Collection

2003 GSW

Authors

Ifte Choudhury; Ricardo E. Rocha; Richard Burt

materials and methods to structures and environmentalsystems. It would be logical to believe that these are the skills essential to one’s successin the construction industry 5. In reality, the most important skill to be taught is the abilityto write effectively 5.It is no secret that construction education graduates are deficient in possessing adequatewriting skills for entering the business community 6. Understanding that these skills needto be improved is the first step in correcting the problem 4.Teaching Relevant MaterialIn order to fill the void in writing skills educators must focus their attention on writing asa fundamental communication skill 6. It is important not only to make students write, butto have them write on subject areas relevant

Collection

2003 GSW

Authors

Akanni Lawal; James M. Gregory; Lloyd Heinze

of writing NSF and other grants and receiving funding from variousorganizations. In essence, he added a component of persuasive writing and speaking that had notbeen emphasized in prior years. Dr. Lawal also saw the value of the information for some of hisgraduate students, especially international students working in a second or third language. He Proceedings of the 2003 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Annual Conference The University of Texas at Arlington Copyright  2003, American Society for Engineering Educationhas now developed a parallel graduate course that uses the basics from the PETR 3308 courseand adds considerable work on research proposal development. It is obvious

Collection

2003 GSW

Authors

Daniel Waters; Armando Mora; Lizette Zounon; J. Carter Matheney Tiernan

may be able to achieve in the future. The InfinityProject is a nationally recognized partnership between leading research universities, industry,government, and educators that has created innovative educational approaches to modernengineering that are both fundamental and fun.1 The development of the Infinity Project materialwas spearheaded by the Electrical Engineering (EE) faculty at SMU along with engineers atTexas Instruments (TI), makers of the DSP components used in the Infinity VAB kit, andHyperception, Inc., the software developers for the VAB software to control the DSP. TheInfinity Project is designed around hands-on experiments that demonstrate the basic concepts ofelectrical engineering. Each experiment utilizes real-time DSP

Collection

2003 GSW

Authors

Shantanu Bhattacharya; Jordan M. Berg; Darryl James

MicrofluidicsThe project is carried out in three parts: design, fabrication and test. The fabrication portion isintended to introduce some fundamental processes for producing microfluidic devices. The test Proceedings of the 2003 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Annual Conference The University of Texas at Arlington Copyright  2003, American Society for Engineering Educationportion is intended to provide hands-on experience in microscopic observation of microflows,and basics of LabView programming for device command and control. We will discuss thesebriefly below, but our main focus herein is the discrepancy between the students’ expectations inthe design phase and the results they observe in

Collection

2003 GSW

Authors

David L. Cocke; John L. Gossage; Emrah Alicli; Beytullah Misirli; Kuyen Li

The University of Texas at Arlington Copyright  2003, American Society for Engineering Educationadvanced classroom gadgetry. Hypertext, non-linear writing in which you follow associativepaths through a world of textual documents, is the presentation of information as a linkednetwork of nodes which readers are free to navigate in a non-linear fashion. The linking ofrelated pieces of information by electronic connections by hypermedia is, however, insufficientin the convergent classroom. Hypermodel25-29, the embedding of simulations and visualizationswithin curricular materials to create a new kind of interactive curriculum tool, is a new linkingmechanism that promises to eventually integrate the convergent classroom and

Collection

2003 GSW

Authors

Amir Karimi

fundamentals. It offers design and hands-on laboratory courses. Designis integrated through the curriculum that includes a senior level capstone design sequence. Thedepartment has established a set of specific learning objectives to support the mission and thegoals of the department and meet the requirements of ABET accreditation under the EngineeringCriteria 2000 (EC-2000). The objectives have been reviewed and approved by the majorconstituencies of the department. A process for systematic evaluation and updating of thedepartment’s undergraduate educational objectives and outcome is in place. The faculty of theMechanical Engineering Department and the College Accreditation Committee conduct theseevaluations. The Accreditation Committee has developed

Collection

2003 GSW

Authors

Richard Bannerot; Ross Kastor

simulation),but in all cases the result must be tested and/or validated. An overall evaluation of theprocess and the results must be completed, and recommendations for implementation (ifnot already implemented) must be given. Analyses that cannot be validated, designs thatcannot be built and/or at least in part be tested, and recommendations alone are notacceptable results.A key ingredient in the course is the very hands-on approach taken by the instructors. Allstudent communications are carefully read (or listened to) and extensive feedback on boththe technical content and writing quality (or speaking quality) is provided in a timelymanner. Details of these interactions appear in the next section

Collection

2003 GSW

Authors

Ronald E. Barr; Marcus G. Marcus G.; Anthony Petrosino; Lawrence D. Abraham; Tejas Karande; Bijal Patel

Kinematics Data Acquisition” exercise asks the students to write a one-pageessay on how kinematics data are gathered in a biomechanics laboratory, based on theinformation provided in the module. Proceedings of the 2003 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Annual Conference The University of Texas at Arlington Copyright 2003, American Society for Engineering EducationGo PublicThis final phase of the Legacy Cycle is when the students assemble all their assigned work andsubmit it for grading. They also completed a VBL Challenge I survey questionnaire.Both Groups A (control) and B (trial) had essentially the same assignment content, but it was justframed in a different educational pedagogy. Both

Collection

2003 GSW

Authors

Chun-Ling Huang

Copyright © 2003, American Society for Engineering Educationacademic performance (college GPA) of second-year students enrolled in engineeringprograms. Furthermore, information gained from this design is expected to allowimprovement of advisor effectiveness and career counseling for students. Main Tenets of Self-Efficacy TheoryTwo decades have passed since Bandura first identified self-efficacy theory as a belief ofone’s ability to successfully perform a given task. By the end of his first decade of study,Bandura had determined that human functioning might be dependent on cognitivecapacities [2,3].Fundamental Cognitive CapacitiesAccording to Bandura human cognitive capacities that can predict the individual’sperformance

Collection

2003 GSW

Authors

Ronald E. Barr; Justin Cone; Robert J. Roselli; Sean P. Brophy

lectures (question 9) nor would it necessarily work wellin their other engineering classes (question 10). ConclusionsThe Iron Cross biomechanics module is an effective challenge for engineering students. Itsequentially probes deeper into the complexity of the musculoskeletal system in solving staticequilibrium problems. Fundamental knowledge of engineering mechanics, coupled withempirical physiological data, are integrated to formulate and solve the problem. Indeed, there isa certain open-ended nature to the problem that some students liked, while others did not like it.In testing the IC module, it was clear that the students’ liked the use of the CPS system. Theyfound the technology easy to