Conference Session

Liberal Education for 21st Century Engineering

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Heywood, Trinity College Dublin

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

AC 2010-1296: "BRIEF ENCOUNTER:" A REFLECTION ON WILLIAMSPROPOSALS FOR THE ENGINEERING CURRICULUMJohn Heywood, Trinity College Dublin Professorial Fellow Emeritius of Trinity COllege Dublin (Ireland. Formerly Professor of Education and Chair Department of Teacher Education.Has published over 50 papers on topics related to engineering and technological education and several books. His book "Engineering Education; Research and Development in Curriculum and Instruction" received the best reseach publication award of division i (professional) of the American Educational Research Association in 2005. previously he has been awarded a premium of the Education, Science and Technology division of the

Conference Session

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

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Dean Nieusma, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

AC 2009-1237: “SUSTAINABILITY” AS AN INTEGRATIVE LENS FORENGINEERING EDUCATION: INITIAL REFLECTIONS ON FOURAPPROACHES TAKEN AT RENSSELAERDean Nieusma, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Page 14.1386.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2009 “Sustainability” as an Integrative Lens for Engineering Education: Initial Reflections on Four Approaches Taken at RensselaerIntroductionOver the past decade, the concept of “sustainability” has gained increasing attention acrosssociety at large and within many educational institutions. As the problems associated withglobalized industrial production and the energy-intensive consumer economy worsen, newmodels for addressing

Conference Session

Approaches to Learning Outcomes Assessment in Liberal Education

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Lorraine Fleming, Howard University; Kami Carey, Howard University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

student with tools that will foster the development of global engineers.Students were required to not only prepare traditional designs and write reflections inessay format about the impact of their designs. The reflections provided rich data for thisstudy. The data gathered offers a glimpse of the characteristics of a global engineer andprovides an insight into the role that engineering educators can play in creating engineerswho are flexible, adaptable, resilient and ultimately lifelong learners. A proposedmethod that provides an opportunity to reflect on integration of liberal arts courses isoffered. This method can be utilized in the classroom to ensure that engineeringeducators are molding a global engineer

Conference Session

Blurring the Boundary between Content Knowledge and Professional Knowledge

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Verna Fitzsimmons, Kent State University - Kent; Stephane Booth, Kent State University - Kent

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

History and assessment of student learning outcomes in higher education. Page 13.841.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2008 Professional Education and General Education Join Forces?AbstractThe rapid pace at which technology is changing makes it imperative that students developthe skills that will enable them to be proactive and reflective rather than reactive. Thiswill require them as professionals and responsible citizens to integrate the contentknowledge that they have learned in their professional education with the abilities valuedin general education and by employers. These include critical thinking

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

grounded in one’s experience.An excerpt from Foucault’s Power/Knowledge discussing the “regime of truth” was used tostimulate critical thinking about the course content. In a reflective essay and class discussion,students considered the relationship between power and knowledge in thermodynamics andbeyond. Analyzing student responses to the Foucault reading and regular course reflectionsreveals a significant shift in their understanding of classroom pedagogy, an increase in criticalthinking about the course and its subject matter, and an emergence of independent ideas thatstudents pursued further in the course.IntroductionEngineering students continually confront the challenge of bridging the gap between theory andpractice, between curriculum

Conference Session

Liberal Education for 21st Century Engineering

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Nadia Kellam, University of Georgia; Joachim Walther, University of Georgia; Tracie Costantino, University of Georgia; Bonnie Cramond, University of Georgia

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

experiences (See Figure 2). This reflects current knowledge about how people learn,highlighting the importance of connecting academic knowledge to real-life experiences.17Figure 2: Holistic student development through the concurrent integration of the curriculum with Page 15.776.4prior and current life experiencesThe main objective of the Synthesis and Design Studio Series is for students to develop a deepunderstanding of larger systems in which engineering is situated. Throughout the four years,students will develop an understanding within themselves of the interrelationships betweenengineering, social sciences, and humanities, thus reaching a high

Conference Session

Beyond Individual Ethics: Engineering in Context

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Donna Riley, Smith College

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

of ethics problems. (f,h,j) • Lead insightful discussions on science, technology, and ethics topics. (f,g,h,j) • Conduct original research into a topic in science, technology, and ethics. (f,h,i,j) • Effectively communicate in oral and written forms the findings of original research on science, technology and ethics. (g) • Explain the complex relationships among science, technology, and ethics in current social contexts, and how these contexts inform and influence social choices about science, technology, and ethics. (f,h,j) • Act creatively and reflectively in the world to address science, technology, and ethics. (f,i) • Assess and direct your own learning, and reflect on that process. (i)These map, as noted above

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

Normative Commitments and Public Engagement in Engineering

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

George Catalano, State University of New York, Binghamton; Caroline Baillie, Western Australia; Donna Riley, Smith College; Dean Nieusma, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Chris Byrne, Cascadia Community College; Margaret Bailey, Rochester Institute of Technology; Katy Haralampides, University of New Brunswick

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

income inequality (i.e. one person has all the income, whileeveryone else has zero income).Students must use Mathematica and for the data set provided, develop a plot with population asthe x-axis variable and wealth as the y-axis variable. They then calculate the coefficient andthrough research using the internet, find the value of the most recent Gini coefficient for the U.S.as well as at least 10 additional countries insuring several of the countries are in the West,several in the East and several in South America. After completing the technical part of themodule, students are asked to consider if the existence of poverty in the U.S. getting better or isit becoming worse. They are asked to reflect upon their findings and to consider what if

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

reflectionpaper that describe how the experience affected them personally.Since its inception in 2001, the ETHOS program has sent over 30 students to five countries totake part in summer service-learning internships. Information obtained from the reflection andtechnical papers and program evaluation sheets indicate that students who have participated inthe international service-learning internships have gained perspectives on the influence ofengineering and technology in the global world. Further, these experiences have providedgrowth in technical knowledge and problem solving, and in language development and culturalawareness.Alumni Assessment StrategyAlthough the ETHOS service-learning internship program has a fairly well established methodfor

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

Trustees Outstanding Scholar Award. Page 14.458.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2009 Developing Students’ Abilities in Technical Leadership: The Rose-Hulman Leadership AcademyIntroductionThe importance of leadership skills for engineers is reflected in the addition of “leadership” tothe institutional student learning outcomes of our college. In recognition of that importance, theRose-Hulman Leadership Academy was created to help develop leadership confidence instudents with untapped leadership potential. This paper provides an overview of the objectivesof the Leadership Academy, the curriculum

Conference Session

Normative Commitments and Public Engagement in Engineering

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Juan Lucena, Colorado School of Mines; Jen Schneider, Colorado School of Mines; Jon Leydens, Colorado School of Mines

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

Sustainable Community Development. Our project is acritical pedagogy, one aimed at enhancing students’ knowledge, skills and attitudes to reflect onthe historical and political location of engineering, question the authority and relevance ofengineering problem-solving and design methods, and “examine their education, includinglearning objectives, the course syllabus, and the textbook itself” (Riley, 2008, p. 113).Specifically, our project is aimed at engineering education as it relates to a diversity of theseefforts, which we call “Engineering to Help” (ETH). ETH initiatives often exist under namessuch as community service, humanitarian engineering, service learning, Engineers WithoutBorders (EWB), Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW) and

Conference Session

Approaches to Learning Outcomes Assessment in Liberal Education

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Zhiwei Guan, University of Washington; Jennifer Turns, University of Washington

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

promising strategy for promoting knowledge integration and professionaldevelopment. We define a course-specific professional portfolio as a portfolio in which astudent makes claims about his/her preparedness for professional practice and supportsthe claims through artifacts drawn from a single course. We believe that having studentscreate such portfolios represents a promising practice for helping students consolidatetheir knowledge and reflect on the connection of this knowledge to engineering practice.In our work, we have been studying the practice of course-specific portfolio construction.To this end, we conducted a study in winter of 2006 in which 35 junior and seniorengineering students in a mechanical engineering class (ME 355 Introduction

Conference Session

Learning to Communicate with Engineers and Non-Engineers

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Laura Wilson, University of CIncinnati; Teresa Cook, University of Cincinnati; Jo Ann Thompson, University of Cincinnati; James Everly, University of Cincinnati

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

develop an integrated program of mid-level writing instruction in the technical disciplines. A multi-faceted program emerged:collaboration among writing faculty and technical faculty; development of interdisciplinarywriting instruction in mid-level technical courses; the utilization of grading rubrics to enhancethe importance of writing and communication skills in technical courses; the formation of adiscourse community; and the creation of e-portfolios to enhance reflection and illuminateconnections among the students’ technical and Humanities courses.IntroductionThis paper describes how the College of Applied Science writing faculty joined forces withengineering technology faculty to research innovative practices in the teaching of writing in

Conference Session

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

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

George Catalano, State University of New York, Binghamton; Caroline Baillie, Queens University, Kingston

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

manner: (1) new paradigms for ethicaldecision-making are introduced; (2) a specific ethics case is introduced and examined; and(3) series of reflective questions for the ethics case from the perspective of each of the newparadigms are generated; and (4) final thoughts and commentary are offered. The firstapproach we shall examine is an outgrowth of the ethics of freedom. Page 14.542.2II. Engineering and FreedomA commonly held perspective is that Western culture is a body of knowledge derived fromreason with the foundation of reason serving as a springboard towards a vast accumulationof understanding related to reality or nature, including human

Conference Session

Questions of Identity

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

David Ollis, North Carolina State University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

few forty-somethings and aneasy majority of engineering elders. Why would an “old guard” be the dominant courseinventors for this topic, when new engineering courses are typically initiated by youngerfaculty ? Why would accomplished senior researchers and a former dean and departmentheads teach a course characteristically populated by undergraduates outside theirdepartments and college? And why did no consensus technology literacy emerge at thisworkshop, when undergraduate engineering courses are famous for their uniformitywithin the US, due largely to common utilization of a few widely accepted texts in eachdiscipline? Reflection on the individual presenters showed that their academic journeys werelogically similar in origin, but not

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

own teachingof communication to the intrinsic motivation of personal or departmental conviction. Manywould likely agree with a respondent who reported teaching communication “because it’s theright thing to do.” The stated reasons for this imperative vary, with some respondents citingcompetitive advantage for graduating job-seekers, while others report that they want toencourage reflection or critical thinking. One view is compatible with a distinction between“soft skills” and core engineering competencies; the other implies what one respondent termed a“symbiotic relationship” in which engineering and its communication practices are inextricablefrom one another.The account changes appreciably, though, when respondents describe motivations

Conference Session

Venturing Out: Service Learning, Study Abroad, and Criterion H

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Joe Tranquillo, Bucknell University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

different means by which students learnnew concepts. Although visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning are the most commonlylisted learning styles, little attention has been given to kinesthetic learning. This isespecially true in lecture-based courses at the college level where the format favorsverbal and visual learners. Here we make a tentative argument for the value of includingkinesthetic learning activities in lecture-based classes as a vehicle for teaching concepts.To begin, it is important to make clear how our working definition of kinesthetic learningmay be different from previous work. First, the term “active learning” already meanssomething to the education community and may include instructor demonstrations,brainstorming, reflections

Conference Session

Innovative Courses/Pedagogies in Liberal Education II

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

George Catalano, State University of New York, Binghamton

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

AC 2010-1947: MODELING NATURE: GREEN ENGINEERING FOR ASUSTAINABLE WORLDGeorge Catalano, State University of New York, Binghamton Page 15.881.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2010 Modeling Nature: Green Engineering for a Sustainable WorldAbstractA new course has been developed and offered which focuses upon sustainable engineering. Thekey elements of the course include introduction to the complex systems, systems engineeringmethods for complex systems, life cycle analysis, hard and soft system methodologies, failureanalysis using rich pictures and reflection upon the impacts engineering has upon both societyand the natural world through consideration of the

Conference Session

Venturing Out: Service Learning, Study Abroad, and Criterion H

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

David Ollis, North Carolina State University; Anthony Smith, CPE-LYON FRANCE

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

Page 13.1121.2Bell note that “Student writers often do better work when readings reflect their specialinterests”, and thus justify their assembly of The World of Science: An Anthology forWriters4 We similarly here explore our French experience in combining foreignlanguage, lecture, and engineering laboratory as a bridge between engineering and aforeign culture. The present CPE-Lyon combination of foreign language and laboratoryinstruction would appear to satisfy Ashby’s need to provide “culture through a man’sspecialty,”, to provide an example of Florman’s “bridges” between engineering and thehumanities, and to offer exercises consistent with the Liethhauser-Bell counsel that“student writers often do better when readings reflect their

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

make connections, reflect on and interpret what they are learning; build learningcommunities, collaborate and negotiate nuanced elements as they create the narrative; and refinetheir communication skills by learning through teaching. The student use of video is apowerfully interactive way to process, interpret and negotiate meaning within a group from theplanning stage through production and post-production. The nature of video requires students toattain deep understanding in order to clearly articulate their ideas to others. Video requiresstudents to function as team members who use artistic and technical tools of multimedia to createa successful project.Perceived BenefitsThe authors of this paper have used digital video production in their

Conference Session

Historical Perspectives for Engineering Education

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Amy Slaton, Drexel University; Mary Ebeling, Drexel University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

Pennsylvania, an area of very slowexpansion. They also help to distance certain communities from the pursuit of more desirable,engineering occupations. We ask how this optimism regarding a new industrial realm comes tobe among educators and policy makers, and what ideologies regarding work, skill andopportunity in technology based industries it may reflect and promote.IntroductionThis paper examines the role of cultural ideologies in technical workforce development. We lookspecifically at rationales offered by planners, educators and employers for training programsintended to equip American workers for new industrial employment opportunities. This training,in secondary and post-secondary schools, has been part of the nation's economic developmentsince

Conference Session

Engineering Ethics: An Interdisciplinary Endeavor

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Joseph Herkert, Arizona State University Polytechnic; Jameson Wetmore, Arizona State University; Heather Canary, Arizona State University Polytechnic; Karin Ellison, Arizona State University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

responsibility and skill necessary tocommunicate science to the public. Different students have different interests and can be drawnin by different topics.To further make sure that we are covering topics of interest to the students, and thereby motivate Page 14.763.3them to more fully participate in class and reflect on the issues, we let the students play animportant role by choosing the readings and projects we engage in. In some versions of thecourse we have a different student choose a popular news article each week that can helpfacilitate a conversation about an important and timely topic. In other versions of the course wehave students develop

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

environmentalmovement; homeowners in a new subdivisions, who have discovered there isn’t enough water tokeep their new lawn alive; a farmer, Curtis Peterson, who remembers the way things were;Willie Nelson, who compares Austin to Maui; William Greider, a reporter for Rolling Stone, whobelieves that developers in some sense embody the can-do American spirit; and an oncologist,Judah Folkman, who explains the difference between the growth of cancer cells in the body andhealthy growth. The film’s conclusion seems to be that urban growth in itself is not bad, butunhealthy growth, such as the overdevelopment that threatens the environmental health of theTexas hill country, is like cancer. The conflict portrayed in the film is a reflection of similarconflicts arising

Conference Session

Redefining the Boundaries of Engineering and Liberal Education: Contributions to the Year of Dialogue

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Erin Cech, University of California-San Diego; Kara Boettcher, Montana State University; Heidi Sherick, Montana State University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

. Page 12.1436.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2007 The Incredible Shrinking Job Description: Trends and Consequences of an Increasingly Technical Engineering ProfessionAbstract: ASEE promotes the importance of graduating engineers who possess a host of non-technical skills to complement their technical competencies. As this year of dialog draws to aclose, the authors are interested in the extent to which such well-roundedness is reflected in theactual work that engages engineering graduates. Using quantitative data from the 1993, 1997and 2003 National Survey of College Graduates, this paper analyses the changes in workcharacteristics of jobs that employ graduates of U.S

Conference Session

Approaches to Learning Outcomes Assessment in Liberal Education

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Steve Lappenbusch, University of Washington; Jennifer Turns, University of Washington

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

built portfolios through a semi-structured curriculum with each week ofthe course focusing on one of the previously mentioned portfolio elements (artifacts, annotations,etc.). Each week students worked to achieve the goal of describing their preparedness tofunction as an engineer. During this portfolio work, students sought to portray themselves asengineers and to provide evidence of their preparedness. The six students from whom wecollected data were the ones who agreed to work with us on our research. Our data includeweekly written reflections from the students about their activities and the challenges they wereexperiencing, periodic interviews with the students focused on the same issues, and pre and post-portfolio construction interviews in

Conference Session

Beyond Individual Ethics: Engineering in Context

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Dean Nieusma, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

Page 13.767.3about what is possible and desirable.6 Hence, technologies have “politics” built in. Whileknown primarily as an STS scholar and political philosopher, he has also published within thedesign studies community, his major publication extending prior work on the politics oftechnology. In one contribution to the design studies community, Winner calls for moresystematic attention to, and more careful reflection on, how our built world fits with our bodypolitic, or in other words how technologies fit with our overarching political ideals and goals.7According to Winner, “There is as yet no well-developed discipline or well-focused tradition ofthought and practice that tries to do this, to specify which patterns of material

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

through peer- and self-evaluation, and studentsassess their development of life-long learning skills through reflective essays. Course lettergrades are computed as a weighted average of the individual competency grades. The thread ofcompetency assessments provides students with valuable information concerning theirdevelopment of nontraditional skills that they could use to further their learning by identifyingand reacting to their specific strengths and shortcomings. The emphasis on the formativefeedback provided through the instructors’ competency assessments is illustrated in thefollowing student quotations. One particular thing that sticks out for me is your grading. Rather than saying, "You're a smart guy, this is a pretty good paper

Conference Session

Redefining the Boundaries of Engineering and Liberal Education: Contributions to the Year of Dialogue

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

William Grimson, Dublin Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

and their relevance to EngineeringHistorically the five main branches are generally agreed to be Epistemology, Metaphysics,Ethics, Logic, and Aesthetics. The contention is that by careful reflection on what constitutesengineering from the perspective of each of the above five branches, something definitiveemerges about ‘engineering’: in effect the branches are the ‘microscopes/telescopes’ that areused to examine and observe the subject.Table 1 summarizes the five branches of philosophy, and provides a simple description of eachbranch, and gives some examples of the categories within each division. It is admitted that the‘question’ that each branch attempts to address has shifted over the centuries but the definitionsgiven in the Table are

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

discipline-specific intellectual problems or help them understand the complexities of their chosen professions” 17 • “English professors are ill prepared to engage engineering students in a discussion of technical issues currently relevant to the students’ course work, or to share personal experiences with engineering report writing, or to understand students’ writing from an engineer’s view point. English professors are not familiar with engineers’ thought processes and are not prepared to direct students in clarifying engineering concepts through writing.” 61Such comments, though they certainly reflect individual faculty’s experiences, suggestsignificant misunderstanding of current work in the field of