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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Janet K. Allen; Farrokh Mistree; Wendy Newstetter; Jennifer Turns

Session 2230 Learning Essays and the Reflective Learner: Supporting Reflection in Engineering Design Education Jennifer Turns, Wendy Newstetter, Janet K. Allen, and Farrokh Mistree Georgia Institute of TechnologyAbstract: Learning engineering design requires more than simply having design experiences.Design experiences provide a context for students to practice design skills and an opportunity forstudents to learn deep lessons about the nature of engineering design. Reflection on theexperiences is necessary in order to recognize and realize these lessons. Student questions like“Why do we

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

John E. McInroy; Jerry Hamann; Raymond Jacquot

Session 3220 Modification of a Sophomore Linear Systems Course to Reflect Modern Computing Strategies Raymond G. Jacquot, Jerry C. Hamann, John E. McInroy Electrical Engineering Department, University of WyomingAbstractThis paper reports on an effort currently underway to integrate modern computing strategies intoa sophomore course in linear systems. The course material includes Laplace transforms, systemmodeling and simulation, Fourier series and Fourier transforms. The course has a laboratorywhich meets biweekly. The effort reported here is one to incorporate the use of two softwarepackages

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Peter A. Rosati

Gender Differences in the Learning Preferences of Engineering Students P.A. Rosati The University of Western Ontario AbstractThe results are compared of the responses of female and male engineering students to anIndex of Learning Styles. This self-report forced-choice instrument classifies the learningpreferences of the respondents on four scales; Active/Reflective, Sensing/Intuition,Visual/Verbal and Sequential/Global. Both male and female students showed a clearpreference for Active, Sensing, Visual, Sequential learning. However, the female students’learning preferences were

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

K.A. Korzeniowski

intothe curriculum.3,4 During the semester the students complete design projects. The topics for theprojects are derived from real world applications of the circuit theory taught in the classroom. Onesuch project is described in this paper, a light reflection meter. The addition of the study of thedrawings of the physical housing for the electrical device brings the study of the functionality of the Page 2.250.1device into a broader context. II. Design Project As part of the course requirements for an introductory circuit theory course, student weregiven the task of designing a light reflection

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Barbara Olds

student. The writingincluded in a portfolio may be selected by the student or assigned by the teacher; it may cover anentire college career or a single semester; it may include samples from only one class or from anentire curriculum; it may include peer or student commentary or evaluation, or it may simplyinclude the student’s work. Any of these approaches may be successful if the instructor has aclear purpose for asking students to maintain portfolios and if this purpose is clearly articulatedto students. In the best cases, portfolios help students reflect on their growth as writers, helpstudents to interact with peers in the discussion of writing, and help faculty and students todiscuss ways in which students may become better writers. In

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Parris C. Neal; Donna E. Peterson; Cindy L. Lynch; Cameron Wright

we as professors seek to improve the learning process of our students, it is helpful to havesome sort of model for cognitive development to which we can refer. There is no shortage ofmodels in the literature from which to choose; Bloom, Dewey, Perry, and others have allproposed various models to describe the process of learning.4-7 Given our emphasis ondeveloping our students’ ability to frame and resolve ill-defined problems, the authors find themost suitable model for our efforts in this context to be the reflective judgment model of adultcognitive development.8-12 The skills required to frame and resolve ill-defined problems areimbedded in the reflective judgment model, which has been validated by over 20 years of cross-sectional and

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Josef Rojter

Session 3260 RESHAPING ENGINEERING EDUCATION TOWARDS THE PRACTICING PROFESSIONAL Josef Rojter Department of Mechanical Engineering Victoria University of Technology, P.O. BOX 14428 MCMC Melbourne Victoria 8001. Australia. Consider the turtle. It makes progress when it sticks its neck out. The evolution of knowledge based economies coupled with the accompanying socialchanges is placing new demands on engineering education in meeting societal needs. Thepoor image of the profession reflects the lack of strong links between engineering andcommunal development. Restructuring of

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Sumit Ghosh; Raymond Kuo

describes a correlation-based, scientific study to evaluate the proposed model,wherein the parameter design reflects the knowledge and experience acquired during the second author'stenure as an advisor to the undergraduate admissions office for the Sc.B. engineering program at BrownUniversity between 1989 and 1992. During this period, the second author examined over 900 randomly-selected applicants from diverse cultural and socio economic backgrounds and geographical regions in theUS and international applicants and his assessments were treated as ``first reads,'' or key evaluations. Thepaper develops key non-financial aid related criteria -- academic and non-academic, based on those actuallyused in the selection of applicants into the Sc.B

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

T. Chang; R. Barat; J. F. Federici; H. Grebel; A. M. Johnson

: Lasers, Lamps, etc.; Reflection and Refraction -- Snell's law, brewster angle,total internal reflection, dispersion; Geometric Optics -- Mirrors, lenses, magnification, raytracing techniques and software; Polarization; Birefringence; Interference -- interferometry andthin films; Diffraction -- gratings; SpectroscopyLABORATORIES 1. Detection of light (a) Use photodiode and optical power meter to detect laser light. (b)Calibrate neutral density filters/ beamsplitter © determine linearity of photodiode. 2. Reflection/refraction (a) study of Snell's law with different materials (b) total internalreflection (measure index of refraction) in a prism. 3. Geometric Optics (a) build a simple microscope (b) expand and collimate a HeNe laserbeam

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Kara B. Wright; Charles T. Wright; Christine L. Collier; Lawrence Genalo

bumper sensors, they were given a special lightsensor that could be commanded to emit a light and measure the amount of light reflected back tothe sensor. Such a sensor, called a reflective sensor, produced values in the range from 0 to 255inclusive and is regarded as an “analog” sensor (in contrast to the “digital” sensor that producesonly two values, 0 and 1). The students were encouraged to experiment with the reflective Page 2.445.3sensors applied to various surfaces to see what range of values would typically be produced whenlight was reflected from a nearby surface.The students discovered that reflective sensors could be used to determine

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Saundra D. Johnson

Program.Currently the Minority Engineering Program (MEP) at Penn State operates within three stages thatprove to be effective in responding to these challenges: I. The Informative Stage II. The Outreach Stage III. The Collaboration StageThe Informative Stage begins with heightening the awareness of the goals reflected in the Collegeof Engineering Strategic Plan1 to faculty, staff and students. The College of Engineering’s StrategicPlan, which includes diversity initiatives, is submitted every five years. Also, a progress report issubmitted on an annual basis.In the College of Engineering Strategic Plan five strategic initiatives are identified that will developa faculty, staff and student body of

Collection

1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Simeon Slayton; Ratan Kumar

potential safety hazard when mountedover-head, b) it can safely withstand working temperatures ( above 180° F), c) it is availablefrom stock (in standard sizes) as designed for patio door replacement glass (standard glass sizesare 76″ long by 28″, 34″ or 46″ wide), d) it increases impact rersistance and e) it is economicalin small sizes.The next restraint is the size and shape of the parabolic reflective material. The parabolic arc isderived from standard geometric considerations. The reflective material is 18 gauge (0.048″thick) type 304 stainless steel with a #8 mirror finish on one side. A plastic film protects themirror finish during fabrication. This reflective material can be available from stocked inventoryin 4′x8′ sheets. Each sheet weighs

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Richard A. Young

data set is taken. Within this context: • There is a gradual reduction in the amount of direction offered in the lab handouts,coupled with an increased frequency of answering a question with an experimental question. • There is an active encouragement for creative experimentation (and fun) through a moreleisurely and reflective pace of experimental activity. The relaxed pace of the laboratory allowsfor peer group teaching and learning. Students are free to look at a variety of experimentalsolutions, generated by their peers, and incorporate a variety of ideas in their own approach.Prior to computerization, however, alternative experimental approaches often remainedunexplored because: • Data acquisition was often tedious; so

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Tom L. Powers; Roger Wright; O'Neill Burchett; Michael R. Manning; Bruce W. Farmer; Brad Gilbreath

ideas about experience as thesource for learning and development.3 We believe the best way to achieve the course objectivesis through experiential learning, whereby students learn from working on real problems. * The course is listed for five credit hours in the College of Business Administration & Economics to reflect thecourse's time demands. The College of Engineering allows only three credit hours of projects courses to count Page 2.405.2toward masters degree requirements. Hence, engineering students are allowed to take the course for between threeand five credit hours, with anything more than three hours of credit not

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

S. Gokhale; J. Aldrich

] has proposed anew paradigm of scholarship, one that not only promotes the scholarship of discoveringknowledge, but also celebrates the scholarship of integrating knowledge, of communicating Page 2.243.1knowledge, and of applying knowledge through service. Service, in this context, means far morethan simply doing good, although that is important. Rather it means that students and professorsapply knowledge to real-life problems, use the experience to revise their theories, and become“reflective practitioners.” Service may be defined as a credit-bearing experience in which thestudents are involved in community service and reflect on the

Collection

1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Jon E. Freckleton

students mature, demandingcustomers.The graphics sequence of three required, and one upper level optional, courses havesignificant design content. The first year course teaches fundamentals. The second yearGD&T and CG courses are project based. This year they were split from a single course toallow transfer students more flexibility; many have CG, few have GD&T.Both second year courses will continue with design content: l-Each assigned drawing requires an isometric sketch showing an engineeringapplication of the part. It must be unique, the part is modified to reflect the design use.Therefore, each students’ drawing is unique which greatly increases grading time. 2-Students form three to five member design teams and develop

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Luis M. Bocanegra; Jose L. Rivera

below.EquipmentThis experiment uses an acoustic impedance tube (P. A. Hilton, B-400)4 for the determination ofthe sound absorption properties of different materials. The apparatus consists of a transparentplastic tube fitted at one end with a twin loudspeaker enclosure, and at the other with a heavysample holder on which the sample material is mounted. A small microphone may be movedaxially along the length of the tube and its position measured.The loud speakers are fed with a variable common pure tone (single frequency) from a functiongenerator and the sound waves produced pass along the tube sample. According to the type ofmaterial and frequency, part of the sound energy is absorbed, and the remainder reflected backalong the tube. The latter is detected by

Collection

1997 Annual Conference

Authors

David M. Woodall

five years, but may also reflect thepublic perception that nuclear power is a dying technology. The reality is rather dramaticallydifferent, in that the U.S. presently produces over 20% of its electricity from nuclear power, andmany countries around the world generate a much higher fraction. There has been no newnuclear plant ordered in the US during the past fifteen years, but by contrast the world demandfor nuclear electric power is accelerating.Utility production of nuclear electricity in the U.S. is under competitive pressure fromalternative technologies, including coal and natural gas. The pressure from natural gas isespecially intense due to the availability of inexpensive natural gas used to fuel high efficiency,combined cycle gas

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Jack Waintraub

educate technicians for the rapidly expendingtelecommunications field.The Institution has also made a commitment to revitalizing mathematics and science education,and in particular, to addressing the needs of non-science students. Instruction will be organizedaround broad themes reflective of the current scientific and technological issues facing societytoday.The development and implementation of new, and the restructuring of existing curricula are aconsorted effort of faculty and administration to improve mathematics, science and technicaleducation. Barriers that traditionally prevented significant changes to occur at institutions arebeing removed in order to more effectively respond to the needs of the populations that we serve.The New Jersey

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Michael Mahler; Jon Szafranski; Dawn Werner; Karl Smith

sense in which all profession practice is designlike, must be learned by doing. However much students may learn about designing from lectures or readings, there is a substantial component of design competence--indeed, the heart of it--that they cannot learn in this way. A designlike practice is learnable but is not teachable by classroom methods. And when students are helped to learn design, the interventions most useful to them are more like coaching than teaching--as in a reflective practicum.Learning to think like an engineer means learning to do both analysis and synthesis both aloneand with a group of team members. Learning that is informal, social, and focused on meaningfulproblems helps create

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Leonard Sokoloff

1 System OverviewThis implementation of LabVIEW illustrates the fundamental radar principles at acousticalfrequencies. An ultrasonic transducer is the heart of the system. It acts first as a transmitter andlater as a receiver. In the transmit mode, the ultrasonic transducer transmits 16 sonic pulses at49.4 kHz. These pulses propagate through space with the speed of sound toward the nearestobject and are reflected by it. The reflected pulses, or echoes, travel back toward the ultrasonictransducer which now switches to the receive mode. The time difference between the transmittedpulse and the echo can be converted into distance to the object by appropriate scaling.In this implementation, LabVIEW is used to

Collection

1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Kathryn A. Neeley

, reflect the designer and the culture from which the artifact originated.Interactivity is a crucial feature of the tours, which stress inquisitive looking and dealing with thematerial reality of the artifact. The students’ immersion in the museum environment also helpsdevelop fully articulated aesthetic responses to technological artifacts.KEYS TO SUCCESSMuseum Personnel. The most important prerequisite for success is museum personnel whoteach by inquiry as a mode of teaching and who see themselves as “working to enable thestudents to participate in learning for themselves by beginning to understand visual informationfound in art.“*Collaboration. The instructor organizing these experiences needs a reasonably complete graspof both the technical and

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Péter Szendrõ; László Kátai

should be developed for filtering of information and increasing access to information.Information can become knowledge, if the human brain can rebuild it. Knowledge is not simplyremembering, but creative production.In brief:It is the responsibility of mankind to use and not to misuse information. If it grows beyond ourcontrol, it could cause the death of civilization, but managing it in the right way will be a sourceof development. Teachers have a great responsibility in this process.II. REALIZATION IN MACHINE DESIGN TEACHINGThe method of machine design teaching in reflection of multiplied information Page 2.424.2In the information society the

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Kathryn A. Neeley

technical communicationusually were designed as skills courses. This dichotomy isolates communication and minimizesits connection to professional development and intellectual activity. At most institutions, thesetendencies are exacerbated by disciplinary and departmental structures.By contrast, the discussions related to the new criteria have been dominated by the vocabulary ofintegration and interdisciplinarity, a vocabulary that reflects a new view of engineers, theirexpertise, and their relations with others. This new vocabulary arises at least in part fromcultural changes related to technology, changes that we need to understand and exploit in order toeffect significant change in a curriculum that has proved remarkably resistant to change. To

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Fazil Najafi

presented which reflects the views of the civil engineering faculty at theUniversity of Florida and the view of industry in a curriculum innovation and renewal workshopconducted by Mike Leonard, from Clemson under the Southeastern Universities Cooperation, onengineering education funded by the NSF. The main theme of this workshop is to let faculty andindustry express their opinion about a process for continuing the curriculum renewal. Thefaculty are divided into two groups and are asked to rank issues related to the curriculum renewalprocess. The groups identified many items and finally narrowed them down to these final fiveitems: 1) increased recognition; 2) modern labs; 3) reward good teaching; 4) faculty stress and 5)professional degree. The

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

William H. Sprinsky

degrees are ABET accredited.We recently received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Curriculum (ILI) grant. Themajor thrust of implementation reflects the revolution caused by technology in civilengineering and survey. We give each student not only the theory but also actualexperience with the projects and equipment that are the "bread and butter" of civilengineering practice. Laboratories in cartography, photogrammetry, surveying and civilengineering are designed to integrate experiences in this new technology.In the area of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), the merger of information fromdifferent sources, often in different formats, is the norm in civil engineering technologypractice, using GIS-based systems. We must recognize and keep up

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

W.M. Spurgeon

definition.(2) Notethat the revision reflects the increasing complexity of engineers' work.A manager is defined as a person who has more to do than he can do by himself, and whotherefore gets things done through other people. This is the classical definition. A more up-to-date version is that a manager is a person who gets the right things done, efficiently and timely,through other people who may or may not report to him.Managers have devised many ways of organizing work in manufacturing companies. A commonway of organizing a medium-sized company or an operating division of a large company isoutlined below, in terms of functions: • Engineering* • Research* Current • Legal* Advance

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Amitabha Bandyopadhyay

Farmingdale, the Committee developed a model of nine core areas and requested eachdepartment to indicate which if any of these areas were addressed in each course offered by theirdepartment or through support courses required of their students. A task force was formed in theFall of 1996 to do a thorough review of the responses received in order to develop a matrix thatidentifies those courses which may fulfill specific requirements. ConclusionFarmingdale is fundamentally a teaching institution, and focuses on the learning process in allprograms. The college seeks to serve a diverse student population reflecting an increasinglypluralistic society. Farmingdale is a campus where the technologies are not

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Joseph Herkert

Engineers?MIT's first Dean for Undergraduate Education, the late Margaret MacVicar, once noted [1] thatthe challenge for educators with respect to integration of engineering, humanities and socialsciences is to bring about: “...a true educational partnership among the technical, arts, social andhumanistic disciplines so that on some level students see the interrelationships between scienceand technology on the one hand, and societal, political, and ethical forces on the other.”One approach to exploring such interrelationships is through the STS courses and programs thathave sprung up over the past quarter century. Indeed, the critical reflection on the interactionsamong engineering, humanities and social sciences typically found in successful STS

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1997 Annual Conference

Authors

Donald R. Woods; Dianne Dorland

exchangeTIME-ON-TASKHow do you help students spend time productively on the learning task? Some guides to keepingstudents on the target and on the task:At the beginning of the task • Rationalize the task and tell students. • Have clear, unambiguous, observable goals. • Tell the goals to the students. • Explain the route ahead. • Use transparencies or written material to enrich instructions. • Ask :Everyone clear on the task?" before starting. • Identify the allowed time (use "30 seconds" instead of "1/2 minute").During the task • Monitor the time, ask "Everyone completed?" or "20 seconds more?" • Use and display a timer, or use a bell not a buzzer.After the task is completed • Always close with reflection, "What have you