AC 2009-2409: PREPARATION AND REFLECTION: MAKING PROFESSIONALPRACTICE EXPLICITPrue Howard, Central Queensland University Dr Prue Howard is a senior lecturer and Convenor of the Future Engineering Education Directions (FEED) research and scholarship group at CQUniversity. She has BEng (Mech), ME in Dynamics and a Professional Doctorate in Transdiciplinary Studies. She moved to the higher education sector in 1990 after a career as a mechanical designer in industry. A love of teaching has kept her there since. Prue has received National Awards in the areas of Women in Engineering and Curriculum Innovation, as well as having received the University's Vice-Chancellor's Award for Quality Teaching
Education during 2003, and the 2007 recipient of the Raymond W. Fahien Award for Outstanding Teaching Effectiveness and Educational Scholarship. Page 14.710.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2009 Improving Student Learning by Encouraging Reflection through Class WikisAbstractA cohort of students enrolled in a chemical engineering was required to contribute to acollaborative reflective document with the objective of more rapidly assimilating new knowledgeinto the problem solving process. Motivated by prior work in the literature describing the use ofportfolios and by the
AC 2009-663: ASSESSING DESIGN AND REFLECTIVE PRACTICE INCAPSTONE ENGINEERING DESIGN COURSESDenny Davis, Washington State University Professor, Bioengineering, and Co-Director, Engineering Education Research Center, Washington State UniversitySteven Beyerlein, University of Idaho Professor, Mechanical Engineering, University of IdahoPhillip Thompson, Seattle University Associate Professor and Chair, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Seattle UniversityJay McCormack, University of Idaho Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering, University of IdahoOlakunle Harrison, Tuskegee University Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering, Tuskegee UniversityMichael Trevisan, Washington State
AC 2009-1032: THE IMPACT OF REFLECTIONS IN SERVICE LEARNING ANDOTHER UNDERGRADUATE TEAM PROJECT LEARNINGMargaret Huyck, Illinois Institute of Technology Margaret Huyck is Professor in the Institute of Psychology, Illinois Institute of Technology. Her areas of expertise include adult development and program evaluation. She has been working with the IPRO Program at IIT for many years. She was a co-PI on an NSF CCLI-1 grant for adapting an EPICS Service Learning Pathway at IIT; and is the PI for a collaborative project funded with an NSF CCLI-2 grant to measure and identify best practices in multidisciplinary teamwork and awareness of ethical issues.Kristin Bryant, Illinois Institute of Technology
AC 2009-1453: REVISING A NETWORK ENGINEERING CURRICULUM TOREFLECT CURRENT INDUSTRY AND STUDENT TRENDSPhil Rawles, Purdue UniversityAnthony Smith, Purdue UniversityRaymond Hansen, Purdue UniversityJeffrey Sprankle, Purdue University Page 14.1033.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2009 Revising a Network Engineering Curriculum to Reflect Current Industry and Student TrendsAbstractOne of the fastest changing areas of technology education is information technology. Within theInformation Technology (IT) field, the area of network engineering and security is changingespecially quickly. Ongoing issues such as machine and network security
AC 2009-1237: “SUSTAINABILITY” AS AN INTEGRATIVE LENS FORENGINEERING EDUCATION: INITIAL REFLECTIONS ON FOURAPPROACHES TAKEN AT RENSSELAERDean Nieusma, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Page 14.1386.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2009 “Sustainability” as an Integrative Lens for Engineering Education: Initial Reflections on Four Approaches Taken at RensselaerIntroductionOver the past decade, the concept of “sustainability” has gained increasing attention acrosssociety at large and within many educational institutions. As the problems associated withglobalized industrial production and the energy-intensive consumer economy worsen, newmodels for addressing
AC 2009-498: A CALL FOR CROSS-CAMPUS COLLABORATION INEXECUTIVE EDUCATION: REFLECTIONS ON THE CERTIFICATE ININNOVATION MANAGEMENT PROGRAM AT THE UNIVERSITY OFMARYLANDJames Green, University of Maryland Dr. James V. Green is the Director of the award-winning Hinman Campus Entrepreneurship Opportunities (Hinman CEOs) Program at the University of Maryland, and the associate director of entrepreneurship education at Mtech Ventures. He manages the executive education programs and the Technology Start-Up Boot Camp, and serves as the course manager for Mtech Ventures. He is an instructor with the A. James Clark School of Engineering, teaching a variety of courses in entrepreneurship and technology
this end, we gathered andanalyzed student reflections on their learning experiences in a collaborative engineering projectbetween the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of KwaZulu-Natal inSouth Africa.BackgroundThe Association of American Colleges and Universities’ LEAP (Liberal Education forAmerica’s Promise) initiative (2007) emphasizes global awareness and experience within its foursets of Essential Learning Outcomes that are critical for preparing university students for thetwenty-first century. The “personal and social responsibility” domain includes:• Civic knowledge and engagement—local and global• Intercultural knowledge and competence• Ethical reasoning and action• Foundations and skills for lifelong
probe the ability of students to a)explain the societal context of engineering, b) explain the importance of pro-active communityservice, and demonstrate an inclination to continue such service in the future, c) exhibit anappreciation of communication with non-engineers and finally, d) challenge some of thestudents’ stereotypes regarding others. The service-learning project was executed incollaboration with a local not-for-profit organization. Reflections were conducted by thestudents by answering a set of carefully-phrased questions after conducting the project. Analysisof students’ responses as well as the implications of the trends obtained, are explained in thispaper. The recorded benefits of service learning are described and can be
grouped in bindersas display items for ABET evaluators. Each course would contain examples of poor, averageand exceptional student work gathered in a tabbed binder. This was provided to ABET programevaluators as an illustration of the achievements of students, proof of student learning.Then came the shift in ABET criteria to a more assessment driven process. Now there is anexpectation to demonstrate student learning and active engagement. Clearly, Xeroxed copies oftraditional assignments are not adequate evidence of group work, experiential learning and otheractive instructional techniques. Simply providing these traditional assignment samples does notadequately reflect student-student interactions, learning which occurs through group
design. In literature theyhave been shown to be an essential tool for (1) reflection, (2) documentation of the designprocess, (3) historical archive, (4) course grade, (5) incidental writing tool, and (6) instantassessment of course for instructor. The use of design notebooks as indicators of studentparticipation in team activities has been investigated.1 It was demonstrated that design notebooksare a good indicator of teamwork practices. Design notebooks have also been used to trackstudents’ cognitive patterns in engineering design.2 Well formulated design notebooks have been shown to have pedagogical and cognitivebenefits 3. To reap these benefits however, it is very important to teach the students how tocomplete an effective design
; and assisted student teams per request as they progressed with their projects. The courseprofessor assigned reading on information literacy; conducted a class discussion on informationliteracy in the broader context of intentional learning and reflective judgment; developed ahomework assignment designed to practice information retrieval and evaluation skills; reviewedthese skills on a midterm exam; reinforced information literacy skills on assignments includingproblem sets and ethics case analyses; and incorporated information literacy throughout the LCAproject and specifically through an LCA annotated bibliography assignment.Assessment data from student work as well as course surveys and focus groups provide feedbackon student learning and
-LearningService-learning can be defined as a type of experiential education in which studentsparticipate in service in the community and reflect on their involvement in such a way asto gain further understanding of course content and of the discipline and its relationshipto social needs and an enhanced sense of civic responsibility7. The pedagogy of service-learning has four key characteristics. They are: service, the academic connection,reciprocal partnerships, and analysis or reflection8.Service - A central component of the service-learning experience involves serviceopportunities that meet the needs of the underserved in a community and/or contribute toprojects for the common good of the community. In engineering, service can take manyforms, from
subject to sustainability criteriawe developed for student projects. All our students are trained in the use of design tools, bothelectronic programs as well as hand tools and power tools. More specifically, following a general introduction to the foundations of cognitiveprocesses found in psychology, and creative process found in two- and three-dimensional artinstruction, we offer developmental instruction in the following areas: Metacognition and thinking processes—students engage in activities that requirethem to plan, reflect upon, and modify their own thinking processes and strategies, as well asadapt these methodologies to meet the needs of a specific design problem. Structured and unstructured thinking
accountability.The overall assessment plan included direct and indirect measures gathered as formative andsummative assessments using quantitative and qualitative assessments [3]. The portion of theplan presented in this paper is a quantitative, indirect assessment used as a pretest and posttest.We recognized the importance of alignment [4] and examined the university’s mission, thegeneral education goals, and the student learning outcomes for the course. The instrument usedin this study was developed to align with the course outcomes and the course content. Evaluationforms used by the instructor, the student for her/his own reflection, peers, and audience memberswere developed to reflect the same criteria. The instrument reported on in this paper
exercisestargeted to the course level were open-ended problem-solving assignments with no clear-cut “right” answer or approach, and written assignments with a reflective component,frequently requiring judgment in the face of uncertainty. Table 1, taken from thisprevious study, summarizes the relationship between the steps of problem solving4 andthe components of a complete act of thought as proposed by Dewey5. Dewey’s workforms the foundation for current literature on critical thinking.Problem Solving Complete Act of Thought1. Define the problem (i) a felt difficulty (ii) its location and definition2. Explore a variety of solutions (iii) suggestion of
the solution themselves. Other times we will direct Concrete the students to a particular section, Experience paragraph, figure, equation, etc. in a text Reflective book that succinctly deals with the issue Active Observation at hand – we’ll say, “Someone read this,Experimentation and then see how that impacts your Abstract discussion.” Conceptualization Our goal in this is
Machine Activity – modeling the actions of a 5-axis CNC machine onsimple component shapes with in-class reflection/ discussion,f) Material Selection Activity- using materials selection software to validate the choice ofmaterial and manufacturing process(es) for a selected component with a worksheet,g) Portable NDT (Non Destructive Testing) Kit – conducting an independent investigation within-class presentations and reflection/discussion, andh) Traditional Lecture. Page 14.1085.2Some of these activities are well-proven and the “Quick-n-Dirty” CNC machine activity, thematerial selection activity, the portable NDT kit will be highlighted in paper
(visual, oral and written) [g] responsibility6. Ethics: the ability to think critically and act reflectively in g. an ability to communicate effectively relation to engineering ethics and professional responsibility h. the broad education necessary to understand [f, h, j] the impact of engineering solutions in a7. Life Long Learning: the ability to apply the fundamentals of global and societal context how people learn to one’s own education and life goals, and i. a recognition of the need for, and an ability to to use this knowledge to engage others in learning [i] engage in life-long learning8. Problem Framing
of other perspectives and ways of being andunderstanding and specifically changing the practitioners themselves rather than the ‘designpractice’ removed from the practitioners.This framework involves six steps: 1. Make practitioners aware of their own practice through reflection 2. Make practitioners aware of other ways of practicing by bringing in the results from studies 3. Help practitioners to reflect on the similarities and differences between their practice and other ways of practicing 4. Help practitioners with the adoption of some changes to their practice to ‘trial’ a new way of practicing 5. Help practitioners further reflect on the effectiveness of the changes made 6. If positive, help introduce a wider
students will deepen their conceptual understanding as they makesense of and derive meaning from phenomena under investigation.1,3Embedded in the facultydevelopment activities are reflection and investigation of learning theories. This work is led bythe University of Texas El Paso (UTEP) and is supported by a grant from the National ScienceFoundation (NSF) in the Course, Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) program. In1 This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under GrantNo. 0618861. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Page 14.389.2material are those of the author
reverse connections to Ports 1 and 2 to determine S21 and S12.Each S-parameter is a complex number and is expressed in both rectangular and polar formsdepending on the use. Unless the device under test is perfectly matched at a given frequency,there will be a reflected voltage that is not in phase with the incident or applied voltage.Similarly, the voltage b2 has been altered either because of gain/loss and group delay through thenetwork such that it is also out of phase with voltage a1. The difference between a vector networkanalyzer and a scalar network analyzer is that the VNA can measure both the magnitude andphase components and displays the S12 (input reflection loss) and S21 (forward transmissiongain/loss) in those terms. As a matter of
questioning learner’s own cross-cultural attitudes anddeepening their understanding of foreign cultures. Some of the topics introduced may causeheated debates among learners, which is why they need to be carefully moderated by anexperienced instructor. In any case, thought-provoking subjects and tasks facilitate eagerparticipation by learners and provide for a fruitful debriefing and reflection phase with theteacher, which follows on each of the four activities. The tasks presented may serve as Page 14.1003.2contributions to a cross-cultural training course to be designed by instructors who teachengineering and business students or practising
students and "More Knowledgeable Others" (e.g.teachers, parents, coaches, peers, experts, etc.)4. The classroom must become more active andengaging. When the students in the course becomes more involved and the professor puts morethought into the course the desired outcome is quite likely. Dee Fink in his workshops across thecountry states that there are two methods engaged teachers can utilize to add meaning to theexperience. “One is by helping students learn about additional things, e.g., about themselves,about others, about learning.2 Students survey responses reflect that they prefer to see onlinecourse-management systems, like WebCT and Blackboard, operate faster and be moreinteractive, presenting things in video or audio formats. The course
interaction. Learningis largely mediated by social interaction of students and "More Knowledgeable Others" (e.g.teachers, parents, coaches, peers, experts, etc.)4. The classroom must become more active andengaging. When the students in the course becomes more involved and the professor puts morethought into the course the desired outcome is quite likely. Dee Fink in his workshops across thecountry states that there are two methods engaged teachers can utilize to add meaning to theexperience. “One is by helping students learn about additional things, e.g., about themselves,about others, about learning.2 Students survey responses reflect that they prefer to see onlinecourse-management systems, like WebCT and Blackboard, operate faster and be
communication systems • Calculate signal attenuation, dispersion, and optical reflection loss through a fiber span; • Carry out Fiber-Optic measurements; • Design fiber-optic communication systems.Course Contents The topics are grouped into three main sections: transmission medium (optical fiber), opticaldevices, and fiber optic communication systems. The outline of the course is listed below4. • Fundamentals of Fiber Optics • Optical Fibers • Optical Sources o Light-emitting diode o Semiconductor lasers • Transmitters • Receivers • Optical Amplifiers, Repeaters and Regenerators • Passive Optical Components • Fiber Optic Measurements: o power loss, OTDR, CD, PMD, BERT
that it should be contextualized for strongestretention of the cognitive skills17. One related study by Renaud and Murray26 found thatstudents performed better in a critical thinking assessment when they had the opportunityto practice critical thinking in a subject-specific context. Debate on this questioncontinues as exemplified by Ennis9 in his comprehensive review on contextualized vs.non-contextualized approaches.Critical thinking experts have proposed several definitions of critical thinking that aresimilar to the Delphi report, but reflect these differences in cognitive skills & disposition,and context-based vs. context free. Giancarlo and Facione13 emphasize that criticalthinkers use a core set of cognitive skills in a given context
. The team shares knowledge as it designs,builds, and tests the robot and as the team participates in the robot competition. Collectivecompetence acquired by the team in the project is demonstrated through the robot’s performanceat the competition. Collective efficacy reflects the shared beliefs of the students in their team’scapabilities to mobilize the motivation, cognitive resources, and practical activities needed tocope with challenging robotics assignments.The concept of collective efficacy was developed in studies of group performance in workorganizations4,5 as generalization of the concept of self-efficacy that reflects perceived (i.e. basedon real experience) beliefs of the individual in his/her own capabilities to perform the given
the Learn and Serve Clearinghouse, “Service-learning combinesservice objectives with learning objectives with the intent that the activity changes both therecipient and the provider of the service. This is accomplished by combining service tasks withstructured opportunities that link the task to self-reflection, self-discovery, and the acquisitionand comprehension of values, skills, and knowledge content.”10 By incorporating servicelearning into this freshman engineering course, there were three main goals; collaborate withstudents of different study areas in order to gain communication skills necessary in theengineering workforce, apply engineering ideas to social issues that affect local communityschools and students in k-12, and increase
developed and comparisons to otherdisciplines, four standard models were identified: • The Technology Survey Course. • The Technology Focus or Topics Course. • The Technology Creation Course (Design Course). • The Technology Critique, Assess, Reflect, or Connect Course.The technology survey courses offer a broad overview of a number of areas of engineering andtechnology. The technology or topics or focus course is narrower in scope and develops onewell-defined area. The engineering design course, or technology creation course, places anemphasis on the engineering design process to develop technological solutions to problems. Thelast model to emerge is concerned with assessing technological impacts, connectingtechnological developments