the plane of the paper toward the viewer.The highest order of development for mastery would be self-directed learning orcognitive autonomy, akin to the construct that engineering educators call “life longlearning.” For moral and ethical development, a higher order of

Conference Session

SPECIAL SESSION: Describing the Engineering Student Learning Experience Based on CAEE Findings: Part 2

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Andrew Jocuns, University of Washington; Reed Stevens, University of Washington; Lari Garrison, University of Washington; Daniel Amos, University of Washington

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

illustrate how some images of the field of engineeringwere developed at a larger cultural level at these schools. In some cases these images were sodominant that students at a school forced themselves to do reconciling work in order to identifythe aspects of their engineering identities that did not fit within these images. At Suburban Page 13.1113.13Private University the dominant image of engineering fostered a culture of great expectations.Technical Public Institution students found themselves working in strong teams of engineeringstudents and developing a strong sense of ethics. Students at Urban Private University sought todevelop a sense of

Conference Session

Writing and Portfolios

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jung Oh, Kansas State University-Salina; Judith Collins, Kansas State University-Salina

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

encompassinglibrary instruction, computer literacy, critical thinking, communication, ethics, and lifelonglearning. The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) defines informationliteracy as “the set of skills needed to find, retrieve, analyze, and use information”1 and presentsinformation literacy standards for science, engineering and technology.2 Information literacyenables learners to “master content and extent their investigations and become more self-directed, and assume greater control over their own learning”.3Lave and Wegner proposed that “situated learning” occurs within the context of a “community ofpractice”, a “set of relations among persons, activities, and world, over time and in relation withother overlapping communities”.4 They

Conference Session

Professional Skills and the Workplace

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Daniel Ferguson, Illinois Institute of Technology; Margaret Huyck, Illinois Institute of Technology; Carolyn Wood, Illinois Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

Program (IPRO) at Illinois Institute of Technology is aproject-based experiential learning experience with the primary learning objectives of [1]strengthening multidisciplinary teamwork skills, [2] improving communication skills, [3]learning project management, and [4] recognizing ethical behavior. In the last four yearswe have developed a multipart assessment system for the purposes of measuring ourachievement of these and other IPRO learning objectives. In this paper we will discusshow we measure learning objectives attainment at the project team level and theinconsistencies in those measures that prompted us to better define our learningobjectives, and align our assessment measurement instruments with these newdefinitions. We conducted rank

Conference Session

STEM Pipeline: Pre-College to Post-Baccalaureate

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Gillian Nicholls, University of Pittsburgh; Harvey Wolfe, University of Pittsburgh; Mary Besterfield-Sacre, University of Pittsburgh; Larry Shuman, University of Pittsburgh

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

, University of Pittsburgh Harvey Wolfe is the William Kepler Whiteford Professor of Industrial Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. After many years working in the area of applying operations research methods to the health field, he is now active in the development of models for assessing engineering education. He is a co-author of Engineering Ethics: Balancing Cost Schedule and Risk - Lessons Learned from the Space Shuttle (Cambridge University Press, 1997). He holds the B.E.S. in Industrial Engineering, M.S.E. in Operations Research, and Ph.D. in Operations Research (Johns Hopkins University).Mary Besterfield-Sacre, University of Pittsburgh Mary Besterfield-Sacre is an Associate

Conference Session

Design: Content and Context

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Donald McEachron, Drexel University; Fred Allen, Drexel University; Elisabeth Papazoglou, Drexel University; Mustafa Sualp, Drexel University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

or agile methodologies rely on iterative development and consistent user feedback5,6.Which style of development one uses depends on the specifics of the problem or opportunityassessed?For existing engineering programs, the business case has already been made and accepted. To agreat extent, the problem or vision statement is also already defined. In general, the goal is toeducate individuals to be competent and ethical engineers. There is variation in the type ofengineer being produced – electrical, chemical, biomedical – leading to a correspondingvariation in the vision or problem statement and there can be slight variations in the exact natureof the mission – engineers primarily for industry vs. research oriented practitioners – but

Conference Session

Assessment

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Patrick Terenzini, The Pennsylvania State University; Lisa Lattuca, Pennsylvania State University; Matthew Ohland, Purdue Engineering Education; Russell Long, Purdue University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

items assessing theability to design and carry out an experiment; alpha =. 89), 3) engineering skills (four itemsassessing abilities to use engineering tools and skills in practice; alpha = .94), 4) design andproblem-solving (a six-item scale assessing students ability to solve open-ended problems anddesign solutions; alpha = .92), 5) communications skills (four items measuring abilities toconvey ideas in writing, verbally, and in graphs; alpha = .86), 6) group skills (three itemsassessing the ability to work with others; alpha = . 86), 7) knowledge of societal and globalissues (a five-item scale measuring awareness and understanding of societal contexts andcontemporary issues; alpha = .92), 8) ethics and professionalism (five items

Conference Session

Institutional and Curricular Reform

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Pierre Lafleur, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal; Yves Boudreault, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal; Richard Prégent, École Polytechnique de Montréal

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

eleven engineering programs Pierre G. Lafleur, Yves Boudreault and Richard Prégent École Polytechnique de Montréal, Québec, CANADAContextFor 135 years, École Polytechnique de Montréal has provided an engineering program in theprovince of Québec, Canada. During its long history it has, successfully, faced and overcamemany challenges in several areas such as teaching, research, funding, and internationalcollaborations. The recent process through which it has, thoroughly, remodeled its elevenengineering undergraduate programs is, however, quite unique. This remodeling, in part,reflected on the basic mathematics courses and the complementary courses (social andeconomical aspects of engineering, ethics, etc.). It

Conference Session

Emerging Issues in Engineering Education Research and Pedagogy

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Maura Borrego, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Lynita Newswander, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

it to meet the needs of students at anumber of levels. In a journal club, “[a]t its best, the larger scientific community reinforces and extends the development of scientific values that is the most important product of graduate education. Through its various activities and discussions, members of the [journal club] express a set of standards for the quality of scientific inquiry, for what constitutes an interesting problem, for … rigor, and for ethical … behavior that becomes the foundation for a future…career.”9 Page 13.822.3We suggest that the same benefits may be found in engineering journal clubs

Conference Session

STEM Pipeline: Pre-College to Post-Baccalaureate

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Nancy Healy, Georgia Institute of Technology; Lynn Rathbun, Cornell University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

for the E.U.The need for a skilled workforce to meet this challenge has been highlighted in two recentreports: Innovate America4 and Engineering Research and America’s Future: Meeting theChallenges of a Global Economy5 which stress the critical importance of technologicalinnovation in U.S. competitiveness, productivity, and economic growth. Nanotechnology is seenas one of these technologically important fields and as noted in Innovate America,“nanotechnology could impact the production of virtually every human-made object.” The NNIcontinues to recognize the importance of education through increased allocations to the NSFbudget. NSF’s budget for education, ethical, legal, and social issues has increased from $29.1million in 2005 to $33.4

Conference Session

Design: Content and Context

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mieke Schuurman, Pennsylvania State University; Christine B. Masters, Pennsylvania State University; Peggy Van Meter, Pennsylvania State University; Gül Okudan, Pennsylvania State University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

education is evident in a key learning outcome criterion set by the AccreditationBoard for Engineering and Technology (ABET), which states that students are expected todemonstrate “the ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs withinrealistic constraints such as economic, environmental, social, political, ethical, health and safety,manufacturability, and sustainability” 1. Most four year engineering programs include acornerstone design course in the first year which introduces students to the breadth ofengineering design topics. Students obtain more in-depth knowledge in their second and thirdyear, in particular related to engineering analysis. Although analysis is a relevant part of thedesign process, when asked to

Conference Session

Fostering and Assessing Effective Teaming

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Diane Zemke, Gonzaga University; Steven Zemke, Gonzaga University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

group when its focus wandered, nor could he generate a fully collaborativeprocess if the task did not generate one by itself.JohnJohn is another non-traditional student in his early 30s. Like Cory, he has extensive workexperience in an engineering environment. Also like Cory, he is not a top student, but has anoutstanding work ethic and produces excellent work. He is assertive in class, often askingquestions to improve his understanding. He does well with his younger classmates.John’s team was only recorded one time. During this session, John spent much time studying theproblem and learning the task requirements. Like Cory, he kept the group on task; he became the“task expert” even though he found the task challenging. He also did error

Conference Session

ERM Potpourri

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Emily Wischow, Purdue University, West Lafayette; Lynn Bryan, Purdue University; Shanna Daly, Purdue University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

of NSET education in secondary science, and extend this approach to newinitiatives in science, engineering, and technology curricula.References1. Sweeney, A. E.; Seal, S.; Vaidyanathan, P., The promises and perils of nanoscience and nanotechnology: Exploring emerging social and ethical issues. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 2003, 23, (4), 236- 245.2. Foley, E. T.; Hersam, M. C., Assessing the need for nanotechnology education reform in the United States. Nanotechnology Law & Business 2006, 3, (4), 467-484.3. Merkle, R. C., It's a small, small, small, small world. Technology Review 1997.4. Chang, C.-Y., The highlights in the nano world. Proceedings of the IEEE 2003, 91, (11), 1756-1764.5

Conference Session

SPECIAL SESSION: Describing the Engineering Student Learning Experience Based on CAEE Findings: Part 1

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Andrew Morozov, University of Washington; Deborah Kilgore, University of Washington; Ken Yasuhara, University of Washington; Cynthia Atman, University of Washington

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

science education are important foundations for becoming a competent engineer, butanother area central to engineering practice is design. Teaching and learning good design skillsare important aspects of engineering education in colleges and universities [19, 20]. ABET hasrecognized this need by including “an ability to design a system, component, or process to meetdesired needs within realistic constraints such as economic, environmental, social, political,ethical, health and safety, manufacturability, and sustainability” in the Criteria for AccreditingEngineering Programs, as one of the eleven learning outcomes that students should attain beforegraduation [21

Conference Session

Design: Content and Context

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Richard Melnyk, United States Military Academy; Daisie Boettner, United States Military Academy

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

, because of theirleadership role or work ethic, carried more responsibility for the team.Results of Changes Introduced in 2007 Overall, the grading changes made produced positive results. Each change presentedadvantages as well as minor disadvantages that will be discussed in more detail. However,combination of the four changes made in 2007 produced a much different result in the finalcourse grades. Compared to the previous ten years, as depicted in Table 1, the final coursegrades in 2007 featured a course GPA much closer to the mean GPA of the students entering thecourse. While it was not the goal of the course directors to arbitrarily reduce the students’grades, the changes introduced appear to have tempered the impact that the natural bias

Conference Session

Faculty Attitudes and Perceptions

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Cathy Burack, Brandeis University; John Duffy, University of Massachusetts Lowell; Alan Melchior, Brandeis University; Eric Morgan, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

combineengineering classes with social issues might be to use a multidisciplinary approach and tie into ahumanities course on “social factors in engineering use,” something jointly taught with ethics forexample. However, working across departmental lines was cited by one faculty member as oneof the biggest challenges at the college. Whatever specific approach is ultimately adopted, thereis an interest in exploring how service-learning can more fully integrated into the curriculum. Assuch, it may be time for S-L to begin to bring faculty together to explore those options.In a similar vein, there is concern among some of the faculty regarding the extent of theinstitutionalization of S-L. One faculty member expressed concern that SLICE is still

Conference Session

Student Recruitment and Retention

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Yvonne Ng, College of St. Catherine

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

indicated three of the four top areas were either learned on the job or had beenforgotten since formal education: 1) software and design patterns, 2) object-oriented conceptsand technology, and 3) requirements gathering and analysis. Other top areas learned on the jobincluded analysis and design methods; testing, verification, and quality assurance; projectmanagement; confirmation and release management; human-computer interaction/userinterfaces; and databases.Business and art topics of high importance in the respondents’ careers, but which were learnedon the job, included 1) ethics and professionalism, 2) technical writing, 3) giving presentations toan audience, and 4) leadership. Today, this need for a well-rounded, project-based