transition. One major component is a series of mentoring courses that the entering studentcan select for the first semester. These courses are designed to help the freshman make thismajor transition. This paper will discuss the purpose of the mentors, the ENGR0081 SeminarCourse concept, the mentor selection process, and the topics covered in the mentoring sessions.IntroductionNumerous studies document the importance of interaction with the freshman students duringtheir first semester [1 - 9]. This concept is nothing new, as reflected in the fact that mostcolleges have an orientation program for entering students. One component we use at theUniversity of Pittsburgh is getting the involvement of parents and other family members in theprocesses and
day to calculus instruction. The need for calculus is reinforced asthey spend the rest of the day working with engineers who are using these math skills to solveproblems that create better products.Another company that has developed a successful program for recruiting more minorities isUnited Technologies Corporation. UTC encourages engineers to mentor local high schoolstudents. The mentors work with students on various research projects. They provide theleadership, direction, and guidance necessary to foster a successful research project. Many ofthese volunteer mentors are alumni of the local high school. They state that their motivationfor involvement is to create a future workforce that reflects the diversity that they would like tosee
time students reach their junior or senior year, they should already haveinformation skills. This, of course, is an entirely appropriate assumption but, as discussed earlierin this paper, it does not reflect the reality of the situation that exists in colleges and universitiestoday. The main drawback to course-integrated instruction is that, despite its relevance to classwork, students don’t seem to retain what they learn. This view is based on a great deal ofanecdotal evidence accumulated from personal experience working with students over the yearsand getting a sense of what they know. In the fall 2000 semester, we decided to investigate thematter further by conducting an informal survey among NC State University undergraduates, adiscussion
changes in major (thus allowing the institution to easily study the patterns of student major changes over v time.) It cannot be overemphasized that all data should be reported by gender and race. Due to ABET and other assessment efforts, there is increasing emphasis placed on alumni reflections on their educational experiences. In 1998 Georgia Tech already had established a 5-year post-graduation Alumni Survey. Like the institutional data collection process, the redesign of this survey has been affected by the increased awareness on campus of diversity issues. As such, the Alumni Survey now includes questions related to campus climate and equity. vNew Initiatives Georgia Tech is aggressively
enough topreserve a strong sense of community and manageable class sizes, yet large enough to allow avariety of course offerings.Since its inception in 1893, Queen’s Faculty of Applied Science has graduated more than 21,000engineers, many of whom have distinguished themselves nationally and internationally. Thefaculty provides instruction to more than 2,100 undergraduate students each year in 10engineering disciplines.Over the ensuing years, there have been many changes, particularly in the Faculty of AppliedScience. In recent years the Faculty has had to reflect on the path forward for the variousprograms in the faculty. It was realized that Queen’s has some major strengths that we couldbuild upon, such as a long-standing tradition of
directory “webtest2” at the site: http://comp.uark.edu/~icjong/webtest2/the source program of this HTML file, written to display just two tests as shown in Fig. 1, canreadily be created and is illustrated as follows: test.htmlInteractive Web-Based TestsInteractive Web-Based TestsTest 1: Practice TestThis test uses radio-button menu for choosing answers. Click here to take the test.Test 2: Some Elementary Concepts in StaticsThis test uses radio-button menu for choosing answers. Click here to take the test.The above HTML file does reflect that both of the files testrad.cgi and test#.dat are presentlysaved in the sub-directory webtest2 under the user directory ~icjong in the
single bar magnet down a tube through one coil and examining the inducedemf on an oscilloscope. The experiment then progresses to two magnets and two coils withvarying spacings amongst themselves. The reflective sensor is utilized for determining speed.An analytical model for this device is beyond the scope of the course, even beyond the scope ofundergraduate engineering, thus students see the value of empirical evidence and the role ofexperiment in design. Students discover that the ‘best’ output results when the coil spacing andmagnet spacing are matched.4.3 Strain GagesStrain gages are of the resistive type commonly used for measuring strain, force, and pressure.The strain gage consist of a thin film of conducting material applied to a film
, 10, 11, 12, 13 . Research shows thatsuch approach can accommodate multiple learning styles and personalities 14 . Some engineeringprograms have been almost totally revised to allow room for learning through doing, that is bycreating educational environment that closer reflects real-world engineering practice 15 .Two Engineering Technology programs at CCSU, Manufacturing and Mechanical, require coursein manufacturing process planning. The course has traditionally covered technical aspects ofvarious manufacturing processes and technical aspects of planning a part making process (a clearlydefined technical goal). Based on the author’s current experience with industrial projects, severalvery important aspects of engineering work had to be
-analysis andaligning one’s intent with positive micro-messaging, engineering educators may begin theirjourney towards creating positive classroom environments for women and other marginalizedgroups. By effectively using micro-affirmations, clearly delineating parameters of acceptablebehavior (e.g., rendering micro-inequities visible), and making a conscious effort to view theeducational environment through the eyes of non-privileged groups, engineering faculty andmentors will make a great impact for all students, especially women. The power and effect ofchanging one’s language and subtle behaviors cannot be emphasized enough.A further step would be to move beyond individual reflection and behavioral changes to begindiscussing issues of privilege
Caribbean countries, and Venezuela worked toward convertingincandescent to fluorescent lighting, and other countries including the UK and Canada have sinceadopted a phase-out of inefficient incandescent lighting14. This global issue was addressed at the2007 IESNA/Cooper Teachers of Lighting Workshop by an international cohort of lightingeducators. This consortium considered methods of incorporating energy efficient lightingmethodology into relevant coursework, transforming traditional lighting design education. Asthese legislative directives are recent and continually evolving, architectural and interior designcurricula must stay abreast of developments to reflect emerging issues in lighting technology.It is pertinent for students to understand
theengineering fields so our students are engaged and excited about their chosen field of study byseeing and discussing the end product of the industry‟s efforts.Collaborating with engineering success coursesIn reflecting on the Freshman Career Exploration Evening, it occurs to us that the event seems tohave taken place in a vacuum with little actual and deliberate ties to other experiences that our Page 22.768.10engineering freshmen encounter. With this in mind, the Engineering Career Center is developinga multifaceted freshman career exploration curriculum that will be plugged into the engineeringsuccess courses starting the fall of 2011. The Freshman
sciences discipline will help them to become better engineers. Success. Average 73%. Acceptable results for all criteria in rubric. CENG 2336, Property HW Essay. Reflect on how GIS can be Geomatics location applied in selecting the “best” location for a property. Develop three criteria to use in site selection: how criteria are relevant, influences
reaching young women.References1. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0802505. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.2. National Science Foundation Engineering Task Force. The engineering workforce: current state, issues, and recommendations. 2005. p. 19.3. Thom, J.M., R. E. Thompson and C. Hoy. Understanding the barriers to recruiting women in engineering and technology programs. Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition. 2001. http://www.asee.org/acPapers
general consensus from the focus groups is that Virginia Tech is more family-friendly than itused to be. Newer faculty members with families appear to be having a different experience thantheir colleagues with more years of service (e.g., faculty members who started as assistantprofessors in the 2000s vs. faculty members who started as assistant professors in the 1990s orearlier). “One thing that has been a change I think largely as a result of the Advance grant is I do think the focus on work-life balance and being more family-friendly. That really has changed quite a lot.” – focus group participant “I think that that directly reflects a change in attitude. It's actually okay to have a baby, it's okay to have to do
fieldas a result of the program. The increase in confidence level for performing engineeringcalculations is intriguing as no calculations were required for any of the laboratory modules.This may reflect an overall increase in confidence related to a better understanding of thebiomedical engineering field. The increase in confidence in performing laboratory experimentsis likely due to their performance of multiple hands-on experiments over the span of theprogram. In addition, the participants increased their knowledge of the educational opportunitiesavailable for them in the biomedical engineering program at Western New England College. It islikely that many of the participants were unaware of the institution itself as well as thebiomedical
particular because they feltthat how the various scores were weighted did not appropriately reflect what they had spentthe most time on. There were also concerns over group grades versus individualcontributions. Implementation of PBL in the Course MAE 3200 Engineering MaterialsSupported by a NSF grant (DUE-0836914), we have designed, developed, and initiallyimplemented a PBL version of MAE 3200, Engineering Materials. The initialimplementation of the course for purposes of research was a traditional lecture courseenrolling 62 students in the fall of 2009. That version of the course introduced conceptswith instructor lectures following the textbook (Callister, 2007). Topics covered are shownin Table 1. The course is taught by two instructors
AC 2011-2623: IMPROVED TEAM FUNCTION: STUDENT-DRIVEN TEAMRULES AND CONSEQUENCESPeter J. Shull, Pennsylvania State University, Altoona Campus PETER J. SHULL is Professor of Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University. After a successful career in the technical field of Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE), and having worked at the prestigious Nation Institute of Standards and Technology, Dr. Shull made the decision to return to academia and began his career in education. From the first day, Dr. Shull noted an apparent lack of sound educational practice at the higher educational level. This is reflected in a statement made by Dr. Shull’s Ph.D. advisor regarding teaching”If you know the material well, you’ll be a great
, Kölling M. Objects first with Java: a practical introduction using BlueJ.Pearson/Prentice Hall; 2009.11. Kölling M. Using BlueJ to Introduce Programming. In: Bennedsen J, Caspersen M, KöllingM, eds. Reflections on the Teaching of Programming.Vol 4821. Lecture Notes in ComputerScience. Springer Berlin / Heidelberg; 2008:98-115.12. Kouznetsova S. Using BlueJ and Blackjack to teach object-oriented design concepts in CS1.J. Comput. Small Coll. 2007;22:49–55.13. Patterson A, Kölling M, Rosenberg J. Introducing unit testing with BlueJ. In: ACM SIGCSEBulletin.Vol 35. New York, NY, USA: ACM; 2003:11–15. Page 22.985.1414. Henriksen P, Kölling M. greenfoot
a system; however,they do not teach the tools that are needed to know how to integrate these concepts togetherduring the system development process. The downfall reflects in the student when theycannot develop a successful senior design project.As a solution, a state-of-the-art education is being presented as a project-based learningexperience. This type of educational method has been designed to push motivated studentsinto a fast pace, learn as you “build” environment in which students need to integrateeducational theory with applications. While not being a requirement by the university, adirected independent study was performed by a junior level student in the summer of 2010.The objective of the study was to apply compartmentalized
-course survey was conducted in the secondweek of class and the follow-up post-course survey was conducted after the completion of thefinal Lab-in-a-Box course project.MethodsSurveys were made available on the student course management sites. Completion of thesurveys was a required component of the course as a self-reflective component of their learning,but students could opt to have their data excluded from the study.In ECE 2074, of the 121 enrolled students, 106 completed the pre-course survey and 95permitted their data to be released. A total of 91 students responded to the post-course survey,with 80 students allowing use of their data. Just over half were second-years, a quarter werethird-years, and the rest were in their fourth year or
studentlearning.AcknowledgmentsThe views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the position ofthe United States Military Academy, the Department of the Army, or the Department of Defense. Page 22.917.15Bibliography1. Boettner, D., Norberg, S., Melnyk, R., Highley, J., Rounds, M., and Arnas, A. Ö., 2006, “Teaching theFundamentals of Thermodynamics and Fluid Mechanics through an Integrated Systems Approach,” Proceedings ofthe International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, November 5-10, 2006, Chicago, IL, Paper #:IMECE2006-13815.2. Boettner, D.D. and B.G. Crawford, “Consistency Considerations for Integrated Thermodynamics
facilitated discussion at the end of the semester, students expressed frustration with the“report back” parts of exercises. This is reflected in the student feedback in Figure 2 wherestudents wanted to see fewer instances of cross-university student interactions. The large numberof groups among the three universities made it difficult to maintain attention during informalreport backs, especially since audio and video feeds were difficult to hear and see. Studentsrecommended that future reporting from active learning activities incorporate visuals such asslides so that students at other sites could clearly make out what was being shown
period in between the first and third period classes, theteachers, scientists and engineer had time to reflect on the first class, discuss other ideas that theteachers had to further enhance the visit for the students, and identify problems that could beaddressed in the remaining class periods. At the end of the day, the teachers, scientists, andengineer met for an hour to debrief. Some outcomes of this session included: Eight to ten students in each classroom worked directly with a scientist or engineer (78 total students) Page 22.1161.4 Students were very receptive to help from scientists and engineers Passion of the
science and engineering and the marvels of research at the frontiers ofknowledge.AcknowledgmentsThis program is funded by the National Science Foundation (grant 0502327). The views,opinions, and conclusions reported in this paper do not necessarily reflect those of the NSF. Weare grateful for the Foundation’s support. We also thank the reviewers for their feedback.References1 Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) in Engineering and Computer Science: Program Solicitation, NSF 11- 509.” National Science Foundation. http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2011/nsf11509/nsf11509.htm2 Sabochik, K. Changing the Equation in STEM Education. The White House Blog: September 16, 2010. http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/09/16/changing-equation-stem
. From the utilization of machine vision,images of the workpieces are shown on the programming software. Six different surfaceroughness pieces are discussed here. Their average surface roughness is 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.4,0.8, and 1.6 micro meters. The properties and the intensity distributions of these imagehistograms are corresponding to six different surface roughness parameters. It can beseen that the histogram tends to move rightward and the standard deviation of PercentPixels increases as the average of surface roughness increases. The rougher surfaces seemto reflect more of the projected light which consequently increases the intensity levelcaptured by the machine vision camera. This can be supported by the fact that roughersurfaces contain
to solving all the grand Page 22.1667.8challenges. Respondents also noted that a general ‘branding’ issue’ exists for the mechanicalengineering profession, other disciplines have added names like ‘environmental’ or‘bioengineering’ to their names, directly connecting them to the global challenges. Suggestionswere made that the definition and statements of engineering problems given to students needs tobe changed to put them in a ‘grand challenge’ context. The titles of mechanical engineeringcourses could be updated to reflect these issues. The issue of systems integration as a weaknessof the typical mechanical engineering educational program was
example, students will be introduced toinformation about the shape of various space crafts and shown that the volumes of suchspacecrafts can be computed by using the disk and shell methods in calculus. Other issues such Page 22.889.9as computing light reflection on different shapes of mirrors will be included in the modules.A module with the following characteristics was developed to be used in the Calculus II (Math132) course.The module involves calculating the volume of the volume of spacecraft Orion, the mathematicsinvolved the use of following mathematical concepts. write down linear function if given two points; write down
take it as a reflection of your capabilities. Keep submitting! Learn your student’s names. Address them by their name during class lecture and greet them in the hallway. Give students something active at least every 20 minutes during class lectures. Students begin to lose focus after approximately 10 minutes. Work through your exams from scratch and note how long it takes you to complete it. Ensure that students have three times longer to take the exam than it took you to complete. Grade tough on homework and easier on timed exams. When someone asks you to do something you are not sure you want to do (i.e. chair/serve on a committee, organize a conference, do a presentation, etc.), tell
itsusefulness.As part of our preliminary evaluation, we requested written feedback from students using thetool in a sophomore/junior-level course. A number of comments reflect the need for additionalwork on the tool: making it more robust when syntactic errors are found in input files,improving the identification of defects in diagrams, and the need to include illustrations of theerror types. Comments about the effectiveness of the tool include • “Fixed numerous errors that [the instructor] did not address in class such as using ∗ instead of 0..∗. Also found errors in the syntax of the classes. attributes, operations, and the documentation of them.” • “The tool helps with discovering some errors, for example in the Associations. We found a
environment of this first course consisted of implementing multiple facets ofeducation technology and methodologies as the courses consisted of distance learners as well ason campus students. This created a unique environment for the application of “learning bydoing” as students were geographically dispersed throughout the continental United States.Hence, the course contained both a lecture component and out of class meetings. The course wastaught through Cisco WebEx®, which is an online meeting and video conferencing tool. Allcourse lectures were recorded and archived in order to assure students had the capability toreview covered lecture material or reflect upon class discussions regarding the design of thisimmersion-training vest. The class was