Collection

2023 Rocky Mountain Section Conference

Authors

Jessica Rush Leeker; Lyndsay Ruane; Hannah Sanders; Robertha Richardson

thecommunity.The student cohort is working toward the ultimate deliverable of designing and building a living-learning laboratory. This laboratory will be created with maximum sustainability, with repurposedmaterials and architecture designed to work in tandem with the land on which it is built. The landis near the HBCU but not the PWI, generating a need for remote planning and collaboration. Inaddition, the laboratory will aim to benefit the local community by reflecting on the area's historyand context and contributing via learning resources, sustainable agriculture, and accessibleknowledge sharing.Our lessons learned are divided into three fundamental areas: using a PALAR framework,intentional community engagement, and genuine inter-institutional

Collection

2023 Rocky Mountain Section Conference

Authors

Janet Tsai

iterations of a newengineering design course offered to senior undergraduates and graduate students, a journeymapping assignment has required students to reflect on their own experiences traversing throughengineering culture. These journey maps are also shared in small group discussions during classto uncover similarities and differences in student pathways, highlighting areas of overlap,commonalities, and disparate experiences. Informal student reflections on the assignment suggestthat viewing others’ journeys through engineering normalizes individual struggles, as nojourneys are direct, all feature ups and downs, and most involve deeply questioning ifengineering is the desired outcome. This work in progress paper describes the background andprior

Collection

2023 Rocky Mountain Section Conference

Authors

Cortney Holles; Cynthia James; Roel Snieder; Qin Zhu

, although we oftenassociate love with teachers of younger students. The project incorporates principles ofmindfulness, empathy, and social connection, and draw upon research in psychology andeducation to inspire participants to consciously bring love into their classrooms. The purpose ofthis paper is to reflect on the experiences of the first cohort of participants who completed theTeaching with Heart workshop. The researchers will explore what we have learned so far aboutthe impact of the workshop on participants' personal growth and teaching practices and point tothe next phases of the project.FOUNDATIONS FOR WORKSHOP DEVELOPMENTIn practice, the primary focus of STEM higher education is the acquisition of the academicknowledge and technical

Collection

2023 Rocky Mountain Section Conference

Authors

Pinar Omur-Ozbek

of ethics, discussing theresponsibilities of professionals to society, employers/clients, and colleagues. The use of casestudies brought up by the instructor as well as the ones the students research and find can fosterthe discussions on the topic (McGinn, 2003; Rabins, 1998).Any EJ coverage in class brings along SJ concerns, and it is best to cover both conceptssimultaneously. Therefore, starting with basic definitions, especially developed by the students isa great starting point. The students may start by reflecting on what these terms mean to them,then get in groups to discuss their definitions and perspectives with each other. Finally all classcomes together to share their definitions. Class discussions may continue around the case

Collection

2023 Rocky Mountain Section Conference

Authors

Pinar Omur-Ozbek; Ketul Popat; DaeSeok Chai; Christie Peebles; Abdulkhakim Salokhiddinov

indicated on the syllabus, there are two group projects in this course. Students will be paired up with students in another country (groups may have 3-4 students). Building on the case studies they worked on (to provide scaffolding for this assignment and get the students working on the project as early as possible) they will create a short report and a short presentation. All students will be expected to contribute to all parts of this activity. The instructors will assess how the students shared the work, how much they interacted to prepare the report and presentation, who did they seek help from (ideally almost all faculty being involved in the course). 4- Reflections: Students will be asked to reflect

Collection

2023 Rocky Mountain Section Conference

Authors

Angela Bielefeldt; Daniel Godrick; Joan Tisdale; Melissa Davis

pre-calculus in Fall 2022 (so failed to place into Calculus1 or higher) and did not have strong participation in the course or completion of basic reflections,homework, or lab assignments. At the end of the semester, the students who earned a D or F in thecourse had a lower engineering identity, feelings of belonging at the university, and feelings ofbelonging in the course in comparison to students who earned an A, B, or C in the course. Theresults indicate that in the local context there is still further work needed to best support the needsof students with respect to their math skills as they transition into college.INTRODUCTIONMuch has been written about the challenges that many college students encounter with math, andthat math is

Collection

2023 Rocky Mountain Section Conference

Authors

Christopher Thiry

recreate one landscape from eachcategory. Even though it was only for extra credit, 30 students out of 55 in the class performedthe assignment. After recreating one landscape from each of the categories, the students took apicture of their results. The photographs and a written reflection about the assignment weresubmitted to the professor.STUDENT RESULTS AND REACTIONSI examined the reflections and photographs to gain insights into the learning outcomes of theassignment. In general, students accurately recreated the landscapes, although some were betterthan others. The students self-identified their level of knowledge regarding topographic maps.The majority (17 of 30) had worked with them in previous classes and could explain their use.An improved

Collection

2023 Rocky Mountain Section Conference

Authors

Iris Bahar; Ashley Oelrich; Bridget Griswold; Eva Goetz

participation from diverse groups of students, Prof. Bahar removed almost all coursepre-requisites normally found in engineering courses. This allowed a mix of sophomores tomaster’s students at Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) to enroll inthe course. It also attracted students from a broad range of majors (including engineering,computer science, social sciences, and visual arts) with more gender diversity typically seen inSTEM (i.e., 60% of the class identified as female). The course was also designed to foster adeeply reflective environment among students regarding the current technological state of theworld and its societal repercussions. There were 21 students enrolled in the class, which was heldtwice a week with the 2.5

Collection

2023 Rocky Mountain Section Conference

Authors

Daniel Godrick; Angela Bielefeldt; Rachel Sharpe

. However qualitative studentexperience showed a different clear favorite: the in-person Arduino-robot. As the students usedthe Arduino-robots, there was a clear joy that was absent or reduced during the peg-board andvirtual lab. During the semester with hybrid learning, 23 out of 35 (66%) student reflections saidthe in-person labs were a highlight of the course. These findings replicated findings from otherimplementations of the course where students indicated a preference for hands-on labs [6]. Several of the students specifically pointed to the robot lab, captured with this reflection:“With online lectures and labs, it can all get a bit boring, however, when I am actually applyingwhat I learned in lecture to something I can touch with my

Collection

2023 Rocky Mountain Section Conference

Authors

Dendy Sloan; Cynthia Norrgran

students think they are good. The metacognitive awareness of learningstrategies in college students was discussed in a paper by McCabe [20]. Students are not aware of whatthey know and don’t know, thus the clinging to the rereading and mass practice. Students claim to knowthe material and are confounded when the test results don’t reflect that. In fact, Callender andMcDaniel [21] found in four separate experiments that rereading does not improve recall or testinggrades: one group reading once vs one group reading twice. Groups read three texts once or twice witha set of unrelated problem solving between the reading and the testing, and the last group read thematerial once or twice with the first text material tested immediately and the second text

Collection

2023 Rocky Mountain Section Conference

Authors

Randy Hurd; Dustin Grote

) helped them to gain a stronger understandingof engineering vibration, b) provided a more realistic engineering experience than the averageassignment in their program of study, and c) caused them to think and reflect more about thetopic. Responses were a little lower on questions 4 and 5 referring to the Microphone Lab. Isuspect this is because acoustics wasn’t expressly covered in the course textbook and this mayhave felt outside of the mainstream discussion. It may also have been that coins may have feltless appropriate for an engineering assignment to the students. Having them record the responseof a motor or something mechanical may improve the response on this lab.Table 1: Summary of student response to smartphone-based lab assignments

Collection

2023 Rocky Mountain Section Conference

Authors

Shellee Dyer

hope is that more hands-on practice with quantum topics willincrease the rate of student persistence in the course. Other improvements planned includeincorporating more clicker-style interactive questions. These interactive clicker questions are ahallmark of my classes, and one student recently described the questions and resultingdiscussions as, “the best part of my school day.” I hope that more interactive discussions willimprove students’ understanding and persistence in the course.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSI acknowledge the use of IBM Quantum services for this work and thank them for making such apowerful educational tool available to my students. The views expressed are those of the author,and do not reflect the official policy or position of IBM

Collection

2023 Rocky Mountain Section Conference

Authors

John Annor; Francois Jacobs

Education,” Journal of Construction Engineering and Management,vol. 126, no. 3, pp. 169–175, May 2000, doi: 10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9364(2000)126:3(169).[3] J. Biggs, “The reflective institution: Assuring and enhancing the quality of teaching andlearning,” http://lst-iiep.iiep-unesco.org/cgi-bin/wwwi32.exe/[in=epidoc1.in]/?t2000=016712/(100), vol. 41, Apr. 2001, doi:10.1023/A:1004181331049.[4] M. A. Cavanaugh, G. Milkovich, and J. Tang, “The Effective Use of MultimediaDistance Learning Technology: The Role of Technology Self-Efficacy, Attitudes, Reliability,Use and Distance in a Global Multimedia Distance Learning Classroom,” undefined, 2000,Accessed: May 13, 2022. [Online]. Available: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Effective-Use-of

Collection

2023 Rocky Mountain Section Conference

Authors

Melanie Butts; Isaac Manning; Abdennour Seibi; Matthew Ballard; Mohammad Shekaramiz; Abolfazl Amin

process has taken longer than expected asthe problem nature presents a high-level research work. We then started modeling airflow aroundthe wind turbine blade, which is not included in this paper. Figure 3: Left - Velocity results from simulation with medium mesh elements. Right - Velocity results from simulation with fine mesh elements.LESSONS LEARNED This section describes our perspectives on being engaged in undergraduate researchproject-based learning. As part of a big team consisting of eight students from eachprogram totaling 24, both of us were assigned this task while our colleagues from themechanical engineering program were divided into two subgroups of three students. Wewill not cover their reflection

Collection

2023 Rocky Mountain Section Conference

Authors

Elizabeth Novosel

. Accessed: Feb. 12, 2023. [Online]. Available:https://discovery.ebsco.com/c/3czfwv/details/qbv7eduwev?limiters=FT1%3AY&q=humanities%20and%20data%20analysis[4] B. L. Fong, “Boot Camps for Graduate Student Success: A Collaborative Initiative,”Journal of Library Administration, vol. 59, no. 4, pp. 373–394, May 2019, doi:10.1080/01930826.2019.1593710.[5] A. Ranganath and J. Wrigley, “The Data Bootcamp as a Platform for Data LiteracyEducation: Reflections from the University of Colorado-Boulder,” University of ColoradoBoulder, Jun. 01, 2022. Accessed: Feb. 12, 2023. [Online]. Available:https://zenodo.org/record/6633777#.Y-leVBPMJqy

Collection

2023 Rocky Mountain Section Conference

Authors

Alexis Capitano; John Cook; Kathryn Johnson

toremedy the issue. [12] This is an example of adjusting the course material to reflect aprofessional environment and better prepare students for the transition into their career.CheatingWith the advent of substantial new technology in the classroom comes a great opportunity tooffer new and innovative ways to deliver content to students. From a student perspective,however, technology can also pose an opportunity to subvert the expectations of the classroom.In a study from the University of Michigan it was reported that around 74% of the engineeringstudents surveyed had participated in some form of cheating during their time at university [13].With such high rates of academic dishonesty, in some cases students may be finishing theirdegree with

Collection

2023 Rocky Mountain Section Conference

Authors

Nathan Edwards; Steven Kiss; Carter Grizzle; Asher Edwards; Vaanathi Sekar; John Branning; Brett Meadows; Mohamed Kassem; Michael McGivern

solutions for real-world engineering problems. In other words, their currentschool systems have insufficiencies in establishing foundational knowledge needed to preparethem for the electronics industry.How might industry and schools partner to prepare students for electronics and otherengineering industries?When asked this question, each of the students reflected on their experiences and generatedseveral creative ideas on how industry and school systems can partner to be more effective atpreparing a needed workforce for the electronics industry talent pipeline. High school careerfairs could help students explore different STEM industry careers; many of the pilot participantsfelt that they lacked knowledge of all the opportunities available. Regular

Collection

2023 Rocky Mountain Section Conference

Authors

Paul McMullin

is now built or under construction and ranges from guardrail to large, complex industrialfacilities. When the work my students prepare is on par with that of practicing engineers, I considerthis the best metric possible. Yes, some do sub-par work, but that’s life in school.How else do I know? My students tell me in their reflections, and in written reviews. This feedbackcomes from the fall of 2022, which a student submitted to the UVU’s Office of Teaching andLearning.“Paul understands that lecturing the entire class is not effective. Students need to get involved in adiscussion to actually learn something. Paul led a hybrid course where he discussed/lectured for 30-45 minutes and then let us work on our homework in class. This allowed us to

Collection

2023 Rocky Mountain Section Conference

Authors

Kayson Christensen; Jordan Hunt; Brayden Parady; Melanie Butts; Abdennour Seibi; Mohammad Shekaramiz; Mohammad Masoum

Airflow Velocity Measurements: A Project-Based Learning ExperienceAbstract: This paper describes the involvement of undergraduate students in a multidisciplinary team-basedresearch project between three engineering programs. The paper focuses on the contribution of a subgroup ofmechanical engineering students working on the airflow measurements around a single fan, triple fans, and asmall-scale wind turbine. The paper outlines the process undertaken by students to design and perform theexperiments and reflects on the challenges and lessons learned. Three different experiments were conducted tomeasure the airflow around the fans and wind turbine with the aim of defining a “No Fly Zone” for drones. Thesingle fan

Collection

2023 Rocky Mountain Section Conference

Authors

Ben Weihrauch

, the theoretical framework of intersectionality and college studentsimportant. The term “intersectionality,” commonly attributed to feminist legal scholar KimberléCrenshaw (1989, 1991), posited that sexism or racism does not singularly and fully account fordiscrimination in the legal arena. Within higher education, applying an intersectional frameworkcan more accurately reflect the diverse experiences of students and provide insight intoeducational inequality. Most intersectional studies focus on the interplay of race/ethnicity,gender, sexual orientation, or social class, and their impact on student academic and socialexperiences (Duran & Jones, 2019; Santa-Ramirez et al., 2022). Because of the manyintersecting identities common in the FGS

Collection

2023 Rocky Mountain Section Conference

Authors

Hongyan Liu

find certain design equations in Code 6.07 Know the structure of the Code 5.66 Be able to solve examples and homework problems in textbook 5.03 Understand the reason behind formula in Code and how to 4.34 derive them Learn how to read and understand Commentary of the Code 5.55 Discuss and compare different version of the Code 3.41Similarly, another survey question has the students use the same rating system on the helpfulnessof different learning activities typically employed in a design class. The results from thisquestion are listed in Table 2. It is apparent that students saw value in collaborative work, whichis reflective of