was a challenge for the instructor/sponsors tofully connect with students. On-site visits with the healthcare organization were not possible.Despite the various distance technologies that are available, we feel it is difficult to reproduce thein-person student experience. Without interpersonal interaction, many of the soft skills are oftennot fully experienced by the students learning to conduct team-based senior design project viadistance settings.ConclusionsThe community-focused design project was different than a typical engineering senior designproject that focuses mostly on technical skills. The community-focused design project discussedin this paper focused on the technical skills as well as many soft skills such as communicationboth
faculty have mentionedinclude: • Thinking about building systems as a whole, instead of individual systems • Different design strategies that can be used to create a net-zero building • Education on building science and construction • Real world operations and how to apply theoretical knowledge.Participating in a team-oriented project also allows students to build their soft skills. Here are someways that our students and faculty have said they have grown with the Solar Decathlon: • How to sell a story • Learning how to get architecture and engineering students to work together • Increasing their ability for proactive planning and research • Growing their own agency and confidence • Finding external partners
ResearchFoundation, National Electrical Contractors Association, Associated Builders and Contractors,National Constructors Association, and American Road Builders Association.Construction programs are often influenced by their development and history. Programs thatoriginated from architecture or engineering often carry a design-heavy structure, while programswith industrial technology backgrounds include more hands-on applications [6, 7]. The industry'sexpectations also play an essential role in shaping the educational content, including thetechnical, managerial, and soft skills [8-11]. In 1998, Rosso conducted a study to review thecurrent status of four-year construction education programs and highlighted the evolvingapproaches and the distinct programs of
instruction in Fall 2021, butclassroom activities needed to be redesigned to take masking and social distancing into account.The activities implemented in the course have been used successfully with several groups ofstudents and their evolution benefited from feedback provided by the students and faculty [1],[3].This paper describes the authors’ experiences using active learning materials adapted for socialdistancing in a software engineering course. Depending on their Covid vaccination status,students attended either the in-person, socially distanced class meetings or exclusively online.The authors wanted to provide opportunities for online students to develop soft skills on teamprojects by encouraging them to participate virtually in reflection
Explainer Video Competition whileunderrepresented in the Autonomous Robot Competition. The Autonomous Robot Competitionrewards technical performance, while the other two competitions rely on excelling in bothtechnical and professional skills. This finding supports the hypothesis that female engineeringstudents value professional skills or “soft-skills” more than their male counterparts [19].Entrepreneurial thinking course competitions seem to attract more female students and may behelpful to encourage and retain women in engineering programs.Since the competition is part of a class and not external, students that might be distracted bycompetitions, focused on their coursework since they are aligned. Most students improved theirGPA during the
put it beyond the reachof anyone who isn’t very wealthy?”, “How can I balance my obligations to society when theyseem to conflict with the interests of the company funding my project?”. Consequently,education, when designed to prepare students for the real world must also prepare them todevelop their social awareness and abilities and acquire a clear sense of professional values inorder to develop and to sustain successful, healthy relationships with those with whom they workand with those they seek to serve. Unfortunately, such “soft skills” are often given short shrift in the undergraduate curriculum[3]. As a 2015 study by Garibay suggests, it seems that within engineering and related fields, thisstrong focus on technical knowledge, and
. (Quan) Do you believe these assumptions exist? 4.The assumption that women in engineering are an exception and not the norm. Likert Scale: 1-Definitely Not 5.The assumption that in engineering ‘‘soft skills’’ (e.g., 2-Probably Not communication, teamwork) are under-valued. 3- Possibly 4-Very Probably 6. The assumption that diversity in engineering is under- 5- Definitely Yes valued. Participants were asked to watch a 7.5-minute video, which Video highlighted
participating with their facultymentors and to encourage the use of ePortfolios. Individual students work will with their facultymentors the create an Individual Education and Development Plan (IEDP) that provides a maptoward graduation and career [18], [19]. IEDPs will include the purpose and sequence of HIPs inwhich students participate. If students have a clearer idea of which soft skills they wish todevelop – such as problem solving and critical thinking, oral and written communication, teamwork, ethical perspective, leadership, emotional intelligence etc. [20], [21] – they could morepurposefully plan and engage in HIPs.In addition, ePortfolios could provide a useful way to strengthen the collective impact of theHIPs. In ePortfolios, students can
workforcedemands. Technological change, global competition, and the pandemic have combined to usherin and hasten the era of shop-floor digitalization and automation of manufacturing. Combinedwith a growing "silver tsunami” retirement and “Great Resignation” of skilled workers and thelack of a curricular emphasis on applied learning in some sectors [1] and we have now reachedcrisis level in a much-reduced pool of highly skilled, manufacturing-ready engineers available tomanufacturers.In addition to technical aptitude, there is growing demand from industry for engineeringgraduates to be equipped with professional or “soft” skills and abilities [1], [2]. “Moreover,engineers have recently begun to incorporate considerations such as sustainability
program. McAlexander, McCance, Blanchard, and Venditti, [33]examined internships in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector, i.e.,integrating placements into degree education. The results suggest that internships can improveemployability and provide a mechanism to obtain permanent jobs, as interns are predicted to becreative workers instead of “learning to labor.” They also reported that there was a small labormarket for undergraduates who possessed the necessary soft skills. The stress on soft skillsindicates a change in the character of ICT work, which has implications for the worker’seducation within this sector by linking employability to specific labor processes.3. MethodsTo obtain a deeper understanding of the required
technical course.The era of the “engineering technician” started to decline as more and more two-year graduateswere tasked with becoming field technicians that were required to maintain technical systems inthe field or were involved with the manufacturing process and final test of products in anindustrial environment (i.e. production technicians). In a manner similar to how four-year collegeprograms reacted, the technical education community at the two-year college level started toembrace similar elements of the Scans report [15] (usually, problem solving skills and life-longlearning) with efforts to infuse these so-called “soft skills” within the technology curriculum. Inany case, during the period preceding the Internet age, both two-year
systems.At the end of this period, the participants were allowed to perform mock interviews for GE's windindustry positions. These positions included engineering, fleet reliability & operations, andtechnician positions in the onshore and offshore wind industry. These interviews allowed theparticipants to see the various roles involved in the wind industry and improve their soft skills forfuture interviews.Program FeedbackThe RESC surveyed the participants both before and after their respective sessions. Before theirsession, the participants communicated their expectations and any concerns they might have priorto the program's start—many expressed interests in learning about how wind turbines function andperforming hands-on tasks. Many also
summer programmentors, compared to their colleagues who never mentored in any of the ERC summer programs.The whole and final version of the instrument will be presented at the conference.References[1] L. A. Ellis and A. K. Peterson, "A Way Forward: Assessing the Demonstrated Leadership of Graduate Civil Engineering and Construction Management Students," Leadership and Management in Engineering, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 88-96, 2011.[2] B. Ahn, M. F. Cox, J. London, O. Cekic and J. Zhu, "Creating an Instrument to Measure Leadership, Change, and Synthesis in Engineering Undergraduates," Journal of Engineering Education, vol. 103, no. 1, pp. 115-136, 2014.[3] S. Kumar and J. K. Hsiao, "Engineers learn "soft skills the hard way": Planting a
will be beneficial in advancing my skills.”• “The most important benefit was learning to tie in technical and soft skills into my past roles so that I can hit the brief of what the potential employer is looking for.”Similarly, at least three-quarters of post-conference survey respondents reported benefits ofattending the NSF RESET conference that aligned with the same three themes: inspiration,networks of support, and skills/knowledge acquisition. Respondents most frequently agreed thatthey had gained new skills or information that will help them advance their careers (87%), feltmore inspired about the opportunities ahead of them (85%), and increased their network (78%).Conclusion & Future WorkOverall, the NSF RESET conference met
today’s engineers8,9.The approach is used when teaching this course is to emphasize those qualities that will enable themto not only get a job but to have a rewarding career. Whether the individual remains at one company,or they change companies throughout their work career – through experiences there are threecharacteristics that are critical for continued growth and success in industry. These characteristicsare:Characteristics 1. Intelligence – the ability to be analytical, the ability to apply knowledge, and theability to acquire new knowledgeCharacteristic 2. Integrity - being honest, high morals and adherence to ethicsCharacteristic 3. Soft Skills – ability to communicate with a wide range of individuals from engineersto non-engineers, and
change in value of training from the private sector.An unspoken concept in STEM is its relation to business management. Involving business maybe a faux pa at the secondary level, but it strengthens competencies. An aspiring chemist, forexample, who studies industry trends may be of more value, especially at the doctorate level [34]and learning to read business information resources also improves research and literacy skills –that same chemist who knows about Porter’s Five Forces Model demonstrates aninterdisciplinary focus and a further degree of ambition. Students who learn an extended-level ofSTEM skills better appreciate what they themselves do for their industries.Furthermore, soft-skills are also noted as a significant benefit. A recent
entitled,"Increasing the Number of Workforce Ready Engineering Technicians in Southeastern PA” is acollaboration between Bucks credit and non-credit sides of the college, and Drexel University asour four-year partner. This grant focuses on workforce readiness of engineering technicians toprepare them for the workforce of the future. We are accomplishing this by including our Centerfor Workforce Development (CWD) certifications as additional pathways into our occupationalengineering technology (ET) major, enhancing manufacturing experiences within the major, andembedding soft skills training and career exploration throughout our ET program. We haverestructured our ET major to make it more cross-curricular to accommodate diverse industry needs,and
© American Society for Engineering Education, 2022 Powered by www.slayte.com Work in Progress: Development of a Project-Based Civil & Environmental Introductory CourseIntroductionTeaching “soft” skills to engineering students presents a unique set of challenges compared totechnical skills. Topics like technical writing and oral presentation are not commonly perceivedby students to be in the domain of engineering while most practicing engineers would disagree[1]. Communication skills are just one example of a range of professional skills outside ofdiscipline-specific skills that can aid new engineering graduates. Our civil and environmentalengineering (CEE) curriculum committee developed
innovation, development, leadership, soft skills, and technicaltraining [Genaro and Sara].Moreover, participants also considered training a critical initiative to increase women's involvementin mining areas. Pina suggested that women take technical courses, such as truck and crane operations.Sara proposed training programs in highly technical mining and metallurgy areas. For them, trainingis the way to improve the female technical force, also assuming the mining company has an attractivewage equity policy. [Pina, Sara and Genaro]The participants highlighted that training requires policies that promote adequate resources(economic, infrastructure and specialized personnel). The policies are the foundation for the programsthat promote access to
today (pp. 115-148). Springer, Cham, 2019.[7] D. M. Gilbuena et al, "Feedback on Professional Skills as Enculturation into Communities of Practice," J Eng Educ, vol. 104, (1), pp. 7-34, 2015. Available: https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/feedback-on-professional-skills-as-enculturation/docview/164 8596018/se-2?accountid=14749. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jee.20061.[8] C. G. P. Berdanier, "A hard stop to the term “soft skills”," Journal of Engineering Education, vol. 111, (1), pp. 14-18, 2022. Available: https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/hard-stop-term-soft-skills/docview/2616644108/se-2?account id=14749. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jee.20442.[9] D. Graeber, Bullshit Jobs: A
, teamwork is promoted. Consequently, engineering students are equippedwith the soft skills required to handle group dynamics. On the other hand, architecture studentsonly start to do collaborative work in their last semesters. At the beginning they only carry outindividual work with the intention to develop their own their personal design knowledge. Theprojects that are carried out in groups are of a maximum of 4 people compared to civilengineering where you can find teams of 5 to 6 participants. Working in bigger groups helpsindividuals know how to manage and organize people when carrying out collaborative work.Universities should stimulate individuals to cooperate with each other not only as a tool for thedevelopment of effective teamwork but
cognitiveknowledge, professional skills, and soft skills such as problem-solving and interdisciplinaryteamwork skills [14-15]. Project-based learning is an effective instructional technique thatimproves students' motivation and self-efficacy [16]. Some attributes of a project-based learning 2approach include a driving question, participation in educational activities, collaboration amongstudents, and the creation of tangible artifacts [17]. This section presents three different project-based learning examples utilized in classroom settings to help students understand manufacturingactivities in an industry 4.0 environment. The first case explores designing and developing amixed-model final assembly line for
graduate [23]. Moreover,this research indicates the LDP model is highly effective and positively impacts students’success in terms of academic performance, leadership and soft skills development, graduation,and career placement. We wanted to determine how effective the LDP model was during thepandemic.MethodsAn external program evaluation of the LDP was conducted independently each year using astudent survey comprised of three constructs: Leadership Self-Efficacy (LSE), Motivation toLead (MTL), and the Grit-8 Scale. LDP students typically spend two years in the program. New(first year) students in the LDP completed a pre-survey when entering the program at the start ofthe fall semester in years 2018-2020. After each year of the program, students
overwhelmingly positive in regards to howthe group prepares them for the workforce, how learning is shared within the group, and howthey felt like they belonged within the group.Figure 5: Survey results from 16 current and previous students’ responses were on a scalefrom 1-4: Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Agree, Strongly Agree5.1 Knowledge AcquisitionAs shown in Figure 6, the knowledge acquisition theme contained 3 different elements ofHIPs: significant effort and time by the students, students understanding the relevance oflearning, and display of competence to a wide audience. These 3 qualities of HIPs areexhibited throughout this section, which details how students are able to gain knowledge (i.e.technical and soft skills) applicable beyond the
withineffective team training [10, 19, 23]. Male and female students may have varying projectexperiences due to differing levels of confidence, self-efficacy, difficult team dynamics, orinequitable task division [24, 25]. Teams are not immune to the societal stereotype where menare seen as engineering “experts.” In these cases, women’s perspectives on engineering projectteams may not be valued. Women are frequently tasked with "soft-skill" assignments such asorganizational roles including taking notes and scheduling [26]. Similarly, while Hirshfield [25]found no statistically significant gender differences in speaking times while on a team,stereotypical gender roles and behaviors were present. Furthermore, women often foundthemselves have to display more
using code." • “I am able to analyze data using code and provide exploratory data analysis of big data sets." • “I am able to deliver an oral presentation of the algorithm in technical terms." • “I am able to demonstrate proficient use of modern computer tools for writing, presentation, project management, and group communication."Table 5: Descriptive statistics of mean, mode, median, and range of participants’ responses to thecomputing skills and soft skills questionnaires. The scores for each questionnaire were computedby averaging each participant’s Likert responses where 1 is strongly disagree and 5 is stronglyagree.Survey Descriptive Statistic Computer Science Skills Soft Skills Proficiency
; Mekala, S. (2020). Fostering 21st century skills in the students of engineering in ESL classroom. IUP Journal of Soft Skills, 14(2), 59-69.10. Lee, S., Lee, J., & Ahn, Y. (2019). Sustainable BIM-based construction engineering education curriculum for practice-oriented training. Sustainability, 11(21), 6120.11. Seemakula, M., Liao, G., Ellis, D., 2010, “Closing the Competency Gap in Manufacturing Processes As It Applies To New Engineering Graduates”, ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition.12. Jiang, Z., Caicedo, J. M., & Petrulis, R. (2020, June). An NSF REU Site with Integrated Academia-Industry Research Experience–Development, Implementation, and Lessons Learned. 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access.13
spring semesters, respectively. Thispaper presents course structure 1.0 and the preliminary data of student feedback on learningoutcomes of the first course that was completed in the fall semester of 2021.2. Methods An elective, two-semester course was offered by TTU WCOE—IE 4331: BiomedicalInnovation. The first semester (fall) prepared undergraduate students to identify, explore, andanalyze the authentic problem as well as develop soft skills necessary to effectivelycommunicate as team members. Team-based learning (TBL) was the instructional method usedto develop team communication, organize a specific sequence of individual and group work, andprovide immediate feedback and accountability for the learner [15]. TBL pedagogy differs fromthe
evolve, you continue to work in the space of ambiguity, which means you have to be able to adapt to all these things and all this information that's coming in to then sift through and find that solution.” [Manager 18, Promotion]Comfort Ability to navigate changing job roles, “…trying to tap on those soft skills is probablywith change situation, and responsibilities or change where adaptability would show through … some directions with comfort and ease of the
; Carberry, A. R. (2021, January). Practicing Engineers’ Definition of Their Expertise: Emergent Themes and Frequency by Gender Identity and Role Change into Management. In ASEE Annual Conference proceedings.[10] Miskioglu, E., Martin, K. M., Carberry, A. R., Bolton, C., & Caitlyn, A. (2021, January). Is it Rocket Science or Brain Science? Developing an Approach to Measure Engineering Intuition. In ASEE Annual Conference proceedings.[11] D. R. Laker and J. L. Powell, “The differences between hard and soft skills and their relative impact on training transfer,” Human Resource Development Quarterly, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 111–122, 2011, doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.20063.[12] Cech, T. R. (1999). Science at liberal