Conference Session

Student Engagement in ECE

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Eric Freudenthal, University of Texas, El Paso; Rebeca Gonzalez, Chapin High School; Sarah Hug, University of Colorado; Alexandria Ogrey, University of Texas, El Paso; Mary Kay Roy, University of Texas, El Paso; Alan Siegel, NYU

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

biological processes. Two other pilots are beginning in Spring 2010. A section of an introductory programming course offeredto students enrolled in Electrical Engineering will be taught using MPCT‟s pedagogical approach and willinclude projects that simulate dynamism in electrical systems. A section of a statistics course attended bystudents of psychology will also include elements from MPCT with the expectation that the process ofconstructing simulators of stochastic systems will assist in students‟ understanding of coupled andindependent random processes. We are also adapting this approach of motivating math from concrete problems to the teaching ofalgorithms. There, the objective is to use specific problems as a vehicle for teaching

Conference Session

History, Program Design, and even a Journal Club

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Steven Cramer, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Wendy Crone, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Moira Lafayette, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Jeffrey Russell, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Paul Peercy, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Darryl G. Thelen, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Daniel Klingenberg, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Amy Wendt, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Tagged Divisions

Multidisciplinary Engineering

landscape that our graduates face strongly suggests a need to change the preparationour students receive.The University of Wisconsin-Madison has been facilitating change in the undergraduate programto promote a different kind of engineering education. To provide leadership and strategy forchange, the College of Engineering (CoE) formed the Engineering Beyond Boundaries EB2 TaskForce (TF) consisting of a core group of faculty.. Through a series of focus groups, facultymeetings and the formation of a larger working group, faculty and staff articulated and pursuedthe following goal:The College of Engineering will provide a contemporary engineering education that is strong inthe fundamentals of the discipline and also fosters an understanding of the

Conference Session

Educational Research & Methods Poster Session

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Qaiser Malik, Michigan State University; Punya Mishra, MSU; Michael Shanblatt, MSU

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

registration; and 3) to motivate students to learnengineering concepts related to other fields by generating enough interest in the subject5, 6. Thepast research shows that motivating the students to learn in service courses is a challengebecause most students are unable to understand the link between the knowledge acquired in theservice courses and their majors7, 8.This longitudinal study was conducted on Electronic Instrumentation and Systems (EI&S)course, a typical service course offered by the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE)department of a large Midwestern university. The objective was to explore and understand theroot causes of why students underperform in service courses. The research question formulatedfor the study was: “What are

Conference Session

Retaining Women Engineering Students

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Elizabeth Litzler, University of Washington; Stephanie Jaros, University of Washington; Suzanne Brainard, University of Washington; Susan Metz, Stevens Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

engineering community by-passing the specificneeds of under-represented women students?The findings from this study should be of interest to educational researchers, deans, practitioners,directors of women in engineering or minorities in engineering programs, and faculty who areinterested in the intersection of race, gender and academic experience. In particular, the findingspoint to recommendations for the retention of women and under-represented minorities inengineering, and to new avenues of research. They also provide evidence that a “one size fits all”approach does not work because students with multiple group identities experience things indifferent ways.Given these new findings, further study is needed to determine the programs or practices

Conference Session

Retaining Women Engineering Students

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Susan Metz, Stevens Institute of Technology; Suzanne Brainard, University of Washington; Elizabeth Litzler, University of Washington

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

an Affiliate Professor in the Department of Women Studies in the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Washington. Suzanne’s research has focused on issues of recruitment, retention and advancement of women of all ethnicities in engineering, science and the workforce.Elizabeth Litzler, University of Washington Elizabeth Litzler is the Director for Research at the University of Washington (UW) Center for Workforce Development (CWD) and a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at the UW. Her research interests include the educational climate for undergraduate and graduate students, gender stratification in education and the workforce, and gender and families. Liz is the research

Conference Session

Technological Literacy for K-12 and for Community College Students: Concepts, Assessment, and Courses

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Stephen O'Brien, The College of New Jersey

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

Page 15.1194.7~18% in 1981).7 Investigations into the reasons for the higher male fraction have not beenundertaken. However, it may be that males are attracted to the T&E components, a dominanteffect in engineering schools.Another gender effect has not been investigated directly but is surely quite important. Notunlike most institutions offering K-5 teacher preparation programs, the MST graduates aremostly female (~75% for the MST major). However, there is a substantial difference; femaleMST graduates are well versed in all areas of STEM (STEM literate, if you will), whichshould result in MST graduates being effective role models for female K-5(8) students.8,9(3) Measured M, S and T&E content knowledgeThe depth of content knowledge is

Conference Session

NSF Grantees Poster Session

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Noe Vargas Hernandez, The University of Texas at El Paso; Gul Kremer, Pennsylvania State University; Julie Linsey, Texas A&M University; Linda Schmidt, University of Maryland

University of Maryland Pilot StudyA group of 17 University of Maryland graduate students participated in a pilot study of the TRIZtreatment. The course was “Engineering Design Methods” (ENME 600), an introduction todifferent conceptual design methods for mechanical engineering. Seven of the students were alsoworking engineers. Fourteen class members had never heard of TRIZ before the experiment.The other three (two professionals and one student) were more familiar with TRIZ (i.e., theyrated their understanding of TRIZ at a level of “3” out of 5.The 17 class members were in the TRIZ training condition; the class members were not given thesketching emphasis lecture nor did the use Smartpens. For the ideation assignment, students wereasked to take the