Collection

2007 St.Lawrence Section Meeting

Authors

Nasser Saleh

defining a hard boundary for Web 2.0, but rather defining agravitational core for those services and their outputs 1. The core of Web 2.0 technologies relieson how they transform the web into a space where everyone can create and share informationcollaboratively in a flexible, dynamic and adaptable way.Library 2.0 applications at Queen’s University LibraryQueen’s University Library has been exploring the possible implementation of web 2.0applications in library services; the library had formed working groups and functional teams thatexplored different aspect of developing library services and increasing access to libraryresources.2The implementation of web 2.0 services can be interpreted through a model that Karen A.Coombs at the University of

Collection

2007 St.Lawrence Section Meeting

Authors

Chitralekha Potnis; Ajit Potnis

Collection

2007 St.Lawrence Section Meeting

Authors

Doug Reeve P.Eng.; Annie Simpson; Veena Kumar; Emma Master; Dave Colcleugh; Greg Evans P.Eng.

: “Provide opportunities for soft skills development and professional training inareas such as team building, leadership, citizenship, ethics and social awareness in orderto produce graduates fully prepared to embark into leadership roles in corporate,entrepreneurial, or future research careers in a global environment.” The Faculty’srecord in leadership development is strong. We have integrated collaboration, communityoutreach and communication skills into the curriculum through such initiatives as thefirst-year Engineering Strategies and Practice course (McCahan, et al 2004).The University of Toronto's Academic Initiatives Fund, in early 2006, granted $1 millionover five years to implement a Leadership Development Program across the

Collection

2007 St.Lawrence Section Meeting

Authors

Carol Richardson

the 564,964 associate’sdegrees awarded by 2-year schools in 2005-6, 63% were to women, 11% each to AfricanAmericans and Latin Americans, 5% to Asian Americans, and 1% to Native Americans.The proportion of students interested in engineering or engineering technology amongthese populations varied between 7 to 9%. Thus, transfers from 2-year schools form anextremely attractive pool to expand and diversify the engineering and technologyworkforce of the future.Transfers from 2-year schools, both full-time and part-time, were declining as importantstakeholders in academic programs at RIT and one of the goals of the MEET programwas to increase the numbers of transfer students in electrical engineering, mechanicalengineering and all engineering

Collection

2007 St.Lawrence Section Meeting

Authors

George H. Sutherland

relatively slowly so the car behavior isessentially steady state. From the maximum speed the lateral force measured in g’s can becomputed and that becomes a published number for that vehicle. For the test for the class thereis an additional requirement beyond that for the standard skidpad test. Using their own devisedmethod, the students must record the steering angle of the car steering wheel at five mphincrements of the vehicle speed. Using ratios published for the vehicle as well as physicaltesting the students must relate the steering wheel angle to the steering angle of the front wheels.The objective is to produce a plot of front wheel steering angle versus steady state lateralacceleration for a constant radius turn (like in Figure 1). If the

Collection

2007 St.Lawrence Section Meeting

Authors

Jason Salonga

before we make any par- quired students to create spatial depth by contrasting warmallels. Several experienced bridge designers have expressed that traditional civil engineering cur- and cool colours in a painting. The painting also required aricula have been inadequate in teaching design. Fritz Leonhardt1 observes that traditional curric- hand to be included in the composition; see figure 1. Con-ula are often unbalanced with an emphasis on statics, analysis, and computation with little atten- ceptual requirements were always left simple and open to Figure 1. Self Portrait (2004) by Salongaengage students’ creativity. The freedom also led to a diverse set of projects, exposing students to their visual form fill

Collection

2007 St.Lawrence Section Meeting

Authors

Thomas F. C. Woodhall

. At this stage learners internalize thematerial and are able to develop new learning on their own2. The ICE approach allows forinstructors to fully articulate to students where their understanding of the material is. It alsoallows for instructors to provide feedback on what students must to do advance to the next stageof understanding. It is important to understand that ICE rubrics are different than ‘Good, Better,Best’ methods of scoring, also known as rating scales7. Some rubrics look to assess students on asliding scale, essentially a 1 Æ 5 or 1Æ 10 scale where the target is the ability to do a task betterwith a corresponding increase in score. With an ICE rubric students are being assessed on theirability to demonstrate different levels

Collection

2007 St.Lawrence Section Meeting

Authors

Hamid Shokrollah Timorabadi

abstract mathematical subjects [1]. There are many differentteaching methods such as using the old school blackboard and chalk or using PowerPoint. Inaddition, some instructors attempt to demonstrate and discuss some of the concepts in the course,while others place an emphasis on rote learning [2]. In all of these cases, the amount that thestudents learn depends upon factors such as the students’ prior preparation and/or learning styleabilities [3]. More importantly, it relies on how effectively the instructor can present the materialsuch that students learn most of the new concepts during the lecture. Therefore, the wayinstructor organizes the material and presents them to the class becomes paramount. A well-organized and well-presented lecture

Collection

2007 St.Lawrence Section Meeting

Authors

Lisa Schneider; Michael Kelley; Shefford P. Baker

experience in order to setup an experimental comparison. We will, nonetheless, engage in several other short- and long-term evaluation strategies. We have defined four central goals for the engineering mathworkshops and propose assessment strategies for each.Goal 1: Enhance conceptual understanding and retention of math content.Assessment strategies: • Administer a test of basic calculus content to students beginning 200-level Engineering courses for which Calculus for Engineers is a pre-requisite. Compare Fall 2007 scores of Sophomores having taken the old version of Calculus for Engineers with Fall 2008 scores of Sophomores having taken the enhanced version of Calculus for Engineers. • Survey participating students on the effect of the

Collection

2007 St.Lawrence Section Meeting

Authors

Willem H. Vanderburg

future engineers to understand the influence technology has onhuman life, society and the biosphere? and: To what extent do we teach them to use thisunderstanding in a negative feedback mode to adjust design and decision-making to achieve thedesired results and at the same time prevent or greatly minimize harmful effects? These twoquestions were converted into extensively tested research instruments to permit the quantitativescoring of an undergraduate engineering curriculum at one of the leading Canadian schools. Theresults showed that the answer to both questions was: almost nothing 1.The results were widelycirculated to the deans of most Canadian and US engineering schools, given the similarity of therequirements of the Canadian Engineering

Collection

2007 St.Lawrence Section Meeting

Authors

Chirag Variawa

approach their project more diligently than others.This paper is a result of interviewing former students of the ESPII course in an impromptusetting. The goal was to get broad set of opinions on the course from which to draw somegeneral conclusions about the positive and negative aspects of PBL undergraduate engineeringcourses.BackgroundEngineering Strategies and Practice (ESP) is a series of two engineering design courses offeredat the University of Toronto for first year engineering students. Being a core course in all but onestream of engineering offered by the university, ESP’s enrolment numbers have always beenhigh – approximately 950 students per class. Taught in Canada’s largest classroom (1), Universityof Toronto’s Convocation Hall, the

Collection

2007 St.Lawrence Section Meeting

Authors

Daren R. Wilcox; Gerd W. Wostenkuhler

VHDL in an Introductory Digital Electronics Course Daren R. Wilcox Southern Polytechnic State University 1100 South Marietta Parkway Marietta, Georgia 30060-2896, USA +1 678-915-7269 dwilcox@spsu.edu Gerd W. Wöstenkühler Hochschule Harz (University of Applied Studies and Research) Friedrichstraße 57-59 D

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2007 St.Lawrence Section Meeting

Authors

Wei Cao; Peggy Vance; Robert Lockhart

ofadvanced engineering and technology labs in WVU. The success further boosted the enthusiasms from both WVU and Logan County SchoolDistrict. Since then all of us had worked together as a wonderful team to push this event to a newhigher level year after year. In last 5 years, we have done the following things:(1) Enhance the sponsor pool: The reputation of the competition was spreading around quicklyand many schools, industrial enterprises, government agency and non profile organizations havejointed in as sponsors, such as WVU, Toyota Inc, Parallax Inc, WV State Agents, WV Educationdepartment, WV Logan School Distinct, WV Tech Prep Foundation, Appalachia EducationFoundation and etc.(2) Encouraging the girl student participation: The

Collection

2007 St.Lawrence Section Meeting

Authors

Deborah Tihanyi; Margaret N. Hundleby

with regard to communication. The Department of Materials Science andEngineering is unique in the Faculty in that it has a significant communication-focused course ineach of years two, three and four of the degree program (see Table 1, next page). Each of thecourses is content-based, and each builds on the skills acquired in the one(s) before it, lookingforward to both the capstone project in the fourth year (thesis or industrial research project(IRP)) and professional practice.In MSE390, each of the deliverables goes through several iterations and receives extensivefeedback from both faculty and peers. Course instructors facilitate class workshops anddiscussion and meet individually with each student as the work progresses, in addition

Collection

2007 St.Lawrence Section Meeting

Authors

Lisa Schneider

Survey. The survey centered on four major areas: 1) stressors and experiences as anengineering student, especially those related to workload, competition, rigor of the curriculum,and curved grading; 2) how students allocate their time; 3) knowledge and/or participation inprograms or organizations, and use of other resources in the College; and 4) perceived quality offaculty instruction and TA interaction. A strong and representative student response wasobtained, with 938 completed surveys, representing 35.5% of the total student population.Responses identified the top sources of stress for engineering students as: 1) heavy workload inEngineering courses; 2) high level of rigor of Engineering curriculum; 3) large amounts of timerequired to get