Conference Session

Liberal Education Division Poster Session

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Joanne Lax, Purdue University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

messaging, instant messaging, and email, people arecommunicating with more frequency, speed, and ease than ever before. However, some of thesame characteristics that make electronic communication so appealing to so many young peoplemay be leading to some nonstandard writing in educational and professional contexts.Interestingly enough, a review of the literature reveals few educational efforts to systematicallyteach the correct use of electronic communication. Thus, this paper discusses ways to teachengineering students how to communicate effectively and politely in their email interaction withprofessors, potential employers, peers, and others. An interactive class session has beendeveloped for the discussion and practice of some of the conventions

Conference Session

Communication and Collaboration

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Julie Sharp, Vanderbilt University; Marilyn Dyrud, Oregon Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

communication course for engineering majors at Vanderbilt University School ofEngineering uses student peer reviews to encourage revision of written communication. Using achecklist to rate required components and to write comments, students offer constructivefeedback so that writers can revise the assignment before submitting it for grading. Students’written analyses of each other’s papers can be used in large or small classes to improve writing.This portion of the paper describes effective procedures for including student peer review ofwriting assignments in the classroom, provides examples of useful checklists for rating students’written work, discusses possible issues to avoid, and presents students’ assessment of theprocess.The civil engineering

Conference Session

Writing and Communication II: Practical Perspectives on Teaching and Assessment

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Kathleen Jernquist, U.S. Coast Guard Academy; David Godfrey, U.S. Coast Guard Academy; Todd Taylor, U.S. Coast Guard Academy

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

) distill key terms that most professional writersuse to discuss and guide the processes and products of communication for student writers andthemselves. Practice in understanding and applying the terms in various contexts in first-yearcomposition – class discussion, instructor and peer response, consultations with the center’stutors and self-assessment – allows writers to develop a solid foundation with the terms.3 Aswriters progress into their major courses, they appreciate that all writing appeals to an audienceand has a purpose, and these concepts can be adapted to their engineering writing.The charts organize the terms based on the writing and learning processes:3 from larger conceptsof audience, purpose and topic; to formal and structural

Conference Session

Writing Is Fundamental

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

David Beams, University of Texas, Tyler; Luke Niiler, University of Alabama

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

beginning of the senior year. This attrition had multiplecauses, e.g., changing majors, leaving school, or declining to continue participation. This smallsample would provide little assurance that their attitudes and perceptions about writing wererepresentative of the cohort. We believed that the only way to obtain any data representative ofthe peers of our remaining cohort was to invite the participation other seniors who had notpreviously taken part in EWI. In any case, written materials that were solely the work of theremaining cohort were not available to us as the senior design project reports (consisting of amid-year report and a final report) were the work of project teams.Results of Likert scale attitude surveyFive Likert-scale survey

Conference Session

Writing and Communication II

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Luke Niiler; David Beams, University of Texas-Tyler

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

pronounced awareness of how writing works within a given discipline—not only as amethod of transmission, but a means of learning. There is some evidence, in effect, that thesophomores see in their writing a greater purpose than simply completing an assignment for agrade. The words “perceive,” “understand,” and “comprehend” crop up repeatedly: thesestudents are writing to learn, writing their way into the discipline of Engineering. The authorssuggest that this point marks the beginning of what may be “normal discourse” for these Page 11.694.8students, that is, “a conversation within a community of knowledgeable peers.” 18 Of course,there are those

Conference Session

Writing and Communication I: Innovative Models for Curriculum and Assessment

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Marie Paretti, Virginia Tech; Lisa McNair, Virginia Tech; Diana George, Virginia Tech; kelly belanger, Virginia Tech; Lisa Norris, Virginia Tech

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

AC 2007-2247: OUTCOMES ASSESSMENT AS A SITE OF INTEGRATION: ABETMEETS THE COUNCIL OF WRITING PROGRAM ADMINISTRATORSMarie Paretti, Virginia Tech Marie Paretti is an Assistant Professor of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech, where she co-directs the Virginia Tech Engineering Communications Center (VTECC).Lisa McNair, Virginia Tech Lisa McNair is an Assistant Professor of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech, where she co-directs the Virginia Tech Engineering Communications Center (VTECC).Diana George, Virginia Tech Diana George is a Professor of English at Virginia Tech, where she directs the First-Year Writing Program.kelly belanger, Virginia Tech Kelly Belanger is an Associate

Conference Session

Writing and Communication I: Innovative Models for Curriculum and Assessment

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

April Kedrowicz, University of Utah

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

concepts. In addition,students’ formal reports are peer reviewed and student teams are required to meet with thewriting instructor to receive detailed feedback on the team formal report. Finally, students reviewtheir videotaped presentations from the Fall semester and are required to meet for a rehearsalsession with the oral communication instructor prior to delivering their oral proposal in class.In summary, chemical engineering students receive intensive communication instruction duringtheir two semester senior projects lab sequence. They write a variety of documents, bothindividually and as a team, and practice their informative and persuasive speaking bothindividually and as a team. It is hoped that this intensive instruction will prepare

Conference Session

Innovative Courses/Pedagogies in Liberal Education I

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Kyle Simmons, University of Utah; Susan Sample, University of Utah; April Kedrowicz, University of Utah

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

we consider the SPIRAL curriculum that hasbeen implemented. ME 1000 is the first of a four-semester sequence where students will beworking in groups and applying teamwork skills to their engineering, oral communication, andwriting assignments. The fact that students interpreted the instruction as meaningfully relevantand also noticed an improvement in proficiency lends itself nicely to the next step in the SPIRALsequence. We are hopeful that students’ perceptions of writing and speaking instruction willimprove in future semesters, due to their appreciation for effective teamwork to both engineeringand communication practices.Peer EvaluationsA review of students’ peer evaluation memos provides additional insight into their experienceswith

Conference Session

Critical Thinking and Creative Arts

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Helen Donis-Keller, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

by engaging in peer criticalcommentary (AHS Foundation Course Commonalities, 2007). My course fulfills the AHScommonality goals but differs in other respects to the AHS foundation courses at Olin and itdiffers considerably with respect to art courses taught at other colleges and universities. In theSeeing and Hearing course students improve their communication skills and develop a personalvision making use of contemporary digital media tools as vehicles for expression. One of theunusual aspects of the course as compared to art courses in other schools is that photography,video, audio and writing are offered in a single course, whereas other schools normally offer asingle medium per course, and they are not structured with engineering

Conference Session

Liberal Education and Leadership

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Julia Williams, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology; Richard House, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology; Anneliese Watt, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

AC 2009-1610: COMMUNICATION PEDAGOGY IN THE ENGINEERINGCLASSROOM: A REPORT ON FACULTY PRACTICES AND PERCEPTIONSJulia Williams, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Julia M. Williams is Executive Director of the Office of Institutional Research, Planning and Assessment & Professor of English at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, Indiana. Her articles on writing assessment, electronic portfolios, ABET, and tablet PCs have appeared in the Technical Communication Quarterly, Technical Communication: Journal of the Society for Technical Communication, The International Journal of Engineering Education, Journal of Engineering Education, and The Impact of Tablet PCs and Pen

Conference Session

Engineering Ethics: An Interdisciplinary Endeavor

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Brocato, Mississippi State University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

AC 2009-1565: TWO WAYS OF USING CASE STUDIES TO TEACH ETHICSJohn Brocato, Mississippi State University John Brocato serves as Coordinator and Instructor in the Shackouls Technical Communication Program in the James Worth Bagley College of Engineering at Mississippi State University. He designed and helps teach GE 3513 Technical Writing and works closely with engineering departments on enhancing the technical communication content in their curricula. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from MSU and previously taught in the English Department there. He is a member of ASEE and serves as its Campus Representative for MSU

Conference Session

Communication and Collaboration

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Michael Alley, Pennsylvania State University; Are Magnus Bruaset, Simula Research Laboratory; Melissa Marshall, Pennsylvania State University; Marianne M. Sundet, Simula Research Laboratory; Sarah Zappe, Pennsylvania State University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

in Norway has collaborated with faculty fromPennsylvania State University to pilot a national workshop (given in English) forNorwegian Ph.D. students on communicating scientific research. Funded primarily byNorwegian industries, the 3-day workshop was divided into three segments: (1) makingresearch presentations to a technical audience, (2) writing research papers anddissertations to technical audiences, and (3) making research presentations to generalaudiences. The first two segments, on making research presentations and writing researchdocuments to technical audiences, were based on a workshop series that was developed atnational laboratories in the U.S., taught to more than 1000 professionals and graduatestudents, and formally

Conference Session

Communication and Collaboration

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Sally Blomstrom, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University; Hak Tam, University of California, Santa Barbara

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

accountability.The overall assessment plan included direct and indirect measures gathered as formative andsummative assessments using quantitative and qualitative assessments [3]. The portion of theplan presented in this paper is a quantitative, indirect assessment used as a pretest and posttest.We recognized the importance of alignment [4] and examined the university’s mission, thegeneral education goals, and the student learning outcomes for the course. The instrument usedin this study was developed to align with the course outcomes and the course content. Evaluationforms used by the instructor, the student for her/his own reflection, peers, and audience memberswere developed to reflect the same criteria. The instrument reported on in this paper

Conference Session

Liberal Education Division Poster Session

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Robert Meyer, Clarkson University; Dick Pratt, Clarkson University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

̇ Increased understanding of and insight building effective relationships with peers, being a into personal behavior collaborative team member, and identifying and ̇ Appreciation of the need for self- managing team conflict. motivated, life-long learning ̇ Increased social awareness and 2. Students should identify moral and ethical dilemmas interpersonal competence, including an and problems in situations typically encountered within appreciation for the value of the student’s profession, and provide an analysis of these experiencing diversity from different ethical perspectives. ̇ Understanding of and recognition of the

Conference Session

Learning to Communicate with Engineers and Non-Engineers

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Leslie Potter, Iowa State University; John Jackman, Iowa State University; K. Jo Min, Iowa State University; Matthew Search, Iowa State University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

realized Creation Delivery Figure 1. The Engineering Information Exchange ProcessThis process includes five critical steps. They are 1. Analysis; 2. Formulation; 3. Creation; 4. Page 13.71.3Delivery; and 5. Assessment.19 A survey of numerous course descriptions and papers fromacross the U.S. revealed that many courses include assessment of students by their instructors,peers, industrial partners, etc.10, 17, 20, 21, 22 Tranquillo and Cavanaugh discuss the usefulness ofrevision in writing and self-reflection on presentations.9 Likewise, Gunn describes courses thatrequire multiple drafts of

Conference Session

Philosophy of Engineering Education: Epistemology and Ethics

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mark Valenzuela, University of Evansville; James Allen, University of Evansville; Brian Swenty, University of Evansville

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

instrument was adapted from “AssessingGeneral Education: A Questionnaire to Initiate Campus Conversation” by Jack Meacham anddistributed by the American Association of Colleges and Universities. The last question in thesurvey asked faculty to rank the quality of the general education program on a scale from 1 to 5,where 1 was associated with the statement, “Our general education program satisfies the minimalaccreditation requirements.” The score of 5 was associated with the statement, “Our generaleducation program surpasses in quality those of our peer institutions.” With 40 % of the facultyresponding (and 61% of the respondents from the college of arts and sciences), the meanresponse to this question of quality was 2.9, the median was 3.0 and the

Conference Session

Integrating H&SS in Engineering I

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Donna Riley, Smith College; Lionel Claris, Smith College

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

youthink of when you think of the word knowledge?” Class discussion began with eliciting studentconcept associations with power, and student concept associations with knowledge. The resultsare shown in Table 1. Some students took notes on the brainstorming exercise in class and wrotedown some of their peers’ associations, driving up the counts for some concepts; it is interestingto note that no two forms were alike, because students chose to write down some terms and notothers. Perhaps this is a reflection on note-taking styles, or perhaps some students wrote downterms that particularly resonated with them. When asked to relate the two concepts, some relatedBacon’s statement that “Knowledge is Power” to their choice to pursue an engineering

Conference Session

Communication - Needs and Methods

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Warren Waggenspack, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; Sarah Liggett, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; Warren Hull, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; David Bowles, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; Stephen Sears, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; Daniel Thomas, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; Paige Davis, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

-EPSCoR Center for Bio-Modular Multi-Scale Systems (CBM2) and is responsible for the development and implementation of several of the centers K-12 and public outreach programs.Sarah Liggett, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge Sarah Liggett is a Professor of English at Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge. She is the Director of the campus-wide Communication across the Curriculum Program and is also the Director of the LSU Writing Center. She has published extensively on the histories, theories, programs, practices of technical and scientific writing. Dr. Liggett holds B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from Purdue University.Warren Hull, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge

Conference Session

Critical Thinking and Creative Arts

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Bill Genereux, Kansas State University, Salina; Elena Mangione-Lora, University of Notre Dame

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

AC 2009-2124: ENHANCING STUDENT LEARNING WITH VIDEO PROJECTSBill Genereux, Kansas State University, SalinaElena Mangione-Lora, University of Notre Dame Page 14.572.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2009 Enhancing Student Learning with Video ProjectsAbstractThis paper will explore the use of digital video as a teaching tool in college courses. Two verydifferent courses of potential interest to engineering educators are cited as examples. The first isa foreign language course offered at the University of Notre Dame which uses video technologyto encourage students to write, produce, and star in original Spanish language "telenovelas" orday-time dramas

Conference Session

Innovative Courses/Pedagogies in Liberal Education I

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Ari Epstein, MIT; Joellen Easton, American Public Media; Rekha Murthy, Public Radio Exchange; Emily Davidson, MIT; Jennifer de Bruijn, MIT; Tracey Hayse, MIT; Elise Hens, MIT; Margaret Lloyd

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

very fewof them will have spent much time listening to audio-only pieces, and almost certainly none ofthem will have done any critical analysis of such pieces.) The class thus initially proceeds downtwo tracks: hands-on “laboratory” sessions in which students use audio gear and software togather, edit and structure sound; and intensive group listening sessions, in which the class as awhole listens to a wide variety of audio pieces, analyzing them closely in order to understandwhat makes them effective (or not). Individual writing assignments complement this work,giving students the opportunity to focus on particular aspects of radio production andstorytelling.At the beginning of the semester students need first to develop their ability to

Conference Session

Beyond Individual Ethics: Engineering in Context

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Donna Riley, Smith College

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

science.Background on science, technology and society continues with Warren’s11 “fruit bowl” approachto ecofeminist ethics, discussing how we discern appropriate ethics approaches for problems weface, and with Johnson and Wetmore’s3 plea to include considerations of science and technologystudies in engineering ethics. McCutchen’s exposé of conflicts of interest in peer review12 andGeiger’s history of military backing of science and engineering research at universities13completes the background unit.The first topical unit revolves around the theme of “technology and control,” drawing onexamples from military14-16, information17-20, reproductive21-23, and environmental24,25technologies. The potential for rich discussion abounds here, as students delve into

Conference Session

Multidisciplinary and Liberal Education

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Robert Martello, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering; Jonathan Stolk, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

schoolshave implemented integrative courses or course blocks that build important connections amongtechnical and non-technical topics and that develop an understanding of the significance ofcontext on technology,30,31,32,33 but the effects of the content integration are not entirely clear.Some literature reports that students in integrated courses often fail to make connectionsbetween technical and liberal arts topics,34 while other reports cite an increased student interestin broader contexts, an enhanced awareness of humanistic considerations in engineering, andimproved skill development in writing and critical thinking.35,36,37 Despite promising reportsfrom those involved in delivering and assessing integrated technical curricula, carefulmeasures

Conference Session

Tree-huggers, Diggers, and Queers--Oh my!

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Erin Cech, University of California, San Diego; Tom Waidzunas, University of California, San Diego

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

racial/ethnic minority students inengineering education, the experiences of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) identifying studentsremain unstudied. This paper breaks this silence with a study of the ways LGB students at amajor research university in the Western US both experience and navigate the climate of theirengineering college. We find that, because of pervasive anti-gay sentiments and dualisticthinking that often conflates homosexuality with technical incompetence, these students do nothave access to the same opportunities of success as their heterosexual peers. Nevertheless,through coping strategies which require immense amounts of additional effort, LGB studentsbravely navigate this climate with tactics that include “passing” as

Conference Session

Questions of Identity

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

David Ollis, North Carolina State University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

and biomechanics(bicycle). My initial lab was utilized as a first year engineering course, conceived tointroduce new students to the devices which engineers have created, and thus to defineengineering early as an activity dominated by device design, fabrication, and repair,rather than by math , chemistry, and physics5. Having now incorporated devices from a range of engineering disciplines, a nextbroadening arose through collaboration with the English department to create a first yearcourse in reading and writing about technology, engineers and scientists, and history.The joint offering of device lab with the English instructor’s writing course allowed a yet

Conference Session

Liberal Education and Leadership

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

James Hanson, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology; Julia Williams, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

of Technology Julia M. Williams is Executive Director of the Office of Institutional Research, Planning and Assessment & Professor of English at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, Indiana. Her articles on writing assessment, electronic portfolios, ABET, and tablet PCs have appeared in the Technical Communication Quarterly, Technical Communication: Journal of the Society for Technical Communication, The International Journal of Engineering Education, Journal of Engineering Education, and The Impact of Tablet PCs and Pen-based Technology on Education. She is the recipient of the 2007 HP Technology for Teaching Award and the 2008 Rose-Hulman Board of

Conference Session

Critical Thinking and Creative Arts

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Christy Moore, University of Texas, Austin; D'Arcy Randall, University of Texas, Austin; Hillary Hart, University of Texas, Austin

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

mother’s gravesurrounded by his “true peers,” he weeps (see Fig. 3). Many students were moved by this sceneof a “grown man crying.” For one student, the scene “brought the documentary into [the realmof] more personal feelings instead of just being a movie”. Another wrote that the scene “wentagainst the filmmaker’s point by showing [that Bradley] was not some emotionless monster, andthat he is a human with cares and worries.” Page 14.1180.6 Figure 3. Gary Bradley reflects on the impact of his bankruptcy.Students were also stirred by scenes featuring Curtis Peterson (shown in Fig. 4.) whoselivelihood as a farmer is threatened by

Conference Session

Engineering for Social Justice

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Charles Schreier, University of Dayton; Carl Eger, University of Dayton; Margaret Pinnell, University of Dayton

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

individually with hostfamilies provides the students with the opportunity to become fully immersed in the culture oftheir placement. These experiences expose the students to alternative, non-traditionaltechnologies that are based on fundamental science and engineering principles while enactingtangible and immediate impacts on improving the lives of those who use them. Such exposureallows students to recognize the far-reaching effects, positive and negative, of engineering andtechnology and thus the responsibilities of being an engineer in a global society. Upon return,students are required to write a formal technical report describing the work that they did, givetwo presentations to the campus community or other appropriate audience and write a

Conference Session

Learning to Communicate with Engineers and Non-Engineers

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mieke Schuurman, Pennsylvania State University; Michael Alley, Pennsylvania State University; Melissa Marshall, Pennsylvania State University; Christopher Johnstone, Pennsylvania State University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

(for the males, the admission of nervousness generally occurred later in theessay). Also, the degree of nervousness for the female students was high. For instance, in thesecond sentence of her essay, one female student wrote about how she felt at the beginning of thecourse: “I was terrified of public speaking and I was nervous to have to take an entire class onthat.” Another wrote the following: “In September, I was terrified of giving speeches in front ofmy peers. I so badly wanted to drop this class that I cried one night.” Interestingly, the femalestudents on average gave presentations that were at least as strong as, if not stronger, than themale students. In addition, the source of nervousness did not simply arise because the

Conference Session

Liberal Education for 21st Century Engineering

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Heywood, Trinity College Dublin

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

in highperformance workplaces need. These were (1) Basic skills in reading writing, arithmeticand mathematics, speaking and listening. (2) Thinking skills – the ability to learn, toreason, to think creatively, to make decisions, and to solve problems. (3) Personalqualities - individual responsibility, self-esteem and self-management, sociability andintegrity. The committee argued that each subject of the school curriculum couldcontribute to the development of these competencies and presented matrices todemonstrate their point at any level K - 12. The problem with that approach is that thesubjects of the curriculum may lose their integrity. If they don’t the students may not beat a sufficient level of development (in Piagetian/Perry terms) to

Conference Session

Engineering for Social Justice

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Steven VanderLeest, Calvin College

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

fabricate tools, then we cannot afford to leave thisimportant human activity to a select group. Music is also an important element of our humanidentity, as Robert Fulghum noted: "Never forget that music is too important to be left entirelyin the hands of professionals." As it is for music, so it is for technology. To be fully human is toindulge the creative spirit, not only in art such as music, but also in engineering and design.Abraham Maslow, in describing his hierarchy of human needs, notes that human self-actualization requires that one act out one’s identity: "A musician must make music, an artistmust paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be,he must be."7To illustrate use norms, I will