Conference Session

Communication and Engineering Careers: Motivating Our Students

Collection

2013 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Julie E. Sharp, Vanderbilt University; Christopher J Rowe, Vanderbilt University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education/Engineering & Society

particular majors in their career quest.12An exploration of 14 universities’ online course catalogs in Vanderbilt’s peer and aspirationalgroups indicates that career development courses currently offered at institutions vary almost asmuch as the institutions themselves. The surprisingly small handful of institutions who offersuch courses either offer them through a centralized career center or through the engineeringschool within a college or university. The speculation over the type of institution that may offercourse-based resources for students’ career development is discussion for another paper. Five ofthe 14 universities sampled offer career development courses with variable credit hours from

Conference Session

Rethinking Engineering Writing

Collection

2013 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Steven R Walk, Old Dominion University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education/Engineering & Society

assignments. The information was provided in the course syllabus also.To be effective, the assignments required some weight (providing some external motivationto improve) but not too much weight (limiting internal grade anxiety or evaluationapprehension in the creative writing process). The average low stakes writing score wasweighed only 10% of the course grade, as shown in Table 1. Students reported that 10% wasa fair and preferred weight (see student survey responses below).Table 1. Course Grade Components and Weights Component Weight (%) Laboratory Preparation or Data Gathering Role 30 Formal and Informal Lab Reports 50

Conference Session

A Challenge to Engineering Educators

Collection

2013 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Harold R Underwood, Messiah College

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education/Engineering & Society

as an important measure of a student’s projectwork, other significant components of the student’s activity will likely be included in theoverall course grade to be complete, as laid out in the syllabus for a project course. Atour institution, for the Engineering Project sequence, besides the Portfolio componentworth 20%, we include Progress against the semester plan (20%), Reporting andDocumentation (40%), On Time completion of assigned tasks (15%), Logbook (5%) andan Adjustment Factor (+/-5%). The Progress against the semester plan component isbased on measurable goals set by the project team with approval by the faculty advisornear the beginning, and evaluated by the team at the end of the semester, as reported in a

Conference Session

Integrating Engineering & Liberal Education

Collection

2013 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Pradeep Kashinath Waychal, College of Engineering Pune; Anil Dattatraya Sahasrabudhe, College of Engineering, Pune

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education/Engineering & Society

and civil.Liberal Learning at Our CollegeLiterature refers to liberal learning, liberal education, and general education as courses in non-professional areasthat are required to develop complete professionals. The courses, it is assumed, are taught like any other coursesand therefore do not really help build life-long learning skills. We have attempted a different approach. Wehave defined Liberal Learning as ―self-learning in self-chosen liberal areas with self-defined scope‖. Unlike astandard course, the course does not have a defined syllabus, identified text or reference books, classroomlectures, and standard examinations. Students define their own syllabus, hunt or harvest for learning resources

Conference Session

Restructuring/Rethinking STEM

Collection

2013 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Joe Tranquillo, Bucknell University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education/Engineering & Society

course materialcoming alive in an episode of South Park, the course was having the intended impact.Team TeachingTeam Teaching can be a powerful way to create a T-shaped course, but it is not for thefaint of heart. Unlike single-instructor courses, decisions require discussion: studentrecruitment, course content and structure, syllabus and website, readings andassignments, grades, office hours, and in-class work. How should the workload bedistributed? How will all of the small decisions (e.g. extensions, in-class surprises) bemade? There are many models, ranging from everyone doing everything to completedivide and conquer. No matter the model, team-taught courses are more work.The weight of these decisions is amplified when two cultures collide

Conference Session

A Challenge to Engineering Educators

Collection

2013 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Lisa DuPree McNair, Virginia Tech; Wende Garrison, Virginia Tech

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education/Engineering & Society

practice. Projects supported by the National Science Foundation include interdisciplinary pedagogy for pervasive computing design; writing across the curriculum in Statics courses; as well as a National Science Foun- dation CAREER award to explore the use of e-portfolios for graduate students to promote professional identity and reflective practice. Her teaching emphasizes the roles of engineers as communicators and educators, the foundations and evolution of the engineering education discipline, assessment methods, and evaluating communication in engineering.Wende Garrison, Virginia Tech Wende Garrison got her bachelor’s and master’s from Portland State University in Film & Television and Rhetoric &