assist women in resisting or coping with situations thatmight interfere with their completing their doctoral studies. Given differences in thedirection of the proportions of domestic and international women attaining engineeringdegrees over time, understanding how the experiences of these two groups of womenmight differ became of particular interest to us.III. Focus Groups as an Initial Research ApproachWe sought to understand the many critical incidents or interactions with faculty, peers,family members, and others that in aggregate may lead to experiencing encouragement ordiscouragement. The best way to learn these details was to speak to the studentsthemselves and to ask them what techniques had either worked or failed in
AC 2007-1694: INTRODUCTION OF VIDEO JOURNALS AND ARCHIVES IN THECLASSROOMAlexander Haubold, Columbia UniversityJohn R. Kender, Columbia University Page 12.985.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2007 Introduction of Video Journals and Archives in the ClassroomAbstractWe report on two innovative approaches of using video recordings in project-based coursestargeted at journaling student and team performance and project progression. The first approachis strictly managed by instructors and staff, and involves periodical recording of studentpresentations, which are made available to students for self and peer evaluation. The secondapproach is loosely managed
projects including aFIRST robot design/built with high school students, systems for remote villages, and anassistive technology device. In total 366 student-course projects were completed, rangingfrom extra credit to 100% of the course.Assessment tools included several college-wide surveys and interviews of faculty,students, and community partners and student reports and presentations. The MEundergraduate student surveys from spring 2006 totaled 89 and do not include first yearstudents because of the common courses. The average number of S-L courses taken was2.4. To statements that S-L helped increase interest in learning, increase commitment tothe community, improved writing and speaking skills, leadership ability, personal abilityto “make a
and design critical safety andSafety application of safety and security security systems for buildings and/orEngineering engineering methods and processes processes.Capstone learned through this program. The • Define a research problem and/or anCourses students are to select research topics industrial / commercial case study. under the guidance of instructor and • Perform a literature review and conduct research and write a methods used in the project. detailed report. Working in teams or • Identify sources of data for the analysis as individuals under the guidance of and gather and analyze relevant data
supported by the findings of the study whereby persisters reported fewerrestraining forces while switchers reported fewer driving forces. The two driving forces that arecommon among persisters and switchers are formal support programs and peer supportprograms. Strengthening these two programs would increase the driving forces for all students.These findings will assist faculty, advisers, and program planners to better meet the needs ofwomen in engineering programs and likely help to reduce the attrition rates of women inengineering.Keywords: women engineering persistence environment motivation force-fieldWhile there is a general shortage of engineers, the need is acute in the under-represented areassuch as women and minorities. According to the
AC 2007-1234: SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO? ENGINEERING STUDENTS'PERSISTENCE IS BASED ON LITTLE EXPERIENCE OR DATAGary Lichtenstein, Stanford University Gary Lichtenstein, Ed.D., is a Consulting Associate Professor of Engineering at Stanford University, specializing in quantitative and qualitative research methods. His areas of intellectual interest include engineering education, community-based research, and education evaluation and policy. His extensive teaching experience includes courses on qualitative research methods (for graduate students), and on writing and critical thinking (for students ranging from high school to professionals). He lives in southeast Utah. He can be contacted at
males at the university. TheBMC also sponsors several other programs each year, including general membershipmeeting, discussions on academic and career success, a Black Men’s Retreat, and aKwanzaa celebration, to name just a few. Cross-generational mentoring and rolemodeling occurs in the BMC informally and through the connections made between Page 12.1451.4participants. A formal peer mentoring program was recently developed to foster anintentional link between continuing African American male students and first-yearstudents. Overall, the BCM is perceived by the Rutgers administration as havingprovided a successful initial attempt to help develop and
Center for Writing, Language, and Literacy at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.James Conrad, University of North Carolina-Charlotte Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.Stephen Kuyath, University of North Carolina-Charlotte Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering Technology in the Department of Engineering Technology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and PI on the NSF sponsored Diversity in Engineering Technology (DIET) project.Dawn Denney, Northwest Cabarrus High School National Board Certified Math Teacher at Northwest Cabarrus High School in Concord, North
different projects, thus experiencing greaterdiversity of architectural challenges than would have otherwise been possible.Some changes to the traditional classroom setting are necessary in order to practice this newmethod. Students need to work in small teams, 3 or 4 students at most, during regularly-scheduled classroom hours. The roles of individual teams must be scheduled so that sufficienttime is available for each team to play each role. Fortunately, software architecture lends itself toshort periods of intense team activity, with reporting and peer review of results later. We believethat this active learning style is an effective approach for most subjects, but especially forsoftware architecture.IntroductionThe methods described here are
develop:1) mentorship and leadership skills, 2) skills and strategies for facilitating and monitoringgroup/team processes, 3) skills in planning, implementation and assessment, and 4) thebackground and specialty skills necessary for participation in the regional and national FIRSTcompetitions. The engineering students’ skills are actualized through field based applications inthe high-school robotics laboratory.Focusing and then building on others’ strengths and talents (both peer undergraduate studentsand the high-school students that they are working with) is the central responsibility of goodleadership and contributes to building positive, constructive and long-lasting relationships thatchange people and their institutions in positive
is that “the population of individuals whoare involved with or affected by technology…will be increasingly diverse and multidisciplinary.”This highlights one of the biggest pushes in recent years, which is for engineers who are able tofunction effectively on multidisciplinary teams.Often in engineering, when the term multidisciplinary is used, it refers to different branches ofengineering. A multidisciplinary team might have electrical, mechanical and industrial engineerson it. However, when students become practicing engineers, they will no longer be workingsolely with other engineers. Quite often, they will need to work with peers without a technicalbackground. For instance, their coworkers may have a business or management degree
in the sciences and quantitative disciplines. Page 12.993.2 Continuity: Access to institutional and programmatic opportunities, material resources and guidance that support advancement to increasingly complex content in the sciences and quantitative disciplines.While the level of each characteristic can vary, all are required for an individual to pursue anengineering career. Girls graduate from high school with skills and knowledge equivalent tothose of their male peers. However, substantially fewer girls continue in engineering and thephysical sciences which suggests distinct differences in engagement
consisted of four separate self-contained chapters covering the fourdifferent major tasks, where range and operating cost calculations were combined as the fourth task.Each chapter consisted of an explanation of the task objective, technical approach used, results intabular and graphical form, discussion, and summary. In order to encourage students to be succinctin their writing, a maximum page length limit of five pages per task, including tables and figures,while using 12 point font text and 1" margins was imposed. Students were warned about the needto include properly labeled table headers and graph axes labels including appropriate dimensionalunits. In the results discussion, emphasis was placed on explaining the technical behavior rather
Component: A communication skills instruction component,structured to be in parallel with and to document the research project, has three segments: aproject description, a progress report, and a final report. A faculty member of the UMTechnical Communication Program provides class instruction, assigns homework, andprovides extensive feedback after first drafts of reports and oral presentation practices.During the first segment, and after the student has been involved for about two weeksbecoming familiar with the research project, each student writes a project description of theresearch to be conducted during the following eight weeks. The project description containsa project title, project goal, review of literature, research methods, tasks
and past and present students, informalconversations and email exchanges. Permission for the research was formally obtained fromboth the University itself and interviewees. All interviews were recorded, transcribed andanalyzed. The software package N632 was used for this analysis.Initially, the research program focussed on re-writing the software. The prototype (written inPHP and using a MySQL database) had developed in an ad-hoc way and could not be readilymodified to handle the increased demands being placed on it. This prototype was replacedwith a new version of the software (written in Python and using a PostgreSQL database).Subsequently, the focus of the research program shifted to the implementation of the softwareitself and to the
developed through an understanding of the concepts of professionalism, businessand cultural etiquette, and other related topics.”5The capstone course format is designed to require extensive teamwork. Typically, teams of fourstudents (though occasionally three or five) have fourteen weeks to move through all the steps ofproblem definition and solution generation at an industrial partner facility. Teams write andpresent a formal proposal during the third and fourth weeks of the semester. After instructoracceptance, they spend ten weeks researching, designing, and justifying solutions, which theymust then formally write and present to the industrial partner during the last week of thesemester. The only individual evaluations throughout the entire
neededto create this functionality in LabVIEW, which further reduces cost. LabVIEW’s most usefulfeature is the web server. The user interface created when writing LabVIEW code can be placedonline and the connected devices operated over the Internet. Users access a preformatted web-page and must install a browser plug-in to utilize the software. The process placing contentonline is almost completely automated and one of the most critical software features used in thisproject. Page 12.150.3Figure 1 - The student’s view of the oscilloscope readout using the LabVIEW plug-in and a web browserHardware was a large portion of project cost. However, it did
the SI session and toencourage more students to attend the session. A summary of the student participation ispresented in Table 3. Student participation in the Fall 2006 semester decreased by 50%percent as compared to the trend observed in previous semesters. This change may havebeen influenced by factors such as peer influence, work-class schedule conflicts, personallife situations, or preference for an independent working style.Table 3. Summary of Student Participation in the SI Process Fall 2005-Spring 2006 Fall Spring Fall Semester 2005 2006 2006 No. of students in the class 29
need to get some basic organization details out of the way. We need to store ALL of our files in one place, and this should be the ONLY place these files are located. This will be very important as we amass more important files. This way we do not have 5 copies of the different revision levels of the same file floating about. This will mean that you should download the file before you start working on it and re- upload and over write it as soon as you finish working on it. Do not store any files that others will need on your computer always keep them in netfiles. I have seen the hassle that this can save especially when we get to
. Copies of the three project reports are availablefrom the authors1,2,3.B. Learning ObjectivesUpon completion of this course the student should be able to: 1. Work effectively as a member of an interdisciplinary project design team, bringing unique skills perspectives and background not shared by all team members, and using information provided outside the student’s own background to complete the design. 2. Carry out a sports facility design including the evaluation of considerations such as economics, ethics, societal, environmental impacts, and constructability. 3. Write a project report that is of a quality commonly found to be acceptable in the engineering profession. 4. Orally present the results of an
of high school take fewer science andmathematics courses, also scoring low on science achievement tests.9,10 In a recent study, Bakerand Leary interviewed forty girls in grades 2,5,8 and 11 using semi-structured protocol. The Page 12.1613.3interview focused on feelings about science, science careers, peer and parental support, and howscience is taught. All of the girls asserted that women can and should do science. In this report,Baker and Leary11 stated that teacher-student interactions are biased in favor of boys as early asin elementary schools. In the face of failure, boys are encouraged to try again, and girls areallowed to give up.12
recommended] Science: Conceptual Physics with laboratory [4 cr] Chemical Skills and Reasoning [4 cr] English: Basic Writing (if required based on placement) [4 cr] Engineering: Introduction to the Engineering Profession [2 cr] Bridge Mentorship Program (ad hoc) – fall and winter semesterStudents who placed out of beginning algebra, basic writing, or the introductory chemistrycourse, based on standard University placement tools, were not required to complete the firstcourse in these subject areas. The Engineering Bridge advisor works closely with these students,who are in the minority, to select the appropriate courses to round out their schedules.Students were expected
have strongentrepreneurial interests. These students want to develop their design projects into commercialproducts. One venue for commercializing design at our institution, Grove City College (GCC), isthe annual on-campus business plan competition. For the last four years, business andentrepreneurship students often partner in writing a business plan. Students received writtenfeedback from practicing technology entrepreneurs on their plans. That students report thecompetition as a favorable experience fostered the idea for what we called the High TechVenture Start-up course.The business plan competition, however, lacked several essential elements to be a fullyintegrated and maximally valuable educational experience. As important as business
. The planninggroup reviewed the RFP and provided guidance regarding content and approach for the LTUproposal. From the first meeting we focused on two areas, writing a winning proposal and howwe could involve students at every level of the project. Mr. Pratt provided initial input as to thebest on-campus location site for the project, and how best to design the system to comply withthe grant requirements. Because the grant was for a maxim of $60,000, we knew additionalfunding was going to be required. Our Dean of Engineering has been very supportive of ourAlternative Energy program and assured us that if we got the grant that he would help us securethe additional funds to complete the project. This was vital, as the proposal required us
entrepreneurshipeducation. In contrast, we are just getting started on our endeavor to introduce entrepreneurshipeducation and to ultimately make it a permanent part of our curriculum. Page 12.917.3In summary, here are the main challenges to our efforts: CHALLENGES TO INSTILLING ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION AT MSOE 1. How to achieve our main goal of getting the schools of business and engineering to work together as peers in an effort to promote entrepreneurship. 2. How to encourage faculty to take on the new task of teaching entrepreneurship when they are already handling a heavy workload. 3. How to get students excited about
common thread that a learner’sprior knowledge will have a profound effect on the learning that takes place.Despite the increasing importance of AI in pre-college education, little is known about the priorknowledge and preconceptions that students bring to the classroom. Yet it is well understoodfrom numerous studies that prior knowledge strongly influences the integration of newinformation.1,8,9 The National Research Council (NRC) writes: A logical extension of the view that new knowledge must be constructed from existing knowledge is that teachers need to pay attention to the incomplete understandings, the false beliefs, and the naïve renditions of concepts that learners bring with them to a given subject. Teachers then need to
professional expertise and objective measurement of student learning.6. Conduct of Assessment for Each CLO. The assessments planned under Step 3 are conducted and the quantitative results collected and recorded. Most results are tallied by graduate teaching assistant under direction from the faculty. For triangulation, three assessment tools are used for each CLO with one assessment typically being a student self-assessment on a Likert Scale.7. Development of Improvement Plan. The strength of the OSU system is that it requires faculty to reflect upon their course, review the CLO assessments, and write a course improvement plan. The course improvement plan includes a listing of changes in activities planned for the next time this course
, each student also needs individual practice setting up equipment, taking data, and troubleshooting in order to reach his/her full potential as a technical professional. • Overcome Equipment Limitations: Much of the hands-on equipment that is used in studio makes extensive use of wiring to connect the components of the experiments. The equipment and components are unwieldy, and take up an inordinate amount of space on a table top. Students using these set-ups have as little as a few inches of remaining space for books, notebooks and writing space. In addition, the wire connections and limited space significantly interfere with the data taking process in many experiments, yielding results that are not fully
they are generally speaking. A new twist on chemistry or science in general.QUESTION: What is one thing you could do to improve the class?‚ working out more problems‚ Create models and run tests for extra credit on my final grade, that would give the next students other visuals‚ Nothing‚ Make it a 3 hour course.‚ I don’t know‚ More extra credit‚ One thing that I could do to improve the course is make sure I read all the material before class.‚ One thing I could do to improve the class is to try my best to know more than I do now before we start a new section in the book. That way, if my instructor asks me a question, or if one of my peers needs help understanding the material, I will be
Page 12.1038.6United States- has flooded into Iraq, but many Marines promptly stuck it in lockers or underbunks. They are too heavy and cumbersome, many say. …….”We have to climb over walls andgo through windows,” said Sgt., “I understand the more armor, the safer you are. But it makesyou slower.”” The Hartford Courant, Monday, March 27, 2006Question Posed: How could we use our knowledge of materials selection to design betterarmor?Assignment: Read the newspaper article. Utilize your knowledge of materials selection toprepare 1) oral presentation, 7-10 minute in length on Power Point, and 2) write a technicalmemo summarizing your approach. The due date is one week from the date assigned and expectto answer questions and participate in an