knowledge [13]. A coherent curriculum can also support the teambuilding,collaboration, and peer response practices crucial to undergraduates’ professional development.Developing a coherent writing program, however, demands extensive time, labor, and resources,and among the most persistent challenges is addressing sentence-level expression.While undergraduates in their third year can identify points at which their content and rhetoricalknowledge “begin to merge” [14], addressing the subtleties of sentence-level expression requiresfaculty and mentors with disciplinary and rhetorical expertise. Teaching style, syntax, anddiction through typical English handbooks cannot effectively address nuances of expressionexpected by professional readers; however
presentationskills are repeatedly identified as important to employers looking to hire new engineers.7, 8Presenting the writing guide and relevant evidence of the importance of communication skillsearly on in the students’ career will help them develop strong habits to be reinforced throughouttheir time at school. Additionally, the guide will help make it easier for instructors to provideuseful feedback by aligning their comments with the elements found on the rubric, byreferencing the writing guide, and by having students use the guide to peer review each other’swork, all strategies proven successful in improving writing skills.9, 10Developing the writing guideMotivation for creating a department writing guide came from consistent weaknesses in
Short Writing Assignments within a Laboratory Course to Improve Understanding and Interest in Course MaterialAbstractWriting exercises incorporated within technical courses has been shown to be effective inimproving critical thinking among engineering students. Specifically, short writing assignmentscan be implemented within upper level engineering courses to deepen student understanding ofconcepts. These assignments, while considered within some upper level courses, are notcommonly implemented within laboratory courses, which instead typically use laboratory reportassignments. Since students in our program already take another course which uses traditionallab reports, it is desirable to introduce some unique writing
Paper ID #28489A Writing Tool that Provides Real-Time Feedback to Students on their Gram-mar Using Deep LearningMiss Basak Taylan, Graduate Center of City University of New York Basak Taylan is a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science Department at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She received a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from Mersin Univer- sity, Turkey and a master’s degree in Computer Science from New York University Polytechnic School of Engineering. Her current research interest is natural language processing, machine learning, and AI.Dr. Ashwin Satyanarayana, New York City College of
they needed guidance to agree wherethey demonstrated some independence (3.5 at course start) and this increased to a greater overallindependence (4.1) by the end of the course. The students self-rated skills compiling theliterature, organizing it, and recognizing missing information did not change substantially fromcourse beginning to course end (4.0 to 4.2). While the course did not involve practice analyzingraw data, it did involve describing how the data analysis would be conducted. Pre and postcourse ratings in this area increased from 3.7 to 4.2. Experience writing research articles wasrated 3.7 in the beginning and 4.0 in the end although only two students in the class had actuallypublished a peer-reviewed research article. This rating
Paper ID #37931Work in Progress: Supporting Engineering LaboratoryReport Writing with Modules Targeted for InstructorsCharles Riley (Professor) Professor and Graduate Program Director Civil Engineering Department Oregon Institute of Technology I conduct research in diverse areas of engineering education from professional skills, to writing, to gender and ethics. I also maintain a structures laboratory to conduct full-scale structural component testing and field investigations of highway bridges.Dave Kim Dr. Dave Kim is Professor and Mechanical Engineering Program Coordinator in the School of Engineering and
Professor and the As- sessment and Instructional Support Specialist in the Leonhard Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Education at Penn State as well as a co-founder of Zappe and Cutler Educational Consulting, LLC. Her primary research interest include faculty development, the peer review process, the doctoral experience, and the adoption of evidence-based teaching strategies. American c Society for Engineering Education, 2021 Work-in-Progress: Short Online Films to Help First-Year Students Write Reports as EngineersIntroduction From grade school through first-year composition, engineering students take
. (2000). Integrating Writing Instruction into Engineering Courses: A Writing Center Model. Journal of Engineering Education.3. Ekoniak, M. Scanlon, M.J., & Mohammadi-Aragh, M.J. (2013). Improving Student Writing Through Multiple Peer Feedback. Frontiers in Education Conference, IEEE.4. Travers, P.D. Better Training for Teaching Assistants. (1989). College Teaching, Vol. 37, No.4.5. Mena, I.B., Diefes-Dux, H.A., & Capobianco, B.M. (2013). Socialization Experiences Results from Doctoral Engineering Teaching Assistantships. The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 84, No. 2.6. Luft, J.A., Kurdziel, J.P., Roehrig, G.H. & Turner, J. (2004). Growing a Garden without Water: Graduate Teaching Assistants in Introductory Science
Session 3230 Writing: A Novel Strategy to Bring Issues in Science and Engineering to Non-Majors Teresa Larkin-Hein American University, Washington, DCAbstractWriting has long been established to be an effective means of expressing one’s ideas, thoughts,and understanding about nature and the world. This paper will report on an ongoing researchstudy designed to address the role of writing in terms of the assessment of student learning. Tothis end, a new instructional technique for incorporating writing into
writing skills. Studentassessment of the teaching methodology is provided. Faculty observations of experiences aredescribed in the paper and suggestions are provided for effective use of this teachingmethodology.Introduction and BackgroundPeer review is common for all scientific publications as well as for engineering design work inprofessional practice. Integration of peer review to the curriculum has been reported for a varietyof implementation modes. Limited experiences in this regard have been reported for civilengineering coursework in relation to technical writing. Rationale for including peer review incoursework includes emphasizing the development of technical writing skills and promoting anactive and collaborative classroom environment
district and is in the process of creating a mentorship program to help high school students transition to university. His research interests include first-year university students’ experience, high school students’ transition to university, peer-to-peer mentorship, and student support networks.Ms. Sarah Huizar, University of Texas at El Paso Sarah Huizar is a Program Manager for UTEP’s Center for Research in Engineering and Technology Education (CREATE). She develops, implements, and manages a wide range of activities through the center’s STEMShine grant. She specializes in mentorship, essential skills building for freshman engineering students, project planning, community building through eSports, writing and design.Dr
Paper ID #36811Refining Instructional Modules for Engineering Lab Writing Using aCommunity of Practice ApproachDr. Charles Riley, Oregon Institute of Technology Dr. Riley has been teaching mechanics concepts for over 15 years and has been honored with both the ASCE ExCEEd New Faculty Excellence in Civil Engineering Education Award (2012) and the Beer and Johnston Outstanding New Mechanics Educator Award (2013). While he teaches freshman to graduate- level courses across the civil engineering curriculum, his focus is on engineering mechanics. He im- plements classroom demonstrations at every opportunity as part of a
10more about practice. Two, this understanding could help them to feel less anxious about writingoverall and thus more able to try approaches that would help them write effectively.Additionally, students came to understand the benefits of having a process in mind when theyworked. Many of the student comments focused on time management and needing sufficienttime to be able to revise their work before submitting, indicating a stronger focus on process,particularly revision. They also began talking about revising as part of that process, includingseeking out and receiving feedback from instructors and peers as they revised. This emphasis onprocess is visible in the two top goals for the spring semester: writing more concisely and usingrevision (see
2006-876: DEVELOPING METACOGNITIVE ENGINEERING TEAMS THROUGHTARGETED WRITING EXERCISES AND STUDYING LEARNINGPREFERENCESKevin Dahm, Rowan University Kevin Dahm is an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at Rowan University. He received his Ph.D. from MIT and his B.S. from WPI. Among his areas of interest are computing and process simulation in the curriculum, and integrating economics and design throughout the curriculum. He has received the 2005 Ray Fahien Award, 2003 Joseph J. Martin Award and the 2002 PIC-III Award from ASEE.Roberta Harvey, Rowan University Roberta Harvey is an Assistant Professor in the Writing Arts Department at Rowan University. She holds a Ph.D. from the
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
faculty as part of a teaching team has on students’ perceptions ofthe importance of writing to engineering and the overall quality of student writing.Sophomore Engineering Clinic I, planned and taught by faculty from the College ofCommunication and the College of Engineering, combines argumentative discourse,technical communication, and engineering design labs. While the course is jointlyplanned, it had previously been individually delivered. Worth four credits, three creditswere devoted to writing and one to engineering design. As part of the present study,engineering faculty are attending 2 of the 4 writing sections. They actively join in classdiscussions, assist in peer critiques, ask questions, seek clarifications, and provide reallife
the initial program structure has allowed the Purdue BCMdistance MS program to reach a nearly 100% completion rate for the last two cohorts of students.A current shortcoming of the Capstone Writing Course is a failure to create adequate interest on Page 24.966.12the part of graduating students to pursue journal article revisions. As would be expected, thejournal paper submissions that result from the course are seldom adequate to meet peer reviewacceptance without at least some revision. After two years of combined daily activity to meetcareer demands and course requirements, students are happy to accept their diploma. Becausethese students
and the changes they made due to peer review.The novelty of our specific approach to peer review lies in the combination of three qualities: 1) The degree of student contribution to setting standards for both effective writing and effective critique. This gives students ownership and a stake in these standards, as well as providing scaffolding for critical thought about formal and casual professional communication. 2) The degree of scaffolding for student critique. A criticism of peer review is that student reviewers can be unconstructive. Our approach includes a structure to help students stay focused and provide helpful critiques. 3) The degree of reflection required of students toward learning, retaining, and
included writing code,designing software architecture, and teaching corporate education. His writing in industryincluded design documentation, test plans, proposals, standards documents, process documents,user documentation, and some business documentation. His audience for these documents wasgenerally his peers, and the documentation was intended to be informative, used for training andoccasionally for decision-making. He said that in his industry experience, “everyone assumesyou must already know how to write” because of being a university graduate. He also mentionedthat he modified his writing based on the audience, including their preferences for format, anddiscussed the issue of length and level of detail. In his experience, design documents
Paper ID #7656When Engineering Students Write about Waste Electronics: Trends in howthey Think of Global ImpactsDr. Denise M Wilson, University of Washington Denise Wilson received the B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford University in 1988 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1989 and 1995, respectively. She also holds an M.Ed. from the University of Washington (2008) and has worked in industry (Applied Materials). She is currently a faculty member with the Electrical Engineering De- partment, University of Washington, Seattle, and she was
skillsFigure 1b: The first-year bottom skills.Among second-year students, time management was the most important skill receivingapproximately 74% of responses (Figure 2a). Understanding the mathematical language in aproblem and self-learning and recognizing the need for lifelong learning received responses of45% and 43%, respectively. Work in teams, the last top skill, effectively received a response of31%. In Figure 2b, communicating effectively in writing was selected as the least valued skillfrom the second-year students, receiving 7% of responses. Applying the Engineering code ofethics and Managing a Project using appropriate project management tools tied for the secondlowest important skill with 4.8% of responses. Conducting a proper literature
Paper ID #43068Work in Progress: Establishing a Peer-Mentoring Program for Transfer First-YearEngineering StudentsMrs. Leslie Bartsch Massey, University of Arkansas Leslie Massey is an advanced instructor in the First-Year Engineering Program at the University of Arkansas. She received her BS in Biological Engineering and MS in Environmental Engineering from the University of Arkansas. She previously served as a project manager for the Arkansas Water Resources Center, but returned to join the College of Engineering faculty in 2013 to pursue her passion of teaching.Mr. Chris Cagle ©American Society
themselves and with industrialfacilitators. During the final, the videos were anonymously assessed by their peers as to whether or not thevideos answered the initial questions posed and how useful proposed improvements were. Additionally, thegroups peer assessed themselves by dividing a limited number of points for the project among team membersand indicating why they felt each team member should be given a certain number of points for theircontributions. At the end of viewing the videos, individual students were again asked to write a reflectivepaper defining what a civil engineer was and why they wanted to pursue civil engineering as a profession.At the end of the reflective paper they were to self assess their association with that definition on
have a dedicated time and place to get together towork on, improve on, and progress in their writing [8]. Funded by Graduate School, this writinggroup allowed peer discussions and interactions, as well as presentations by facilitators on avariety of writing topics [8]. This small group environment for dedicated writing is similar to theWriting Sessions described in our paper, but without the limitation of disciplines, or the type ofwriting. The importance of writing beyond graduate school has long been recognized by multiplegroups so much so that several institutions have incorporated writing related workshops andprograms for faculty [13]-[17]. Most of these efforts, though focused on writing engagementsand improving writing competencies
, students did their best to adapt to the new way of learning, but the change intheir educational experience was drastic. In particular, students lost the opportunity to engagewith peers in person and form personal connections with them. This is especially concerninggiven that, as Alexander Astin writes, “the student's peer group is the single most potent sourceof influence on growth and development during the undergraduate years" [15, p. 54][3].The existing knowledge base repeatedly validates the importance of peer support in both socialand academic systems in college. Ideally, students should have all the resources they need tocommunicate with peers, whether in a physical or virtual learning environment. However, webelieve that due to the abrupt
to the Three Gorges Dam in China. In that way, all students were required to thinkabout an international project to some degree. This was another suitable model to teach studentsabout globalization. The older Three Gorges Dam assignments were no longer available forcontent analysis as part of this research. Final Reflective EssaysIn the first part of the final essay assignment, students were required to write about oneprofessional society meeting (such as ASCE, AGC, SWE, etc.) or professional developmentactivity (such as the career fair, design expo, civil engineering graduate seminar) that they hadattended during the semester. Of these options, EWB represents the opportunity that is the mostobviously global in nature. The percentages
California, Davis, Davis, CAAbstractA team of experienced Ph.D. candidates developed and facilitated discussion in a semester-longweekly workshop that outlined basic research skills for a small cohort of first year doctoralstudents in Chemical Engineering. Session topics included professionalism, analyzing researcharticles, scientific writing mechanics, and designing presentation slides, among others. The peer-led approach provided an informal classroom setting, which fostered interactivity and stimulatedstudents’ willingness to participate in discussions. Incorporating such a workshop in otherdepartments or universities could greatly benefit all fledgling researchers and their principalinvestigators by boosting the students’ productivity and
, two near-peer mentoring programs are described and implemented in thecontext of a large (200+ students) project-based introduction civil and environmental engineering(CEE) course. They were developed to provide sustainable, effective methods for near-peermentoring that could be implemented on a larger scale. The two near-peer mentoringframeworks, targeted mentoring and general mentoring, were developed based on the followingobjectives: 1. Provide first-year mentees with additional project input and technical writing and presentation feedback. 2. Provide first-year mentees additional information about campus life, the curriculum, and professional opportunities based on the experience of current upper-level students. 3. Create
laboratory course often lead to last-minute writing withlittle time spent in reflection and review2. Stephen Brookfield3 speaks to the heart of the teacherwhen he describes our motivation to instill habits of self-evaluation and peer evaluation. “Sooner or later students leave the intellectual enclave of higher education and return to the workaday world. For them to have acquired the habit of examining their own work critically as a detached observer is an incalculable benefit”. “Likewise, for students to have learned something of the art of peer evaluation – of giving helpful critical insights to colleagues and intimates in a manner that affirms rather than shames – develops in them in them a capacity that will be sought out by their peers
Peer Review writing assignments have been components of all the general chemistrylaboratory courses at UCLA since 1997. Typically, two or three assignments are made during a10-week quarter. All deal with the theory or practice of the topics in the courses.Assignment Rationale: At UCLA, the upload feature focused on teaching scientific graphingskills for first-year engineers and physical scientists in a quantitative chemistry laboratorycourse. As Tufte articulated in 1983,1 “Translating and communicating data into a graphicalformat ranks high as an essential scientific skill.” The skill, however, is at best relegated toappendices in high school texts, and future engineers first encounter scientific graphing incollege in general chemistry, their