Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Byron Garry; Suzette Burckhard

allows them toimplement this knowledge in the form of new curricula, new assessments and assignments, andnew pedagogies, which in turn become subjects for further inquiry.7 This cycle of improvementbecomes a powerful way for faculty to grow as professionals over time. This is work that can bedone independently by engineering faculty, but having the support of other faculty encouragessuch work. Formal faculty development centers are playing increasingly important roles incampuses across the country; they are well positioned to connect research in SoTL witheducational issues of wider institutional concern.7 Faculty development centers on mostcampuses is commonly provided by social scientists (generally education and psychology facultymembers) to

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Sousada Chidthachack; Mark A. Schulte; Forster D. Ntow; Jia-Ling Lin; Tamara J. Moore

Engineering. Students must complete one ortwo industry-sponsored projects per semester.Student Empowered Design and Monitoring is a guiding principal for the program model;students own responsibility for their learning. Students identify which outcomes will beaddressed at the beginning of each new project, while working with faculty. Each project cycleincludes two reports – a design report and a written report, and a final presentation. The finalpresentation is made to faculty and external clients, and includes an oral examination to assessstudent understanding of the knowledge and competencies required. Establish Learning Graduate Entering Students and Design

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Audrey LaVallie; Eakalak Khan; G. Padmanabhan

on the North Dakota Reservations aspiring to pursuecareers in STEM areas are likely to enroll in the Tribally Controlled Colleges (TCCs) first andthen move on to four-year universities. However, there was a concern with the low enrollment inSTEM courses and programs. In order for this situation to improve, programs which would not 10only motivate students to pursue college education in STEM but also guide them throughgraduation had to be developed. A core group of faculty from the two major universities (NorthDakota State University and University of North Dakota) and tribal colleges (Cankdeska CikanaCommunity College, Fort Berthold Community College, Sitting Bull College, Turtle

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Gretchen A. Mosher

intothree broad areas: learning barriers, social challenges, and faculty/instructor issues1, 4.Ashraf4 suggests that TBL in the classroom does not always appropriately simulate the situationin the workplace and the result is that less motivated students may receive better grades andproductive students receive lower grades, relative to the level of effort expended. He summarizeslearning concerns such as lower quality work and stifled individuality as a result of groupprojects in the classroom. Ashraf4 also questions whether group projects result in studentslearning new skills, given that students often “divide and conquer” components of projects,working on the section of the project that they know best. Finally, Ashraf4 suggests that theefficiency

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Bob Fourney; Jason Sternhagen; George Hamer; Cory Mettler

. Implementation of this experience was motivatedby low retention rates for electrical engineering students. Students who failed to remain in EECSfor their sophomore year apparently were handicapped by a lack of an intuitive feel for electricalengineering and a lack of understanding of how and why the various required courses would fittogether to form a well-rounded curriculum.To address these issues, EECS at SDSU is implementing a new FOCUSED (Focused OngoingConcentrated Undergraduate Sequence in Engineering Design) in the Electrical Engineeringprogram. Three years of our department-wide (both EE and CS) freshman robotics experienceand two years of our EE specific EE 102 class have now been completed. Retention going intothe sophomore year has