ofthe course also performed well in the project that involved math and multi dimensional physics.IntroductionOur freshmen take physics for Engineers (Physics 1) in the second semester of the freshmenyear. Most of our freshmen have high school physics, but their skills are highly dependent on thehigh school they attended and the level of physics that they have taken. They learn electricpotential in their sophomore year. The purpose of this final project was not only to full fill thecurriculum requirement, but also to introduce this multi dimensional, that is the two dimensionaland three dimensional tasks to freshman engineering students to get ready for future courses.The project deals with the calculation of electric potentials for different
style, and although class levels and disciplines weredifferent, significantly similar positive perceptions were recorded for different criteria.I. INTRODUCTIONMany instructors have difficulties making students read outside the class [1]. We use onlinequizzes for obtaining feedback on the students’ comprehension of topics not yet taught in theclassroom. Variations of the method were originally developed in 1996 at IUPUI and the USForce Academy; the term “Just in Time Teaching” or JiTT was coined. In this approach, studentscomplete online assignments/quizzes [2] by a certain deadline. Instructors adjust lectures “Just intime” not only to cover the curriculum but also to respond to student needs [3] so that thefeedback loop is closed. The end
significant studies1,2 concerning senior engineering capstone experiences have beenconducted in North America since the 1990's. The study by Todd et al.1 was conducted in 1995and included a array of 360 responses from engineering departments. There are many interestingfindings in the report, including the small number of programs with interdepartmental seniordesign courses and that a significant number of capstone experiences were individual rather thanteam projects. The authors suggested two “areas of improvement in engineering education,”including and increased practice of teamwork and involving industry in order to give studentspreparation for “real-world engineering practice.” There is little doubt that this study impactedengineering programs to
, computer architecture, and peripheral hardware issues are discussed throughout thecourse so that the students gain a working knowledge of these topics. Hands-on learning isemphasized through simulation, hardware and software labs, and a final project. Also weemphasize the system-level design, high-level language, and connections between the Clanguage, assembly, and the underline hardware architecture. The outcomes of this course haveshown that this approach (1) inspires engineering physics students to be interested inmicrocontrollers, (2) provides students with a less compartmentalized view of manyhardware/software topics, and finally (3) underscores the importance of system-level design withjust enough understanding about individual components or
vented to the building exterior. Figure 1 shows the general layout of the testfixture hardware. Page 15.860.2 Gas Exhaust Cryo Valve Flow Thermocouple 3 and 4 Thermocouple 5 and 6 Pressure H2HSensor 2Scan Thermocouple 7 and 8 Flow Tube He H2
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology 5500 Wabash Ave, Terre Haute, Indiana, 47803 1. Abstract Engineering Physics (EP), at its core, is a multidisciplinary approach to solving problemsthat require insights from various traditional disciplines. The EP curriculum at Rose-HulmanInstitute of Technology strives to foster this multidisciplinary approach by incorporating studentprojects that require integrating concepts and principles from various fields into a meaningfulapproach toward a realistic solution. These projects, ideally involve a design / problemstatement, a fabrication step, and a testing or characterization stage. As an example of such anapproach, a new lab is proposed to provide students with an
concepts and/or were not engagedby the methods used in physics education.1-4 Since then much progress has been made in physics Page 24.1123.2education research. Efforts have led to new methods that reduce or remove lecture in favor ofactive learning methods,5,6 focus on learning conceptual knowledge7 and enhance theexperimental/laboratory component.8 Application of a standardized physics assessment test9 bynumerous physics educators has shown that these methods provide substantial gains over thetraditional lecture format. Details of these methods, their assessment, and the evolution ofphysics education research have been documented in several
, the percentage of students who reported anxietyabout studying physics dropped from 61% to 42%. However, an accurate assessment will bedone by comparing the rate of success among physics jam participants to nonparticipants at theend of their first semester physics course.1. Introduction:Several studies show correlations between good high school grades in mathematics, academicpreparation, and success in introductory physics courses in college.1,2 Although our societysupports the model of preparing students for some kind of education after high school, studentsare often not ready to take college level classes once they graduate from high school.3 Manystudies have found that college preparatory courses in high school are associated with
the Engineer of 2020, the first sentence in chapter one (p. 7) is:“Engineering is a profoundly creative process.”1 Later in the report, creativity is targeted as oneof a handful of essential qualities that are indispensable for engineers, growing in importancewith the complexity of the challenges of the 21st century (p.55). Creativity manifests itself inengineering innovations that arise from it, and few would disagree with the desirability ofcreativity and innovation in engineering graduates. Furthermore, a meta-analysis of 70 studies ina variety of disciplines unequivocally concluded that well-designed creativity training can beeffective.2
difficulties in learning materials science. Page 23.1169.1 c American Society for Engineering Education, 2013 The case for individualized-instruction: Preconception-Instruction-InteractionIntroductionThere has been much debate about the need for and the effectiveness of planning instruction arounddiffering learning styles (e.g., visual, auditory, kinesthetic). For example, when studied in controlledenvironments, it has been shown repeatedly that instruction aligned with learning styles does appreciablycorrelate with increased understanding 1
hiring of an experimental physicist was one outcome ofthese efforts. The addition of the experimental physics position has increased the number oftenure-line faculty in the department to 5 (1 full professor, 3 associate professors, and 1 assistantprofessor). We also have two full-time faculty members in term positions as well as a full-timedirector of our physics labs.One of the fundamental purposes for engaging in our original study was that we had been seeinga decline in our enrollments (e.g. we had just one physics major graduate in the 2001 – 2002academic year, three in the 2002 – 2003 academic year, and two in the 2003 - 2004 academicyear). As a result of the changes made in our program since 2007, we have seen a steady rise inour
Digital Design and taught up to 2001, till Dr. Terence Kelly (received his doctorate under supervision of Pro- fessor Prasad) took over. From spring 1998, Professor Prasad also developed and taught 16.517, MMIC Design and Fabrication course to meet the growing demand of regional semiconductor industries. He is the recipient of Zone I best paper award by American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) in 2008. He has been appointed as honorable member of IAAB of the MEGHE group of Institution and Shree Baba Ramdeo College of Engineering and Management (Nagpur) in India. He has also received the Best Teaching award for the New England Region, and the Best Campus award for the Zone 1 from ASEE dur- ing 2012. He is
inFigure 1. Figure 1. Two rigid bodies before and after collision.Note that for collision to occur between these two bodies, V1i > V2i condition must hold.Assuming this condition applies, these two rigid bodies undergo an elastic collision at time 0when the velocities of the two bodies abruptly change from V1i and V2i to V1f and V2f, respectivelywhere V1f and V2f represent the constant final velocities of the two bodies after collision also asshown in Figure 1. Based on this, the velocities of the two rigid bodies can each be representedin terms of Heaviside unit-step function u(t) as follows: i f i (1a
resistant medium is quiescent. Any phenomena possibly depending upon the rotational dynamics or material extent of theprojectile (e.g., gyroscopic, Bernoulli, or buoyancy effects) are neglected. A uniform gravitational field is omnipresent, characterized by the constant g . A power-law relation governs the drag force, characterized by the constants k and n .Under these conditions, the vector-valued equation of motion for the projectile is given by dv m Fd Fg (1) dtwhere Fd k v n 1 v , Fg m g j
long working hours, andubiquitous distractions. However, even the students from Harvard also have trouble learning thiscourse.1 Thus we need to think about what instructors can do in improving the learningexperience of the students.As pointed out by Randall Knight,2 many instructors consider the students as younger versions ofthemselves. Therefore, they just teach from the way they learned this subject in the past.However, we have to admit that we are the anomalies and not the norm, and our students oftenhave challenges we may not have experienced. Fortunately, in the past half century, manyinstructors have developed various techniques in teaching this course more effectively.It is interesting to find that atavism happens also in the
operational procedure and base the assessment on an explanation of what onewould expect to happen if the experiment were performed or why the apparatus acts the way itdoes. For simplicity we only show 5 learning outcomes that are operationally based and brieflydiscuss the assessment of the first two. Many of the assessments used in this work are taken oradapted from Ref 1. The student will: (a) develop operational definitions of electrical charge; (b) explain the evidence for the existence of only two types of charge; (c) determine if a material is a conductor, a dielectric, or a photoconductor; (d) apply Coulomb’s law to systems of charged objects; (e) identify charge transfer mechanisms;...Examples of the
often taken by other science majors as part of thePhysics minor. The course has been redeveloped over the past six years with the following goals: 1. To ease the transition between lower-level and upper-level physics courses as the course material becomes more abstract and the mathematics more sophisticated. 2. To modernize the course by discussing the physics behind contemporary applications such as LASERs, quantum dots and other nano-scale systems, diodes, and superconductors. Page 26.98.2 3. To introduce students to computational physics and the interplay between theory, computation and experiment. Validation
electronic equipment, energy efficient buildings, and other industrial applications. Page 26.21.1 c American Society for Engineering Education, 2015 A Compact Device for Inductive Instruction in General PhysicsResearch from the past three decades has found that an interactive engagement approach to teaching the scienceswhich involves physical interaction with systems helps students build effective mental models. Our team ofengineering students has developed a novel tabletop teaching device called the Touchstone Model 1 (TM1) designedto help incoming students solidify and retain knowledge of first
students’perception of the relevance of physics and mathematics to their professional career, which is, inthis case, engineering. In this study 232 students taking first and second year physics and mathcourses at a large private university in Chile participated. We used a Likert-scale instrument inwhich students chose from a “Totally agree” to “Totally disagree” scale of statements related torelevance of science and mathematics for future career and study. The results of this studydiscuss four aspects: 1) the students’ perceptions of the relevance of physics and mathematics ofscholar engineering and professional engineering practices, 2) the comparison of students’perceptions of the relevance of physics to that of mathematics, 3) gender differences on
:1. The construction of the crane could be made with any type of material.2. It needed to use two 1.5 V batteries as the energy source.3. The crane had to lift metal clips (N°. 03) using only magnetic attraction, and any form ofmechanical lift was prohibited .4. The crane should not be higher than 1 m.5. The failure of the crane (the electromagnet does not attract any clips) resulted in a zeroscore for the team.An example of the conceptual developed project analysis is presented in Appendix B.The Problem Based Learning approach scripts were applied all year (4 in 1st semester and 3 in2nd semester). Each semester had evaluation tests. The Project Based Learning Prototype wasdeveloped during 2nd semester and presented near the end of semester
-semester physics and math courses in a largeprivate university in Mexico. A Likert-scale instrument was used, in which students choose froma completely agree-to-completely disagree scale of statements related to the relevance of physicsand mathematics to both the applicability in upper division engineering courses and the students’future career. The results of this new study shed light on four aspects: 1) students’ perceptions ofthe relevance of physics and mathematics of scholar engineering and professional engineeringpractices, 2) the comparison of students’ perceptions of the relevance of physics to that ofmathematics, 3) semester and gender differences in those perceptions, and 4) the comparison ofstudents’ perception of the relevance of
the state of the particle at the given potential and kineticenergy. It is not a simple algebraic equation. It is a linear partial differential equation thatstudents know how to solve, given that they have taken required Calculus courses.Time – Independent Equation4:Recall from Last year paper1 that Time – Independent Schrodinger equation is obtained directlyfrom the applying De Broglie principle to a wave equation:From the very basic classical mechanics, General Physics I Class students already know theWork – Kinetic Energy Theory: 𝑊 = ∆𝑘 = −∆𝑈 (1)and at the same time for all conservative Forces we have: 𝜕𝑢
understanding of fundamental scientific principles and lack of any formalinstruction in the science of quantum systems is what was intended for the “ScientificFoundations of Engineering” course in the Gordon Engineering Leadership Program atNortheastern University to address. But before going to Quantum Physics, we start with a quickreview of classical mechanics.Based on his more than 25 years of experience with K-12 science teacher professionaldevelopment and his knowledge of how to teach through preconceptions, the author decided togive the 1992 version of the FCI1 to the 34 students in his class of graduate engineering studentsin order to accomplish three goals: 1. Assess student prior knowledge by probing the level of understanding of these
specialized responsibilities for the purpose of launching their rockets, collecting data to be processed, and writing a report. Metric units were used.Introduction and Educational GoalsModel rocketry is at once miniature astronautics, technological recreation, and an educational tool.A model rocket is a combined miniature version of a real launch vehicle. A model rocket is a veryconvenient metaphor to illustrate many important engineering concepts and principles in a fun andexciting way. Once a model rocket leaves the launcher, it is a free body in air. Model rocketshave been used as student projects for decades. Other similar publications [1, 2, 10, 11, 17, 20,and 21] report engineering projects in the same general area, but this project is unique
Engineeringtwo STEM college Educationgraduates is hired into aSTEM job each year.For engineeringgraduates thepercentage of engineersgoing into engineeringjobs is high (for our Figure 1. National College and University BS DegreesABET graduates it isabout 95%). However, some students pursue and are employed in non-STEM jobs aftergraduation where they receive higher salaries as a result of the high quality engineering andbusiness expertise. There is a strong national trend to increase the number of Science,Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) majors since these fields have a direct bearing onthe U.S. economic engine and world leadership12. There is
which would aid K12 teachers in effectively incorporating engineering into curricula in an integrated manner. Introduction The relatively new science standards outlined in the National Research Council’s “Framework 1for K12 Science Education” and the “Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By 2States” document three dimensions of all standards (1) a limited number of disciplinary core ideas (2) scientific and engineering practices for examining these ideas, and (3) crosscutting concepts. These are set within a context of an ongoing developmental process and integration or coupling of core ideas and scientific practices to develop performance expectations. The emphasis on practices help to
. These projects will be transformative for the students and expose them to HPC “at scale.” The projects require the use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) on an HPC system; intentionally exposing students to a new way of doing things. The issues that students must confront include: 1) complex geometric modeling that result in very large file sizes, 2) meshing geometries that are large or require many nodes, 3) transitioning files generated on a desktop computer to a HPC environment, 4) understanding navigation and use of an HPC system, 5) understanding the use of parallelism in a distributed computing environment, 6) quantifying results, and 7) visualizing results. The goal of this work is to impact the student’s long term ability to deal
theirsubsequent engineering courses and careers? Faculty often mention “problem solving skills” and“conceptual understanding”; but decades of physics and engineering education research havebarely addressed this question empirically.1-3Some engineering educators argue that traditional close-ended, well-structured and well-definedproblem-solving of the type demanded by end-of-chapter problems in physics textbooks isimportant to emphasize, because it develops skills that students can build on and apply in laterengineering classes. Others argue that mathematical sense-making—translating and seekingcoherence between mathematical formalism and physical reasoning (often intuitive), usingmathematics flexibly as part of sense-making about the physical world—is
instructional video related to their tinkering experience.MethodsParticipantsThe participants were sixth-graders (N=76) from a diverse urban public middle school (30%Black, 29% Asian, 21% Hispanic, 12% White; 10% English Language Learners). The teacherssigned up for a field trip and agreed to participate in a follow-up lesson in their classroom.DesignThe study involved two phases. In Phase 1, students went on a field trip to the tinkering space ofa local museum, where they participated in one of two activities, Marble Machines (N=46) orWind Tubes (N=30). Due to administrative constraints, students were not randomly assigned totinkering activity, but teachers were instructed to assign students such that the groups werebalanced on class performance and
. She is the CEO of MindFuel (Science Al- berta Foundation), a registered charity and non-profit, which develops award winning STEM resources for K-12. c American Society for Engineering Education, 2016 An Evaluation of a Digital Learning Management System in High School Physics Classrooms 1 Meera Singh, 1Qiao Sun, and 2Cassy Weber meera.singh@ucalgary.ca; qsun@ucalgary.ca; CWeber@MindFuel.ca 1 Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, The University of Calgary, 40 Research Place N.W., Calgary AB, T2L 1Y6. 2 CEO, MindFuel, Suite