Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

David F. Ollis

Session 2553 A Lab for All Seasons, A Lab for All Reasons David F. Ollis North Carolina State UniversityIntroductionWith NSF SUCCEED funding, we initiated six years ago a laboratory in which newengineering students would use and take apart familiar consumer electronics and householddevices(1). These future engineers, in teams of two or three, would move through a series ofroles with each device assigned: READ an explanatory chapter to learn history and principles, USE the device to verify functionality and operability, DISSECT and reassemble the device to view

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Margarita Takach; Yiyuan J. Zhao; Reza Langari; Ray Taghavi; Mehrdad Ghasemi Nejhad; Luigi Martinelli; Linda Ann Riley; K. Krishnamurthy; Janet M. Twomey; Degang Chen; David Radcliffe

facilitators for change.There are several challenge areas for any curriculum change. They are:• Any significant redesign of curriculum offerings requires the coordination and consensus ofmany faculty members, and crosses different departmental and college boundaries. At the sametime, faculty members already have substantial workloads in research and teaching.• The current university reward system does not encourage efforts in curriculum redesign.Faculty members are rewarded for individual achievements within the university and the academiccommunity in the broadest sense. Within the university, faculty are rewarded for the number ofpublications, the number of graduate students advised, and the amount of funded researchobtained. This is the primary

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Thomas Stanford; R.J. Bennett; R. Jacoby; M.I. Mendelson; D.A. Keating

Page 5.413.1 21.3 Funding of U.S. Graduate Education for ResearchAs the 1995 NRC report noted:“ … The American system of graduate education of scientists and engineers, organized around an intensive andrealistic research experience, has become the world model for simultaneously conducting basic research andeducating graduate scientists and engineers.The efficacy of our system originated in a series of policy decisions that were prompted by the major role thatscience and technology had in the outcome of World War II. Among those decisions were the following:• The public, through a number of government agencies, would assume an

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Kandace K. Martin; Carol Fulton; Barbara L. Licklider

; homework still consists of assigned exercises at the end oftraditional texts; and assessment of student outcomes is still, for the most part, ascertained by theadministration of standardized tests.Why the paradox? Why do we say one thing and do another? Why haven’t we made any headway withinstructors? Why do they cling to old methods? Why the resistance on the part of faculty to join the"learning revolution"?Undoubtedly there are many reasons, lack of time being among the top contenders. The teaching andlearning enterprise does not happen in a vacuum. While calls for improved teaching and learning mayhave gone up, calls for research have not gone away. Both endeavors take time. Doing top notch researchwith all that it entails (e.g. writing

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Molly M. Gribb; Elisabeth M. Alford

engineering major in the firsttwo years.1 Forty-five percent cite the heavy workload and fast pace as their reason for leaving;forty-one percent say that ineffective teaching turned them off. And although nearly 25% of thestudents who left gave inadequate academic preparation as the main reason, all of the students inthe Seymour and Hewitt study were bright, well-qualified students.At the University of South Carolina, as at most research universities, the first two years of theengineering student's university experience involves taking a number of required science andmathematics courses. The students, eager to begin “real” engineering courses, have difficultymaking connections between these foundational courses and their careers as engineers. To

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Shirley J. Dyke; Phillip Gould; Kevin Truman

informative, age or class appropriate experiments, demonstrations, and mediaso the participants can sample and explore structural dynamics from basic to advanced conceptsusing a “hands-on” approach. These shake tables must provide some overall, measurable contri-bution through outreach to the general public and young students, through instruction to under-graduate classes and through collaborative efforts of multiple universities’ development of theexperiments.Distribution of surveys to conduct the program evaluation will be performed through the internet.The web page is designed to insert all relevant information into a database for direct compilationand quantitative analysis of the responses. Qualitative analysis will also be conducted through

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Frances S. Johnson; Carlos C. Sun; Anthony J. Marchese; Heidi L. Newell; John L. Schmalzel; Roberta Harvey; Ravi Ramachandran; Paris von Lockette; Kevin Dahm

they have on student learning. In particular,assessment methods, perhaps both qualitative and quantitative, that can elicit studentperceptions of the classroom environment are needed. As previous studies havesuggested, authority and disciplinary practices are among the issues at stake when facultyfrom different disciplines collaborate on writing instruction. Team-teaching in all itsforms should continue to provide rich ground for exploring the relationship of writing tospecific disciplines such as engineering.References1. J. Newell, A. J. Marchese, R. P. Ramachandran, B. Sukumaran, and R. Harvey, “Multidisciplinary design and communication: A pedagogical vision,” International Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 15, 1999.2. R. Harvey, F

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Robert Engelken

business; this is particularly valuable for a youngPh.D. fresh out of graduate school and often with a narrow, discipline-specific “tunnel vision”perspective (“Beware of the man with only a hammer; to him every problem is a nail”). That is,engineering consulting rapidly drives home the fact that design, research, development, andmarketing in the nonacademic world are often multidisciplinary in nature. Real problems don’tlend themselves very well to formal academic boundaries and the new engineering consultantrapidly is forced to expand knowledge, skills, and outlook to a variety of disciplines in order toarrive at optimum solutions and interact with clients

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Doug Jacobson; Barbara L. Licklider

placed upon them as freshmenby providing a collaborative environment in which they will learn to seek assistance from andprovide support to peers.The primary objectives for Project SUCCESS are:1. Enhance student learning by: • introducing students to basic computer engineering projects, • providing an environment for students to practice teamwork skills, • connecting students to the computer engineering faculty and facilities through authentic, real-world situations, • promoting problem solving, critical thinking, and ethical reasoning, • providing an environment for students to practice presentation skills, and • developing an understanding of study skills and their learning styles.2. Provide an environment to facilitate the