Conference Session

Issues for ET Administrators

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

H. Oner Yurtseven

mathematics faculty member or an electrical engineeringfaculty member knows what hoops to jump through to get to the promised land of tenure.Their peers who will make the recommendation to grant or reject promotion and/ortenure all seem to know what it takes to vote for or against the candidate.In a typical university setting, as the lay of the land for a newly hired engineering orscience faculty member is presented and expectations are spelled out, and the necessaryresources such as laboratory space, equipment for experimental research, computer setup, release time, graduate and/or undergraduate student assistance, etc., are provided.Thus, the necessary elements of meeting a set of expectations are spelled out and anunwritten contract is agreed upon

Conference Session

Design, Assessment, and Curriculum

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Betsy Aller; Andrew Kline

demonstratedesign knowledge, students recognize the faux nature of these assignments. 3, 4, 5 Numerousstudies have concluded that students execute communication activities with greater motivationand meaning when situated in actual industry settings. 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 Further, recent quantitativeresearch on the actual writing practices and values of working engineers suggests that the typesand nature of documents most often assigned in typical design courses—proposals and reports—do not accurately reflect current industry practice, and do not fully prepare students for theirwriting tasks after graduation. 9 Thus, both the writing contexts and the writing assignments aresubstantially different in the design course reviewed, and include summaries, meeting

Conference Session

Web Based Laboratories and Classes

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Helen Grady

, showing interrelationships distinguish, examine, experiment, identify, inventory, justify, organize, present, question, resolve, select, separate, test Synthesis - bringing together Alter, argue, arrange, assemble, change, collect, combine, compose, parts of knowledge to form a construct, create, derive, design, develop, discuss, expand, extend, whole and solve a problem formulate, generalize, manage, modify, organize, plan, prepare, propose, rearrange, recombine, reconstruct, regroup, relate, restate, reorder, set up, summarize, synthesize, write Evaluation - making Agree, appraise, argue, assess, assume

Conference Session

Hunting for MINDs

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Liz Oshaughnessy; Barbara Goldberg

%. This represents an increase of approximately 6% in the pastfew years. Within the electronics program, however, the number is less than 10%. Womenfrequently find themselves enrolled in classes where there are 3 or fewer other women in a groupof approximately 40 students. Women enrolling in these programs enter with GPAs andentrance exam scores equivalent to their male peers. The impetus for the research was whether ornot they perceived that they were treated as equals once they were enrolled. Did they findthemselves accepted by their male counterparts? Did they perceive that faculty members had thesame expectations of success for them? Socially, did they feel comfortable? Did they perceivethat they were subject to gender discrimination or

Conference Session

Trends in Mechanical Engineering

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Wendy Reffeor; Jeffrey Ray

theoretical results, students were required totroubleshoot their experiment to determine the cause of the error. In most cases the studentswere required to fix any errors and perform the experiment again to ensure accurate results. Insome cases, due to single run nature of the apparatus or extreme difficulty in fixing errors,students were allowed to simply explain differences without fixing them.Students documented the entire project in a report which was evaluated for technical accuracyand writing skills. Students were required to complete well-written reports, properly referencing Page 7.654.3 Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for

Conference Session

Teaching Entrepreneurship to Engineers

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Jacquelyn Sullivan; Lawrence Carlson

patentsearches that guide their designs, learning the difference between an idea and an opportunity,forecasting profitability, understanding the real costs of raising capital, and estimatingmanufacturing costs.Teamwork is essential for product development success. Methods to stimulate and developeffective teams will be discussed. Additionally, course assessment techniques and tools will bepresented, including pre- and post-course evaluation of both engineering and entrepreneurialknowledge and skills.To help alleviate the end-of-semester “crunch” characteristic of product development courses,and to promote more professionally crafted product and market documentation, we will describea method that helps teams write a high-quality, comprehensive Design

Conference Session

Tricks of the Trade Inside the Classroom

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

John Gumaer

exam experiences asstudents with exam techniques used by their peers to arrive at a workable exam. The results maybe unsatisfactory. Knowing a subject and knowing how to write an exam to test knowledge of asubject are two separate matters. The goals of an effective student examination are to understandstudent mastery of course content, minimize grading time to improve feedback ("turnaround")time, and to reduce the potential for arbitration and complaints due to student misunderstandingsand confusion. An effective examination has the following characteristics 1: 1. Samples the spectrum of important objectives 2. Measures examinee's understanding or ability to apply concepts 3. Perceived as a fair test by students successfully

Conference Session

Global Engineering in an Interconected World

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Jørgen Hansen; Arvid Andersen

university, and people in education seem to agree, that it is important to teach ourstudents: 1.To be trustworthy and responsible. 2. Not to be afraid to tackle problems on theirown 3. To communicate without ambiguity and to listen actively (empathic listening). 4. Howto find and select relevant material from what is often a bewildering pile of data andinformation 5. To read, speak and write English. 6. To work in teams. Students often becomefrustrated since they find it hard to understand how to make an original, worthwhile andpersonal contribution from reading all the relevant information found. However, M.Finneston provided in “Engineering our Future” H.S.M.O., London, 1980, a stimulus. Doingteamwork is more than ever a skill required to be able

Conference Session

ECE Laboratory Development and Innovations

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Daniel Beenfeldt; John Field; Eric Beenfeldt; Edward Williams

selected sophomores ar e employed to assist in lab. This helpsthese top students become associated with the Department and gives them a chance to reinforceconcepts learned the previous year. It is also a great opportunity for the first -year students torelate to the peer teachers, particularly since the peer teachers are only one year ahead of them.The class meets Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings for 50 minutes. Additionally, thereis a weekly 3-hour lab (four sections are offered with 20-24 students in each). We try to usevery little straight lecturing in the lecture classes. We agree with Felder 5 that lectures do notwork as well as we may have once hoped or expected. So frequently, instead of long lectures,we briefly present a concept

Conference Session

Capstone Mechanical Engineering Design

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Darrell Gibson; Patricia Brackin

, design reports alone have been the method by which the students’ performance isjudged in typical capstone design courses. However, this limits the ability of the faculty to determinethe students’ interaction with their companies and also with their peers. The desire to evaluateteaming skills as well as technical competence led the authors to investigate different approaches forassessing student learning. In this paper, the authors demonstrate the use of company evaluations,status reports, student self-assessments, peer reviews, and oral reports, as well as design reports toquantify student performance both as team members and design engineers. These methods will bediscussed and examples presented showing how the results can be used to improve

Conference Session

Knowing Students:Diversity and Retention

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

John Demel

Program (IEP) and the Freshman EngineeringHonors (FEH) Program. These new programs retain part of the traditional material but add inhands-on laboratory experiences that lead to reverse engineering and design/build projects. Therelational practices – teamwork and project management, along with report writing and oralpresentations and ethics have assumed important roles in this program. The programs aredesigned to have faculty from all of the degree granting departments teach freshmen. Theseprograms were developed to improve the retention and early decision to stay or leave for newfreshmen and to lay a foundation to better address some of the ABET 2000 accreditation criteria.Retention has improved markedly. This paper provides a brief description

Conference Session

Issues of Concern to New Faculty

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Richard Bannerot

quantitative measure of the closeness of theapproach to the various goals.Group FormationSome design educators think that team membership should be determined randomly,while others argue that an effort should be made to create teams of equal capability.Some believe that students could be teamed with peers on their own academic level inorder to minimize frustration and keep the workload in balance, or with peers ofcompatible personality using the results of psychological testing such as the Myers-Briggs test (more on Myers-Briggs later). Some believe that students should be free toselect their co-workers. Most of our students work either full or part time and do not livenear the University. In a city as spread out as Houston, relative geographic

Conference Session

ASEE Multimedia Session

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Steven Schreiner

particular section, fitting their own teaching style and allowing greater buy-in and usage byboth instructor and students.The course evaluation included an opinion survey of the students’ reaction to the onlinecomponents and an investigation of server statistics. These data show that Manhattan: aidedstudent learning; increased professor to student communication, facilitated grading and returningof computer-based student work, aided freshmen academic advising, and improved coordinationof the course between professors. Somewhat surprisingly, the students did not utilize the peer-to-peer communication tools (available to individuals and teams) to the level expected. Overall, wehave successfully balanced the integration of on-line communication into a

Conference Session

Novel Classroom Environments

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Julie Jessop

Proposal Writing” graduate course this past summer. Our goals duringthis three-day class period were: - To define the creative process - To identify techniques that enhance creativity - To practice idea generation and critical thinking skills in controlled settingsThis segment helps smooth the transition between the undergraduate mentality of “teach me” tothe desired graduate student mentality of “enable me”. It attempts to demystify the creativeprocess, which most people associate with inspired moments and geniuses, so that students candeliberately foster an atmosphere that will help them generate new research ideas.Course History“Introduction to Literature Review and Proposal Writing” was first developed two years ago as

Conference Session

Freshman Success/Retention Strategies

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

William Wild; Michael Ryan

provides a means of directing students to appropriate-level coursesand special programs and establishes realistic goals to be achieved in order for the studentto succeed in the program.Other important retention-related student needs include providing students with a realisticvision of the engineering profession, a sense of belonging to the program, imparting self-management skills for academic success, providing opportunity for peer interaction, andproviding a framework for the processing of the transition experience from high school tocollege.A student success (retention) program has been recently instituted by the School ofEngineering and Applied Sciences at the University at Buffalo. Components of theprogram include a new model for admission

Conference Session

ET Capstone Courses

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Hamid Khan

learning must be identified at the very outset of theprogram design. This will consist of: 1. The student will identify an engineering problem 2. The student will write the goals and objectives of the project or investigation 3. The student will develop completion and performance criteria of the project 4. The student will demonstrate knowledge of theories to best apply to the project 5. The student will write the specification of assessment methods for each phase of the project Page 7.1107.2Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition Copyright © 2002

Conference Session

Engrng Edu;An International Perspective

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Hamid Khan

to the project 5. The student will write the specification of assessment methods for each phase of the project 6. The student will conduct and manage proper peer evaluation of the project in class with the help of the instructor 7. The student will collect feedback of evaluation from the peer and instructor to continuously improve the project till completion 8. Finally, the student will publish for the class the final evaluation resulting in the cognitive, affective and psychomotor outcomes as suggested by the following instrument.The outcomes in the higher-level cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains are to bewritten by the student after the completion of each phase of the project using the

Conference Session

Knowing Students:Diversity and Retention

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Mary Cummings

an engineering career, only 12% of LD malesexpressed the same interest. Interestingly, 2% of women with learning disabilities wereinterested in a career in engineering, which was the same percentage as the interested womenwithout a learning disability.The 1997 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) defines learning disabilities as “adisorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or inusing language, spoken or written, which may manifest itself in imperfect ability to listen, think,speak, read, write, spell or do mathematical calculations…The term does not include a learningproblem which is primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor handicaps, of mentalretardation, of emotional

Conference Session

Freshman Curriculum Development

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Rita Caso; Jeff Froyd; Jan Rinehart; Ahmer Inam; Ann Kenimer; Carolyn Clark; Jim Morgan

. As the foundation for new curricula, A&Mdeveloped LCs. At A&M, a LC is a group of students, faculty and industry that have commoninterests and work as partners to improve the engineering educational experience. LCs valuediversity, are accessible to all interested individuals, and bring real world situations into theengineering classroom. The key components of A&M engineering LCs at are: (1) clustering ofstudents in common courses; (2) teaming; (3) active/coopera tive learning; (4) industryinvolvement; (5) technology-enhanced classrooms; (6) peer teachers; (7) curriculum integration;(8) faculty team teaching; and (9) assessment and evaluation. This presentation will use bothquantitative and qualitative assessment methods to try

Conference Session

Internet Programming and Applications

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Ralph Droms; John Jantzi; Daniel Hyde; Brian Hoyt; Xiannong Meng; Maurice Aburdene

is connected to a PCrunning IP telephony software, the IP phone can act as a regular telephone. The peer can beanother IP phone or a regular telephone. We have obtained good quality communication in thelab. We could not tell the difference between the regular telephone service and the serviceprovided by IP phone. VoIP allows students: –to test Quality of Service –to test jitter –to understand multicast technologies –to combine video, phone, and data to a single device –to become familiar with state of the art network technologiesParallel Programming•Mandelbrot Plots: Many problems require the compute power of more than one machine. Onesuch problem is the computing of Mandlebrot plots. As a demonstration, we used

Conference Session

Mobile Robotics in Education

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Thomas Morel

simulation.Positive short-term impact on the students taking the course has been substantial, and while thelong-term impact has yet to be measured, it also has the potential to be substantial. Members ofthe faculty at West Point developed a Java-based programming environment for the LEGOMindStorms robot called Jago. Jago combines the object -oriented Java language with the LEGOMindStorms robot and enables students to write programs in Ja va that will run in a graphicsimulator that can be executed on their own machines. Jago enables the students to see theiralgorithmic solutions, which helps students to more easily grasp what is happening versus a text -based solution. The cadets are clearly excited to use these learning tools. We have also addedlessons that

Conference Session

Assessment in EM Education

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Sami Ainane; Janet Schmidt; Gary Pertmer

Education chairs an annualmeeting where program activities are reviewed and “best practices” shared among representativesof the college. ABET accredited programs are required to write a two page update of their on-going activities in preparation for this regular meeting.III. Keeping the Flame Alive in Mechanical Engineering The Mechanical Engineering program review and assessment process consists of differentactivities, see figure 1. These activities include continuous assessment by two faculty committeesof the teaching/learning process in the Department, continuous assessment by individual faculty aswell as faculty groups in specific areas, continuous assessment by the Department Chair and theDirector of Undergraduate Studies, and

Conference Session

Trends in Mechanical Engineering

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Sudhir Mehta

improves important skills such as analyzing and solving open -ended, real-world problems; finding, evaluating, and using appropriate learning resources;working cooperatively in teams; and communicating effectively, verbally and in writing. Ourstudy, like many other studies, also indicates that there was no gain in students’ performance onstandard tests and exams, and more research is needed. However, it is important to note thatstudents’ performance on the standard tests and exams did not decline either. Based on theabove results, we are planning to increase the number of PBL exercises in the measurementscourse with the support from the NSF and industry.IntroductionThe Boyer Commission’s report from the Carnegie Foundation, “Reinventing

Conference Session

Interdisciplinary Approach to Env. Engrg

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Maya Place; Markus Flury; Jennifer Shaltanis; Geoff Puzon; Brent M. Peyton; James Petersen; Candis Claiborn

, activelearning is emphasized, rather than relying on conventional lecture format. These coursesachieve several objectives: 1) they introduce students to approaches to scientific problems thatthey may not have encountered in their own discipline; 2) they leave students with an awarenessof how a multidisciplinary viewpoint can improve research; 3) they sharpen students’ criticalthinking skills; and 4) they expand the students’ resource bases by exposing the trainees to anetwork of “experts” outside their own disciplines. As the students participate in these activities,they develop relationships with their peers from other disciplines, view alternative approaches toenvironmental problems, and develop collaborations with researchers from other areas.2

Conference Session

NSF Grantees Poster Session

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Lee Tuttle; Charles White; Gwan-Ywan Lai; Trevor Harding

to help the instructor and evaluator determine theimpact of the course on these important competencies. For example, assessment of teamworkskills will involve three separate evaluations: instructor, peer and self evaluation. Instructor levelassessment will involve observation of both the formal and informal cooperative learning groupsduring in-class exercises. The data from these observations can be tracked during the term toidentify whether an improvement has been made. Peer evaluation will be accomplished througha form that students will fill out at the mid-term mark and at the end of the term. Self evaluationwill be more qualitative as students are asked to reflect on their performance as a team memberby writing in their academic journals

Conference Session

Educational Opportunities in Engr. Abroad

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Philip Snow; George Williams; Karen Williams

the travel to Brasil begins in late Novemberwhile Union is on break so students do not miss any required classes. The program hasthree parts: (1) a pre-seminar in the Fall term for introducing the Portuguese language andproviding background material on the culture and history of Brasil, (2) a three and one-half week visit to three Brasilian cities: Sao Paulo, Sao Carlos, and Rio; and (3) a followup seminar in the Winter term for writing and orally presenting a research paper. Eachteam is expected to present their paper to the college community at the Union CollegeSteinmetz Symposium in the following Spring term.E. Brasil Mini-Term CalendarThe activities for the students include unscheduled time so that they can explore parts ofBrasil on their

Conference Session

Teaching Teaming Skills Through Design

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

John Feland

student teams. The peer assessment appears in the figure below: Page 7.275.8 Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright Ó 2002, American Society for Engineering Education Please write the names of all of your team members, INCLUDING YOURSELF, and rate the degree to which each member fulfilled his/her responsibilities in completing the homework assignments. Sign your name at the bottom. The possible ratings are as follows: Excellent Consistently went above and beyond, tutored teammates, and routinely went above and beyond the basic team

Conference Session

Understanding Students: Cognition

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Cindy Finelli

typical type of engineering quiz consists of a series of problems for the student to solve. Forexample, consider a traditional quiz problem in an introductory signals and systems course: • [10 points] Compute the convolution between {u(t) – u(t–4)} and u(t–3).The student is required to recall the formula for convolution and to work through the details ofthe problem. This type of problem is often presented in a timed situation with little opportunityfor the student to reflect on his or her knowledge base.In this study, the standard quiz was modified by including a preliminary exercise (Part A) inwhich the student demonstrated his or her knowledge about the concept by writing as much asthey knew about the given topic. After this part was

Conference Session

Hunting for MINDs

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Kisha Johnson; Grace Mack; John Wheatland

institution. The greater the academic andsocial integration, the greater the student’s institutional and goal commitment and the greater theprobability the student will persist. Studies conducted by Pascarella and Chapman3, Pascarellaand Terenzini5, and Terenzini and Pascarella7 to test the validity of Tinto’s model generallysupport the relationship between social integration and persistence, particularly at four-yearresidential institutions and for women. These and other studies have concluded that Tinto’smodel has “reasonable predictive power in explaining variance in freshman yearpersistence/voluntary withdrawal”4Social integration is the result of “informal peer group associations, semi-formal extra-curricular

Conference Session

Knowing Students:Diversity and Retention

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Eric Soulsby

-time college students who were employed rose from 36% in 1973 to 69% in 1995/96. Those working 20 hours or more increased from 17% to 37%. · In the fall of 1995, 81% of public 4-year colleges and 100% of public 2-year colleges offered remedial programs. Of all first-time freshman twenty-nine percent took at least one remedial course (24% math, 17% writing, and 13% reading). · In 1997, just 34% of freshmen reported having spent six or more hours per week studying during their senior year in high school, an all-time low (compared to 44% in 1987). In fact, the average student spent only 3.8 hours per week in 1997, down from 4.9 hours in 1987. · Freshmen