, more immediate feedback tostudents on the quality of their code.2 IntroductionResearch and experience from industry have demonstrated that code review and following goodcoding practices are important parts of writing maintainable software 1 . Consequently, goodcoding style is an important learning goal of computer science courses. This is often achieved byevaluating student code by hand using a set of style criteria. This process is difficult to scale forlarge courses. In particular, having more submissions to grade increases the time it takes forstudents to receive feedback on their work. Static analysis tools offer a possible solution to thisproblem. Our goal is to determine which style grading criteria can be effectively automated
the capabilities of those with disability who were employees, anddemonstrating that recycling was a viable option for a supported employment business.The project’s outcomes were such that 1) This community-relevant humanitarian project helpedto keep those with disability gainfully employed; 2) Student interaction with those with disabilitychanged student mindsets; 3) Real-world engineering skills and teamwork were required tobalance customer needs, worker ability, cost, maintainability and appropriate technology; 4)Students learned that engineering depended as much on artistry as on science and technology; 5)A wide mix of student disciplines participated, with 59% being female; 6) While at the start ofeach semester, few if any students had
; a United States Air Force general recently stated, “Our current defense acquisitionsystem applies industrial age processes to solve information age problems [1].”Emergent behaviors (wanted, unwanted, and unanticipated) are particularly difficult to managewith traditional systems engineering approaches. Although functional decomposition and relateddeconstructive approaches are useful, they fail to fully manage interactions. As David Cohen,Director of Naval Air Systems Command’s Systems Engineering Department, recently stated:“We have been using Newtonian systems engineering. We need quantum or string theorysystems engineering to manage modern system development [2].” Model-Based SystemsEngineering (MBSE) is one solution to this
and Post-doctoral Fellows for Diverse Career OptionsIntroductionTraditional engineering doctoral programs prepare students for the professoriate; however, veryfew go on to secure tenure-track, faculty positions [1, 2]. In Canada, 14.7% of engineering PhDgraduates (including architecture and related technologies) are employed as full-time universityprofessors [1]. The majority find employment in a wide range of sectors including research anddevelopment, manufacturing, health care, and government [2, 3]. In comparison to other fields ofstudy, engineering PhDs are more likely to be employed outside the academy [1, 4]. PhDs arenot pursuing academic jobs due to a lack of tenure-track positions, changing research interests,lucrative opportunities
Place of HomeworkAbstractDo online quizzes with immediate feedback promote better student learning than homeworkassignments for upper level engineering classes? A junior-level Environmental Engineering classwas reworked to use multiple-choice quizzes in a learning management system rather than paperhomework. Similar approaches have shown encouraging improvement in student motivation [1],in providing feedback to students [2] and in exam performance [3]. An objective for using thisapproach in Environmental Engineering was to allow the students to receive immediate feedbackon their skills. For example, in calculating the pH of a composite water sample (with somesimplifying assumptions), there are common mistakes that students make that will lead
and formulas than more advanced topics, such as integration andinterpolation.IntroductionSpreadsheets are common in home and professional life from budget spreadsheets to engineeringcalculations. Leveraging the ability to efficiently organize, calculate, and plot, spreadsheets havebecome commodities after decades of use. While the history of spreadsheets centers on MicrosoftExcel as computer software, e.g., [1], the growth of open source and online spreadsheets, such asGoogle Sheets, fuels the current growth and ubiquity of spreadsheets.Spreadsheet education and training resources are abundant on the Internet. Any web search usingterms such as spreadsheet, excel, or MS Excel yield hundreds or thousands of online resources,many free of charge
technology medium. This comparison may shedlight on how ‘technology neutral’ CT can be, versus how much technology influences problem-solving.MethodsParticipants and Context This study involved one first grade class in a Title 1 school located in the Midwest. Theselected classroom of 18 participants had recently completed an integrated STEM, literacy, andcomputational thinking unit as part of our NSF STEM+C grant. The class engaged in two half-day computational thinking lessons developed for use in a first-grade classroom. The first half-day lesson included seven activities using the Learning Resource’s Code & Go Robot MouseActivity set, exposing participants to creating sequential only algorithms using a programmablehardware device. The
, technology, engineering, and mathematics(STEM). Plentiful prior studies [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], and [6] documented positive impacts ofsuch efforts using exit interviews. This paper evaluates a STEM-oriented summer programdesigned for high school students and examines the effectiveness of its educational instruments,using an opening survey, an end-of-program survey, and an alumni survey. Activities of highimpacts identified by this study can be used by other similar outreach programs that aim toincrease high school students' interests in STEM. The National Summer Transportation Institute (NSTI) program is one of the FederalHighway Administration’s (FHWA) educational initiatives. It is "to increase awareness andstimulate interest in
, inclusion and K-12 engineering pedagogy.Ms. Christine Nguyen, University of Pittsburgh Christine Nguyen is a full stack software engineer at the Global Biosocial Complexity Initiative at Ari- zona State University who builds and maintains computational social science open source software to (1) investigate factors influencing human behavior and collective action in socioecological systems, (2) support integrative research and data analysis on long-term socio-ecological dynamics, and (3) preserve the digital context necessary to ensure reproducible scientific computation. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh in December 2018.Dr. David V.P. Sanchez, University of
Social Identity and Personal Identity Scale (SIPI) [1];b) types of motivation on the Academic Motivation Scale (AMS) [2]; and c) temporalfluctuations in self-esteem on the State Self Esteem Scale (SSES) [3]. Data were analyzed usingthe Mann-Whitney U test on nine scales with three demographics comparing ethnicity (majorityvs. underrepresented minorities), gender (male vs. female), and first-in-family to pursue abachelor’s degree (first generation vs. non-first generation). Preliminary results suggest thatfemale students’ motivation for four sub-constructs on the AMS were significantly higher theirmale counterparts. Female (Median=4.38 s=.55) motivation to accomplish things wassignificantly higher (p=.016) than male (Median=3.25 s=.93
faculty to be moreinclusive and empathetic and immersive virtual reality experiences present a modality throughwhich this can possibly be achieved.Rarely are intentional efforts to learn to be inclusive or empathetic embedded in formalizedtraining as an engineer. However, Kaufman and Libby described experience-taking as aneffective way of changing mindsets and hearts—showing changes in participants’ goals, attitudesand behaviors fostered by a reduction in the self-concept that allows for the taking on of thethoughts, feelings and traits of another [1]. The potential to change mindsets exists and bothinclusion and empathy are teachable and learnable constructs. With that knowledge, what ifengineering faculty could be exposed to a host of
abilities across allthree dimensions than the students in the comparison group. This study demonstrated thatintentional and explicit instructional strategies targeting model development resulted in greatergains in students’ demonstrated modeling skills and both their written and coded solutions to acomplex modeling problem.IntroductionEngineers must understand how to build, apply, and adapt various types of models, includingmathematical and computational models, to be successful. Throughout undergraduateengineering education, modeling is fundamental for many core concepts, though it is rarelyexplicitly taught [1]. There are many benefits to explicitly teaching modeling, particularly in thefirst years of an engineering program [1-3]. There are some
of itseffectiveness has grown (e.g., [1], [2], [3]), multiple institutions have promoted the creation ofactive learning classrooms (ALCs) designed to facilitate this pedagogy. Traditional, teacher-centered passive approaches to learning are primarily focused on efficiently presenting subjectmatter to students through lectures [3]. In contrast, the active learning pedagogy, through in-class activities, hands-on tasks, and more frequent and richer instructional feedback, seeks toengage students in higher order thinking about, and application of, the subject matter.Crucial to the success of the active learning pedagogy is the instructional feedback and helpstudents receive as they think about and try to apply the subject matter they are
experience (in which our undergraduate students teachSTEM activities in elementary after school programs in diverse communities) influence theirideas about: (1) STEM, (2) teaching elementary students about STEM, and (3) teaching diversepopulations of students?, and B) Were there differences in these ideas depending upon theelementary school site where the service learning practicum took place? The undergraduates’experiences and developing perspectives are examined through written reflections and fieldobservations throughout the semester. Instructors' field notes from the service learningexperience are used as a data source of triangulation. In general, results from this study indicatethat undergraduate students’ ideas about STEM and STEM teaching
developmental science and mindful of the challenges they will face in the future. c American Society for Engineering Education, 2019 Impact of an Embedded Expert Model on Course Transformation in EngineeringIntroduction and Background The need to improve undergraduate STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, andMath) education is widely recognized [1, 2]. Concerns about the quality of STEM educationhave been fueled by high levels of attrition in STEM majors, particularly among women andstudents from underrepresented minority groups, as well as the need for a more scientificallyliterate citizenry. There is now a substantial literature on teaching practices that can improvestudent learning and academic
topic.Part II: course flow and course contents By the time EE and COE students take the capstone project, both majors must have taken thecore technology related courses as depicted in Table 1 below. They take two physics courses amongsciences followed by a rigorous C programming course along with a basic electric circuits class. Afterthey have taken two more courses in analog and digital electronics, students are eligible to takeembedded systems course which is a precursor to their most important capstone project course. Withthe heavy emphasis on hands-on experience at electrical and computer engineering programs at thisuniversity, each of those courses has a 3-hour lab in addition to having a 3-hour lecture class. By thetime students get to
on pedagogy (Fundamental)IntroductionResearch experiences for teachers (RET) programs can provide K-12 teachers with valuable andimpactful professional development opportunities, increase teachers’ self-efficacy and allowthem to gain further mastery in their subject so that they can better translate that knowledge totheir students. At a fundamental level, these types of programs are abbreviated apprenticeships inwhich the teacher trains to become a scientist. After all, if teachers are expected to teach theirstudents how to do science, then they themselves must know how to do science [1].While RET programs exist at universities across the country, the exact structures of the programsand the nature of the actual research experience vary
additive manufacturingtechnologies. As a result, a variety of makerspaces were developed by various institutions, but inmost cases they are focused only on participation of white, male, middle-class, able-bodiedhobbyists who have the time and funds to access these spaces [1]. Due to its strategic location inthe Hampton Roads area of the Southeastern Virginia, Old Dominion University already serves awide population of women, underrepresented minorities, and military veterans entering theengineering and technology workforce. It is this university commitment to helping the workforcein the community to learn the necessary skills to adapt to the changing economy [2]. OldDominion University is supporting veterans and service members for over 70 years
conducted a teacher workshops inwhich the nuts-and-bolts of teaching are covered. The workshops focus on how to improve studentlearning and subsequently reduce the number of student complaints. The overall perception is thatthe workshops are effective since problems often stem from common mistakes made byinstructors. In this paper, the workshop is summarized as well as lessons learned. Based on ourexperiences, a successful workshop needs to have (1) a point of contact for questions throughoutthe semester, (2) time for introduction and socialization with new instructors, (3) iterative reviewand revision of the syllabus and schedule for first-time instructors, and (4) clear delineation of do’sand don’ts, (5) suggestions for how to conduct a class
, learning, researchwork, and engineering profession. Students also learn as EVs rely heavily on power provided bythe utility grid, stable and reliable operation of the grid under increasing penetration of EVcharging loads need to be understood and adequately planned for. The collected students’performance data on this assignment and its learning objectives, are used to assess learning basedon the latest ABET-EAC Student Outcomes (2) and (4). Using the collected data and a set ofassociated rubrics, the instructor evaluates and grades students’ performance and learning. TheABET-EAC Outcomes (2), (4), and portions of the corresponding rubrics used by the instructorare listed below in Table 1 and Table 2. (2). An ability to apply engineering design
administrators at all levels are recognizing the need to improve STEM educationand introduce engineering design concepts before college. A National Academy of Engineersreport, Engineering in K-12 Education: Understanding the Status and Improving the Prospects,suggests that the STEM disciplines not be treated as silos and that engineering might serve as amotivating context to integrate the four STEM disciplines [1].Research has shown that students learn through experiences, and the earlier they are exposedto STEM-based hands-on learning experiences, the better. Engineering design, by its nature,is an inquiry-based pedagogical strategy that promotes learning across disciplines.Engineering curricula introduces K-12 students to everyday applications of STEM
disparities and despite a variety of national and programmatic changes aimed atimproving outcomes for unrepresented groups, only marginal success has been achieved in thelast decade [1, 2]. The notable absence of low-SES students majoring in engineeringdisciplines has resulted in a profession that lacks the representation and diversity of the actualUS population and significantly impacts the career potential of low-SES students in theengineering fields [1]. Engineering faculty frequently recognize the problem, but often lackthe formal training in instructional best practices necessary to help underrepresented studentsto persist and succeed in their courses. Instead faculty often revert to teaching the way theywere taught, employing the long-venerated
systems engineering from the University of Virginia (2010). Alexandra comes to FIU after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Georgia Tech’s Center for the En- hancement of Teaching and Learning (CETL) and three years as a faculty member at Olin College of En- gineering in Massachusetts. Alexandra’s research aims to improve the design of educational experiences for students by critically examining the work and learning environments of practitioners. Specifically, she focuses on (1) how to design and change educational and work systems through studies of practicing engineers and educators and (2) how to help students transition into, through and out of educational and work systems.Dr. Meagan R. Kendall, University of
interpersonal experiences with teaching assistants (TAs) was employed to assess program effectiveness in this regard. ● Increase the retention rate in engineering at Dartmouth. Student persistence on the path towards the major was tracked via course registration data. ● Promote the use of the variety of resources offered for underprepared first-year students. First-year sign-ups for the program and study session attendance were tracked.The program, designed around these goals, has several components: (1) Daily drop-in group study sessions: Every night (Sunday - Thursday) from 7-10pm drop-in help sessions are offered to students seeking help with any of the engineering prerequisite courses (all forms of
Paper ID #27132Impact of Research Experience Programs on National and International Un-dergraduate Engineering StudentsDr. Jacques C. Richard, Texas A&M University Dr. Richard got his Ph. D. at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1989 & a B. S. at Boston University, 1984. He was at NASA Glenn, 1989-1995, worked at Argonne National Lab, 1996-1997, taught at Chicago State University, 1997-2002. Dr. Richard is a Sr. Lecturer & Research Associate in Aerospace Engi- neering @ Texas A&M since 1/03. His research is focused on computational plasma modeling using spectral and lattice Boltzmann methods for studying
(the design of a SAE designcompetition vehicle), break it down into smaller pieces, and examine it within the structure of aphysics course in engineering mechanics. The project is divided into parts that are coveredthroughout the semester focusing on force, power, and torque analysis. The overall goal of theproject is to access preliminary design specifications given for the engine and transmissionsystem in a new vehicle. The analysis includes an exploration of minimum torque and powerrequirements, gear ratios, efficiencies, and vehicle performance goals. 1. Introduction 1.1 Project Motivation Although the demand in engineering graduates is high, the graduation rate suffers morethan many other majors. According to the study
the flowgraphs discussed in this paper. We briefly present an assessment surveyregarding student preferences for working with SDR systems. Finally, we conclude with asummary of our findings and recommendations for other communication experiments.PreliminariesRecommended Hardware and Development EnvironmentThere is a wide selection of SDR hardware available, with many good choices for the purposespresented herein10. Given the requirements of the projects, the recommended choice is theHackRF One open-source SDR, along with ANT500 antenna11. The HackRF One offers half-duplex transceiver capability, sampling rates up to 20 MSPS, operating frequency of 1 MHz to 6GHz, USB powered connection, SMA RF connection with programmable gain, and
for Engineering Education, 2019Implementing Engineering Projects in a High School Anatomy Course (WIP)IntroductionThis Work-In-Progress is striving to introduce high school anatomy students to engineering andinfluence their perception on why engineering is important in the medical field. Students thathope to enter the medical field need opportunities to work on engaging problems that will helpthem develop creative and critical thinking skills that they can use in their future careers [1], and“thinking like an engineer” can help students develop those skills. The Science and EngineeringPractices set by the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) propose that students needopportunities to 1) develop and use models, 2) plan and carry out
outside securityrisks, how to control internet access to and from their internal networks, and how to allow publicaccess to resources the company provides while preventing the public from accessing the internalnetworks [1]. To accomplish this, network architects usually divide the network into zones. Theuntrusted zone is for all incoming internet traffic which is untrusted by default, just before it goesthrough the network’s firewall. The trusted zone is for any traffic that is on the internal network.Any resources that the business provides for public consumption, like HTTP requests to thecompany’s webserver, does not need to be on the internal network for security purposes. In orderto accommodate that traffic a demilitarized zone is set up with