Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Graphics Technology at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN. c American Society for Engineering Education, 2020Design Activity Worksheets for Developing Research QuestionsAbstractDeveloping good research questions is a skill that develops over time and is often difficult forstudents. More often than not, it is up to the student to determine what to research. Where do Istart? What do I look for? Is this a good research question? These are just a few of the questionsstudents ask and should ask in the early stages of their research process. This work describes aprogressive plan for developing research questions using a series of four design activityworksheets to
has been integrating innovative and novel educational paradigms in STEM education to support student engagement, retention, and diversity.Prof. Omar Youssef, University of Arizona Dr. Omar Youssef is a Lecturer at University of Arizona (UofA), College of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture, and the School of Sustainable Built Environments. A Building Scientist in the Institute on Place and Wellbeing Performance. An Architecture Designer in Practice focusing on Environmental Application within the Industry. Dr. Youssef has extensive industry experience of constructed large-scale projects. Omar’s interdisciplinary background combines between Architecture Practice, Environmental Sciences, Health and
underrepresented faculty, more emphasis must be placed on building allies to develop a better community and institutional culture for underrepresented faculty. The critical mass theory states that roughly 30% of people are required to create an influential body for policy changes [7]. 2. Lack of strategic planning for early-career faculty towards coping with the demands of the academic career based on informed/realistic expectations [8]. There are many unsaid nuances to obtaining and keeping faculty positions, and due to implicit bias, and culture, sometimes it is difficult to know what to ask, whom to ask, or how to ask to get the information required for success. 3. Lack of encouraging URMs into the professoriate
training. Also, weexpected that through exposure and use of the divergent thinking methods during the courseproject, these effects would persist until the end of the course. Planned comparisons wereconducted between the pre-DTSD training, post-DTSD training, and end-of-course data usingpaired t-tests. In the summer semester, we found some evidence supporting these hypotheses. Wealso found a significant increase in CSE from pre-DTSD training and the end of the course,t(7)=5.33, p=.001, Δ=0.41. We found marginal evidence that CSE increased immediately after thetraining (i.e., pre-post comparison), t(7)=2.31, p=.054, Δ=0.24, and between the post-DTSDtraining and end-of-semester measurement point, t(7)=2.16, p=.068, Δ=0.17. For CPI, we foundmarginal
enhanced my ability for systematic planning in problem solving. 5. The project-based learning approach improved my confidence in solving engineering problems. 6. Working in a group for the design project helped me to improve teamwork skills. 7. This course encouraged me to be more of an “active learner” compared to other courses I take.Table 9. CMG250 Student Survey Summary (Followed by the Survey Question Sample) Survey Spring 2018 Spring 2019 Questions Strongly Agree Disagree Strongly Strongly Agree Disagree Strongly agree disagree agree disagree #1 76
sets.MethodParticipants & ProceduresThe survey was administered to undergraduate students. Three potential innovation styles (as anoutcome, a process, and a mindset) were tested before and after program intervention andcompared with the control group. The intervention group is students who enrolled to the pilotcourse of the Engineering and Business Innovation Experience. In contrast, the control group isthose who had neither took this course before nor had any prior experiences with similar courses.The innovation team began to collect the Wave 1 data in Fall 2019 and plans to collect Wave 2data in late Spring 2020. In addition, students will be surveyed each semester as they progressthrough their studies, and each year new cohorts will join the study. Since
(ANSAC) and Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC),respectively. These programs follow an “Introduce, Reinforce, Master” curriculum map as partof the assessment plan where each student learning outcome (SLO) is assessed in at least threecourses of different levels, so that each SLO is assessed at each of the three levels (introduced,reinforced, and mastered). We seek to effectively assess, at the introductory level, the proposedANSAC SLO (5) and the new EAC SLO (4) with a series of case studies and a rubric in ourintroductory physics course. There are two primary difference between the SLOs from the twocommissions. Firstly, the EAC requires that the students recognize while the ANSAC requiresthat the students understand ethical and
milk scandal as aprototypically unethical behavior. However, there might be other incidents similarly impactful tospecific national groups, for instance, the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill. Further, rather thanconceiving of unethical behaviors as ones by companies affecting people and the public, USparticipants might be more likely to conceive of unethical behaviors in terms of the intentions ofindividuals.[27] Interestingly, the term “justice” was not used to respond to either prompt –“rights,” “fair,” and “unfair” comprised only small nodes in the why network. Towards this end,the authors plan to explore website data using theories from moral psychology, for instance,Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) and the developmental stages/schema
inthe engineering curriculum, the projects were completed in single classes.In this study, a PBL approach is implemented by developing projects in a series of requiredcourses in a Mechanical Engineering curriculum. The projects assigned in each course are relatedand planned to build up the knowledge and skills needed to develop a successful senior designproject or capstone project. In implementing the approach, the instructor identifies the topic orproblem to be proposed as a senior design project. In the first of the sequential courses, anexperimental measurements laboratory course, a project is assigned regarding a sensor that couldbe used in the senior design project. In the second of the sequential courses, a thermal-fluidslaboratory course
unlikely, it illustrates a concrete connection between thereading and the student’s planning. Figure 1. Student responses about planned future actions placed in quadrants reflecting specificity of topic vs specificity or ambiguity of proposed future action.The final theme was the diversity of topical themes. Emerging technology was a common themeand many of the entries included references to nanotechnology and artificial intelligence. Othertechnologies mentioned less frequently were autonomous vehicles and cybernetics. Relationshipswere also discussed at length with many student engineers focusing on friends and family.Several of the student engineers explicitly tied work-life balance to their relationships with theirfriends and
Completed by Adjunct FacultyAdditionally, participants noted a need for improved access to course materials for planning andpreparation purposes. One participant suggested that the availability of an online syllabirepository accessible by adjunct faculty, on-demand would allow them to not only prepare forfuture course assignments earlier but also suggest additional courses they would like to becomecleared to teach. Others suggested that the contact with the course monitor (or course-specificPOC) for any issues or questions related to the courses can be difficult.There were also several comments that scheduling related issues impacted adjunct facultypreparation- i.e. short lead time between assignment and class start, frequency of assignment
academic accomplishments.• Be wary for how students cheat. Once a method of cheating is identified, create a solution that does not allow this type of cheating in the future. Figure 4: A sample of academic policies that can be added to course syllabiCheating during examsCheating on exams can be either opportunistic or planned. Here are a few tips to preventcheating during exams-• Questions asked on the exams should never be repeated from previous semesters. In this technologically advanced era, do not ever recycle your exams.• Questions from textbooks and publisher text banks should be altered to avoid students copying from a solution manual that is readily available online.• If possible, at least two different sets of exams
courses did not appear to deteriorate over the semester and 80% of thestudents planned to take the next course in the physics sequence. Additionally, more than half ofthe students could see themselves as an engineer or scientist. [13]In another peer mentoring program, the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) program atSyracuse University implemented a mentoring program focused on helping women graduatestudents in engineering and computer science and Arts and Sciences, designed to address thedrop-off of women in engineering at the graduate level. The program helped address barriers ofisolation and the lack of successful women role models at the graduate level. [14]Another graduate peer mentoring program was implemented in a research-oriented
that they had discussed individual graduation plans, as compared to61% of generally satisfied students.While we acknowledge the limitations of the data set and our choice not to carry out inferentialstatistics, it appears from this limited response that discussion of college admissions andindividual graduation plans is central to students feeling satisfied with the support they are Figure 4 Topics discussed with guidance counselors as reported by students completing the Statewide Survey in Fall 2019 (n = 257). Percentages sum to more than 100% as students could select all that applied. The “Dissatisfied Group” consists of the 85 respondents who indicated that meetings with guidance counselors were helpful never
result from thesedata (Table 9) is that half of faculty find a conflict between achieving tenure and maintaining awork-life balance. While this may be of no surprise to some, it shows that for many tenure trackand recently tenured faculty are sacrificing personal balance for their profession. We hope thatthese data can spur conversations regarding appropriate work-life balance in various programsacross the country.In summary, these data highlight the similarities and potential differences in time commitments,expectations, and impediments as they relate to tenure across different ABET accreditedmechanical engineering programs in the United States. Specific methods to assist tenure trackfaculty in planning, managing expectations, and developing
later on. Lastly, itshould be noted that the regression coefficient value was small (.09). Because we do not knowthe exact reason for this positive coefficient, more detailed investigations are needed before suchan intervention is recommended.The current analysis is limited to a single cohort at a single university. We plan to replicate thisstudy using additional cohorts as part of our future work.Conclusions and Future WorkThis paper presented an elastic-net regression analysis of non-cognitive factors to predictengineering retention for students who received a C in mathematics. We found that of the eightfactors measured in an annual survey, value interest and text anxiety were significant predictorsof first-year retention. Results indicate
, and trust/ trustworthiness in professional-client relationships. A licensed engineer with over 35 years experience in engineering education and practice, Dr. Lawson has provided project management and technical oversight for geotechnical, construction ma- terials, transportation, environmental, and facilities projects nationwide.Ms. Heather R. Keister PE, Freese and Nichols Heather Keister is a Senior Project Manager and FNI Associate, overseeing the firm’s Lubbock office, with experience in many aspects of civil planning, design and construction. Her background includes drainage analysis and design, transportation, infrastructure, development and public works projects, with a focus in stormwater management and
green energymanufacturing integrated with virtual reality (VR) in the Department of Engineering Technologyat Drexel University. Since green energy manufacturing is defined as “a system that integratesproduct and process design issues with issues of manufacturing planning and control in such amanner as to identify, quantify, assess, and manage the flow of environmental waste in materialsand energy with the goal of reducing and ultimately minimizing environmental impact whilemaximizing resource efficiency,” increased environmental consciousness among manufacturingindustries helps to foster new techniques for streamlining processes and increased reusability [1-4]. Connecting manufacturing devices and aggregating the data created is enabling
from kindergarten through higher education [6] and established theRight Question Institute specifically to address this educational goal [7, 8].The QFT has six core components [7]: 1. Determining a question focus that is the topic in which the student will write about whether this is self-chosen or pre-determined by the instructors. 2. Producing questions using a set of four rules that essentially allows the student to ask what is of particular interest to them about the question focus without limitation or judgement. 3. Identifying closed and open-ended questions, and how to use them appropriately. 4. Selection of priority questions. 5. Planning how to continue after the questions have been
and micro-manufacturing. His current research interests include robotics, CIM, sus- tainable manufacturing, micro machining and engineering and technology education. He has published several papers in these areas in various national and international conferences and journals. He has worked in heavy and light manufacturing industries, manufacturing pumps, motors, and CNC machine tools in the areas of system design, production planning, and control and manufacturing. Edinbarough also served in paramilitary forces and in the Air Force. He is a Life Member of the ISTE, a senior life member of the IE (India), a member of ASEE and SME, and a licensed Professional Engineer (P.E.) in the state of Texas.Dr. Aditya Akundi, The
horizontally with required foundational courses aswell as their place in the vertical scaffold of experimentation skills. This is followed by an assess-ment of the first offering of the course and a discussion of plans for future improvement.Mechanics Lab Outcomes, & ActivitiesThe Mechanics Lab course is the first course of an enhanced experimental methods sequence forthe Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering undergraduate curricula, designed to give studentshands-on experiential learning to complement theoretical courses such as Statics, Dynamics, andStrengths of Materials. It is the intent that students gain experience in teamwork, experimentdesign, and technical communication during this course in addition to seeing practical applicationsfor
aNSF-funded grant project. During the planning phase, the team reached out to students regardingtopic preferences and found that students wanted to improve their soft skills. With student andemployer interests aligned, the team set out to determine how effective the incorporation ofprofessional development opportunities into the scholarship program were at increasing thestudents’ soft skills.With this information and background, the team proposed that each STEM student participantdescribe how effective the one-hour professional development webinars were in improving theirown soft skills ability. The researchers believe that the exposure to these skills will raiseawareness and motivate students to improve and develop their soft skills. This
Graduation Rates for Cohorts Starting in Mechanical Engineering in Fall 2010-Fall 2014. URM= Under-represented minority, First-Gen = First Generation college students.Therefore, a group of faculty in the Mechanical Engineering department collaborated with ourinstitution’s Center for Teaching Excellence on an initiative which allows us access toinstitutional data to help drive action plans to address these important issues. Through thisinitiative, our department is working to understand student success in our programs, particularlyfor females, under-represented minorities, and first-generation college students. The goal of thisinitial project was to better understand where we stand as a department in terms of success forthese students, develop
at Dallas Copyright © 2017, American Society for Engineering Education 2017 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Section Annual ConferenceWith regards to the overall program experience, the majority of students perceived the NMSUPREP program as a positive experience. As a result, 96% of the students were willing torecommend the NMSU PREP program to a friend and 76% were interested in coming back nextyear.Another goal of the NMSU PREP program is to enhance students’ awareness about engineeringcareer opportunities and possibilities. Once again, the program showed potential in this regard,with 73% of the students interested in pursuing a career in STEM. In addition, 67% of thestudents planned to participate in STEM
“ecosystem” of teaching, research, and service.Most departments will allow a newly hired faculty member to teach at least one course in theirspecialization. The students who take such a course will have acquired enough competence towrite software components for a system, or can carry out analyses that are useful in research.When planning such a course, think about projects that can • be used in your research (e.g., can help collect or analyze data, or serve as test beds for research ideas), • provide the students with the background that they need in order to begin research with you (e.g., become familiar with your experiments, your data, or your analysis software), • keep the students engaged with the material after the
. As a K- 8 pre-service teacher educator, she includes engineering in her elementary and early childhood science methods courses and developed and taught an engineering methods course for middle school teachers. She also developed a graduate-level engineering education course for PreK-6 teachers. Dr. Lottero has provided professional learning experiences in multiple schools and school systems in Maryland. She has co-authored numerous engineering-focused articles for the teacher practitioner journal, Science and Children, and presents her research regularly through the American Society for Engineering Education. Her current research includes investigating how K-5 students plan, fail, and productively persist, and how
constructability on contract drawings and practical design. To do this,Schemmel introduced a laboratory project in the reinforced concrete design course; studentswere divided into groups of four on the first day of class and the project made each groupresponsible for designing, fabricating, and testing an 8 ft long beam. The students also assigned acost to their effort via a wage scale and invoices; projects that were completed behind schedulereceived a wage decrease. The students were assessed using a written report and oralpresentation. Schemmel reported that the educational benefits of the project outweighed thesignificant time spent by the faculty and students planning and implementing the project. Matsumoto [14] implemented a project-based
researchquestion: How and to what extent do upper-elementary teachers verbally support students’engagement with engineering practices across diverse classroom contexts in an NGSS-alignedintegrated science unit? Classroom audio data was collected daily and coded to analyze supportthrough different purposes of teacher talk. Results reveal the purpose of teachers’ talk oftenvaried between the class sections depending on the instructional activity and indicate thatteachers utilized a variety of supports toward students’ engagement in different engineeringpractices. In one class, with a large percentage of students with individualized educational plans,teachers provided more epistemic talk about the engineering practices to contextualize theparticular
by the instruction to “draw acreative sketch” was not standardized; nor were the results of the assessments provided tostudents. To improve understanding of expectations in future iterations, it is planned to providethe rubric to students at the start of the term and provide feedback to them as the term progresses.Although assessment bias could not be eliminated from the sketch assessments, a deliberateeffort was made to ensure all instructors were assessing the sketches according to the samestandard. Three civil engineering instructors met to discuss the sketch assessment rubric andmetrics to ensure there was a common understanding of how sketches should be assessed. Thethree instructors then independently assessed all sketches using the
results of UMBC’s programs are morethan just a result of coincidence, but a willingness to acknowledge the need for change, and thestrategic actuation of that change.The first step was identifying challenges within the existing culture. Thus, the campus cultureneeded to be defined prior to setting plans for change. This was done through severalconversations, meetings, and focus groups with all parties in order to develop a foundation ofunderstanding and acceptance. It should be noted that many of these conversations wereuncomfortable, but necessary for identifying root challenges within the institution. In thisexample, it was shown that on the surface, the challenge was that students were not performingwell in their engineering classes at UMBC