Conference Session

Research On Student Teams

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Edward Evans; Sandra Spickard Prettyman; Helen Qammar

because theyare community members”.11 “Relationships are central to the learning process because knowingothers promotes sharing perspectives and sharing perspectives promotes adding to one’sknowledge”1.Students also related how the interpersonal dimension of learning had an impact on theintrapersonal dimension. The final quote above shows how Rita perceived the interaction of herpeers helped her with her own communication skills. Below, Rita speaks again about how theexperience of working with others also helped her “feel more confident” about her own ideas, an Page 10.1039.6important component in Baxter Magolda’s schema. “Proceedings of the

Conference Session

Innovation for ChE Student Learning

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

James Newell

Impact of Structured Writing and Awareness of Cognition on Effective Teaming James Newell1, Kevin Dahm1, Roberta Harvey2, and Heidi Newell1 1 Department of Chemical Engineering and 2College of Communications Rowan University Glassboro, NJ 08028AbstractMetacognition is the awareness and understanding by a student of his or her own learningown skills, performance, preferences, and barriers. This paper describes a pilot scaleeffort to develop metacognition in engineering teams at Rowan University, throughstructured writing, and the use of the Learning Combination Inventory (LCI). Thetheoretical basis for the LCI is the

Conference Session

Engineering Education Research and Assessment III

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Zhifeng Kou; Sudhir Mehta

Research on Measuring and Analyzing Student Engagement in Classes across University Sudhir Mehta, Zhifeng Kou North Dakota State UniveristyAbstractThe National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) was especially designed to measure studentengagement as a means of evaluating the impact of education at the university level. However,no such simple tool is available for measuring student engagement at an individual class level.This paper describes a classroom survey of student engagement (CSSE) that was adopted fromthe original NSSE Survey. The CSSE survey conducted over five semesters examined levels ofstudent engagement in 539 classes

Conference Session

Engaging Upper Level Classes

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Sue McNeil; Adjo Amekudzi; Kristen Sanford Bernhardt

Engaging Students in Civil Infrastructure Management Adjo Amekudzi, Sue McNeil, Kristen L. Sanford Bernhardt Georgia Institute of Technology / University of Illinois at Chicago / Lafayette CollegeIntroductionMost civil engineering courses focus on design of new facilities rather than on management ofexisting facilities. However, existing facilities need the attention of civil engineers who aretrained with lifecycle concepts and techniques for managing infrastructure, as evidenced in partby the D+ grade awarded to U.S. infrastructure by the American Society of Civil Engineers’2003 Report Card on America’s Infrastructure1. Interest in infrastructure management

Conference Session

Design and the Community

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Angela Bielefeldt

for the course is brieflydescribed, followed by a description of student feedback on their learning experiences andmentor satisfaction. The benefits and drawbacks of working on projects for the University aredescribed and contrasted with projects for communities, industrial clients, and municipalities.Although each project provides a unique experience and perspective, the greatest benefit ofUniversity projects is the accessibility and frequency of contact between mentors and students.Although political and stakeholder buy-in may be difficult to achieve from all parties in order toimplement student designs, the benefits of these projects make it worth pursuing future projectswith the University.BackgroundA significant design experience in the

Conference Session

Trends in Energy Conversion/Conservation

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Wendy L. Mahan; Martin J. Gutowski; Brian H. Victor; Mark Deluca; Sarma Pisupati

-on experimentation and plenty of out-of-classroom activity –Flash was the natural choice to allow students to have the same type of experiences in anonline environment. The activities allowed students to do everything from exploringrooms in a ‘virtual home’ in order to gain energy-usage information for commonhousehold appliances/devices, to conducting a ‘virtual experiment’ in order to determinethe best insulation method, to visiting a ‘virtual home improvement center’ in order tocompare prices and R-values of various insulation materials.The challenge from a design perspective was to capture the fun, hands-on essence of theclassroom course while keeping students engaged and focused on the learning at hand. Asmentioned previously, plenty of

Conference Session

Writing and Communication I

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Trine Kvidal; April Kedrowicz

the research on feedback(provided to students) has emphasized self-esteem and its impact on reactions to positiveand negative feedback8, the dimensions of feedback15, the effectiveness of immediate anddelayed feedback16, and feedback and communication apprehension9.Stake (1982) investigated reactions to feedback based on individuals’ self-esteem.Drawing from the idea that individuals either strive to maintain their self-image(consistency theory) or are motivated to enhance their self-evaluation (self-enhancementtheory) he tested whether or not high self-esteem and low self-esteem individuals differedin their reactions to positive and negative feedback, where performance was concerned.Findings indicate that individuals’ performance was

Conference Session

Engaging Upper Level Classes

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Keith Thompson; Matthew Roberts

The DORC* Factor: Engaging Students in Reinforced Concrete Design Matthew W. Roberts, M. Keith Thompson Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of Wisconsin—Platteville 1 University Plaza Platteville, WI 53818-3099AbstractTo better engage upper-level undergraduate students, a beam design and testing class project andcase studies are used in the reinforced concrete design course at the University of Wisconsin–Platteville (UWP). Details are furnished on how the project and case studies are used

Conference Session

College/University Engineering Students K-12 Outreach

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Russell Faux; Meredith Knight; Brian Gravel; Christine Cunningham

participation inthe program will increase students’ time to degree. The majority of our respondents reported theFellowship had no effect on their academic research (82%, n=9), while two Fellows (18%)reported that the Fellowship increased the length of time it took to complete their degree.Former Fellows Study – Impacts of GK-12 on Personal SkillsFellows were asked to rate the degree to which they felt various skills were strengthened by theirexperience as a fellow. As Table 1 indicates, mean scores for the majority of skill topics wererelatively high, with the specific skills impacted the most by GK-12 being working with children,working with teachers, understanding school culture, oral communication, and understandingschool culture

Conference Session

Building New Communities

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Yifat Kolikant; Bugrahan Yalvac; Ann McKenna

learning scientists. Learning scientists are familiar with theories of learning andmodels of instruction and are capable of conducting educational research; however, they did notmaster the domain and needed the faculty to interpret situations and student performance.Lave and Wenger (1991) claim that learning is situated, that is, occurs through a process oflegitimate peripheral participation in genuine activities of a community of practice (CoP) andthrough continuous negotiation on the meaning of the activities and the knowledge entailed.2Becoming knowledgeable involves not only mastering factual knowledge but also beingimmersed into the culture of the practice, that is, having the competency and the disposition toapply this knowledge in ways

Conference Session

Research On Student Teams

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Robert Knecht; Jennifer Gale

should be noted that students appreciate, and should be told why theyare participating in the exercises and the relevance of the exercises both to the development ofthe project and to the development of their teams. As teams progressed through the project they maintained a high regard for the activitiesnecessary to generate a quality project for the client. In general, teams developed a usefuldecision making methodology through a communication network of information transfer. Theyrecognized the value of fostering team unity through activities that engaged and supported theseteam decisions. Production of a quality product and team satisfaction depends on a balance of both task andteam functions. The rope geometry introduces teams to the

Conference Session

The Citizen Engineer

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Isadore Davis; barbara waugh; Charles Pezeshki; Lueny Morell; Tom Roberts

and humanities requirements, one could introduce more complex models of howengineers interact with society, and how politics actually works. With a more activelearning model, students could be required to track public policy on local issues over thecourse of a year. By participating in the public process, government and the inevitabletradeoffs that happen in a democracy might be made more transparent. Send theengineering students to City Hall.Additionally, a stronger emphasis could be placed on informal communication skills.While ABET mandates, and rightfully so, a large component of report writing and oralpresentation, there is often little space in the curriculum for development of negotiatingand public debate skills, as well as

Conference Session

Recruiting/Retention Lower Division

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

William Guerriero; Elizabeth Chain; Mary Vanis; Donna Zerby; Bassam Matar; Mary Anderson-Rowland

Engineering ModulesThe METS team has created modules of engineering-related learning activities that communitycollege instructors can access to engage their students’ interest. The purpose of these modules isto offer engineering-related learning activities that can be utilized in currently taught curricula,and can help such instructors build interest in engineering. Each activity features an engineeringproblem set in the context of a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) subject taughtin the Maricopa County Community Colleges. A best practice dictum suggests that educators“encourage discovery and hands-on, constructivist learning” when teaching STEM subjects towomen and underrepresented minorities.Chosen modules were based on activities

Conference Session

Distance & Service Learning, K-12, Web & Work-Based Projects

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Jamie Piacentine; Tonya Emerson

it mildly, as plans for their own outreach event began developing before the close of theconference. In developing their plan, the students determined two main goals. First, theywanted to excite kids about engineering, specifically Civil Engineering. Second, they wanted tocreate an event to showcase the Civil Engineering students and the department in an effort togenerate pride in the department and create campus and community awareness about civilengineering. After the first annual event, which had been developed in honor of the 150thAnniversary of ASCE and held on September 27th, 2002, the students expanded the event toincluded all areas of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). The 2nd Annual Mindsin Motion was held on

Conference Session

Inservice Teacher Engineering Education

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Sharon Kurpius; Dale Baker; Chell Roberts; Stephen Krause

. This work on the unit lessons included reports ofsuccesses and failures of lessons that they had field tested. This was an iterative process withcharacteristics of the Japanese lesson study. The unit included a statement of need, literaturereview, standards, a week or more of lessons, assessments and a report of the impact of the uniton students.Three students in the class who were in a science education masters program agreed to be studiedin-depth. The first was Alice. She was an elementary teacher with more than five years ofexperience. She taught 3rd grade at an alternative school that gave teachers great freedom indeciding on the curriculum. The school’s philosophy was constructivist and student centered.Textbooks were not used and

Conference Session

Documenting Success

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Steven Mickelson

have difficulty becoming engaged inthe university.4 To that end, we have been conducting an on-going assessment of ourlearning community, the results of which we will report in this paper.The ABE LC at Iowa State UniversityIn our department, the umbrella term Agricultural & Biosystems Engineering LearningCommunity (ABE LC) has evolved to now encompass two complementaryundergraduate programs available to our first- and second-year students who aremajoring in agricultural engineering or agricultural systems technology: the ABElearning community, which is created by having students co-enroll for specially selectedlinked courses, and the ABE living learning community, a reserved portion of a specificresidence hall. Other features of the ABE

Conference Session

Engineers in Toyland - Come and Play

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Jared Erickson; J. Ledlie Klosky; Stephen Ressler

describe the experiment and the two courses in whichit was conducted. We present quantitative assessment data demonstrating the positive impact ofinstant messaging on student learning and on student satisfaction with both the course and theinstructor. We provide the authors’ qualitative findings about the positive and negative impactsof IM use, as well as recommendations for maximizing the effectiveness of this popularcommunication medium.The Instant Messaging PhenomenonInstant messaging (IM) is a communication service that enables real-time text messagingbetween two or more persons over the Internet. Most current IM systems include the capabilityfor file-sharing as well. America Online Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo!Messenger are the

Conference Session

Emerging Trends in Engineering Education Poster Session

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Jennifer Light, Lewis-Clark State College

and Levine1 identify fourmajor types of learning communities: 1) paired or clustered courses; 2) cohorts in large coursesor first-year interest groups; 3) team-taught courses; and 4) residential learning communities.Most learning communities fall within these categories or are combinations of these primarytypes. The learning community for this evaluation is a combination of three of these generaltypes: clustered courses, first-year interest group, and residential. This learning communitymodel was designed to mitigate high attrition rates and inadequate student preparedness andincrease engagement in college activities.With only one half of a percent of the average postsecondary student body enrolling inengineering,2 and only half of those

Conference Session

NSF Grantees Poster Session

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Ramachandran Venkatasubramanian; Brian Skromme

operation of a devicedirectly. There is an urgent need for a “virtual laboratory” based on simulation, in whichstudents can easily visualize and interact with these quantities, and learn by experience how they Page 10.603.1*Contact author. e-mail address: skromme@asu.edu. Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Educationbehave. This laboratory can then serve as a basis for more active learning strategies involvinginteractive engagement of the students. Some software for this purpose currently

Conference Session

College Engineering K-12 Outreach III

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Sarah Nation; Leah Jamieson; Jill Heinzen; Carla Zoltowski; William Oakes; Joy Krueger

. Under theguidance of faculty and industry representatives from several disciplines, EPICS teams workclosely over many years with their community partners to define, build, deploy, and support thesystems needed. The results are systems that have a significant, lasting impact on thecommunity partner and the children and adults for whom they serve.EPICS has successfully engaged faculty and practicing engineers with undergraduate studentteams to establish mutually beneficial relationships with local schools, museums and universityoutreach organizations. These experiences provide long-term technical support and createopportunities for pre-college students to interact with undergraduates in engineering in settingsnot traditionally linked to

Conference Session

Education Ideas in Software Engineering

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Lonnie Welch; Karin Sandell; Chang Liu

%) (92%)3. Teaching Communication Skills in CS456/556To better prepare future software engineers so that they can quickly become productive ina team environment, we included communication theories and techniques as a formalcomponent of CS456/556 “Software Design and Development.” We adoptedCommunicate! 8 as the second textbook of the course and selected topics in fourimportant areas for software engineers to cover in class. The four areas were foundationsof communication, interpersonal communication, group communication, and publicspeaking. Our emphasis was on interpersonal and group communication, because suchskills could have a direct impact on the success of student projects. The foundations ofcommunication provided theoretical grounding for

Conference Session

Potpourri Design

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Janice Miller-Young

the American Accreditation Board forEngineering and Technology (ABET) both stipulate that every student must have real world,team-oriented, open-ended design experiences before graduation1,2.Mount Royal College instructors believe that students should be exposed in their first year to adesign class that incorporates elements of team work, communication skills and creative problemsolving so that they begin to develop these skills in parallel with their technical knowledge.Engineering Communications and Design I and II (ENGR 1251 and 1253) are two such courses.The communications component includes oral, written as well as visual communication skills,with a strong emphasis on sketching, which has been shown to have a positive impact on

Conference Session

Communication Skills in Aerospace Engineering

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

James Helbling; Patric McElwain; Angela Beck; Ron Madler; David Lanning

Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright© 2005, American Society for Engineering Educationmaterial outside of one’s expertise, gaining insight from diverse viewpoints, providing outsidesupport for department internal review, and engaging in interdisciplinary scholarly activities suchas interdisciplinary research 4. These benefits also include more intangible notions such asfostering community across department boundaries and appreciating each other’s contributionsto student education.With these benefits in mind, the AE and HU/COM faculty chose to pursue collaborative teachingin three phases. First, as a test case a new writing course was developed and linked

Conference Session

NSF Grantees Poster Session

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Don Millard

provide a context for integrating science andtechnology within the school, the home and the community. The resulting web-based comic andlinked materials/modules engages and inspires students in STEM education by coupling factualhigh-technology based comic books with internationally significant collections – in both creativeand useful ways. We will continue to augment these materials and will widely disseminate theproducts via a combination of workshops, publications, teacher’s guides, special museumprograms, a traveling exhibit (that can be displayed in other prominent locations) and K-14educational initiatives.The pilot project has exhibited broader impact by providing students the ability to access thematerials at their own pace (in a format

Conference Session

Program Level Assessment

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Linda Strauss; Patrick Terenzini

Criterion 3.a-k. In2002, ABET commissioned the Center for the Study of Higher Education (CSHE) at Penn StateUniversity to undertake this assessment. The study, entitled “Engineering Change: A Study ofthe Impact of EC2000,” is a national study of the impact of the new outcomes criteria andassociated curricular and programmatic changes on learning among undergraduate engineeringstudents. As part of that effort, the CSHE project group developed a measure of studentperformance in each of EC2000’s 11 student learning criteria. This paper describes thedevelopment process and the psychometric characteristics of that instrument. Additionally, thecurrent work is intended to provide the engineering education community with apsychometrically sound

Conference Session

Recruiting, Retention & Advising

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Andrew Beckett; Thomas Marrero

Freshman Interest Groups: Creating Seamless Learning Communities to Enhance Student Success Andrew Beckett, Dr. Tom Marrero University of Missouri-ColumbiaIn 1983 the National Commission on Excellence in Education’s A Nation at Risk began a call forreform in secondary and higher education. This report claimed that America’s education was“being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and apeople.”1 Several related reports followed. Namely, the Wingspread Group2 and the KelloggCommission3 both charged higher education to redesign the undergraduate experience to betterprepare America’s citizens for the 21st

Conference Session

Innovative Curriculum Developments

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Greg Walker; Sean Brophy

media formats illustrates the potential of expressing ideas inmultiple context and formats1 beneficial to students’ comprehension.We did not anticipate the students’ positive reaction to having the professor facing themas he talked. From their comments, they identified a different connection with theprofessor as though they were engaged in a conversation. This could have an importantaffect on the classroom community that is formed, which invites students to either shareinformation or ask questions. More research could be done to evaluate the benefits tostudents’ attention and motivation to participate in the classroom lessons. In the future

Conference Session

Pedagogy

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Howard Shapiro

Creating an Academic Learning Community Using a Multi-level Project Howard N. Shapiro Iowa State UniversityThis paper describes a multi-level, integrative, semester project involving students fromtwo different engineering thermodynamics classes: Thermodynamics II, an applicationsoriented course at the junior level, and Advanced Thermodynamics, a beginning graduatecourse. The project was carried out in groups of five to six students with a mix from eachclass. A total of fifty-one students participated in the semester project. The primary goalwas to engage students at different levels in an integrative experience

Conference Session

ABET Issues and Capstone Design

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Gregory Davis; Craig Hoff

2005-2130 The Integration of Hands-on Team Projects into an Engineering Course to Help Students Make the Transition from Student to Professional Engineer Craig J. Hoff, and Gregory W. Davis, Kettering UniversityThere is considerable concern that current engineering education practices do notadequately prepare students for the practice of engineering. This statement goes farbeyond the often stated requirements that to be successful in their careers engineeringgraduates must have good communication skills, must be able to work inmultidisciplinary teams, etc. There

Conference Session

Engineering Education Research and Assessment III

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Daniel Bailey; Andrew Ricke; David Spurlock; Susan Murray

. Implications for educators and potentialcost-benefit trade-offs for particular student subpopulations are also presented.IntroductionToday’s engineering undergraduates, like their predecessors, are confronted with the relativelyheavy demands on their time necessary to master the academic fundamentals of their disciplines.In addition, it seems that they are exposed to an ever-growing array of opportunities andexpectations to engage in university-sponsored extracurricular activities. These activities arepromoted as avenues to foster the development and demonstration of social, communication, andleadership skills. University administrators count among their major missions the recruitmentand retention of students and may see promotion of student