Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Min Zou; Li Cai

New Approach of Teaching Engineering Laboratory at UndergraduateLevel with Emphasizing on Creativity, Teamwork, and Communication Min Zou1 Li Cai2 1 Department of Mechanical Engineering 2 Department of Industrial Engineering University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701 AbstractTraditional undergraduate engineering education has been focused on transferringknowledge from textbooks to students. In today’s highly competitive real world,creativity, teamwork, cutting-edge knowledge, effective communication skills

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

R. C. Clifft; Shivan Haran

undergraduate students, cannot be over emphasized. This paper discusses thetechnical approach taken and the experiences gained at ASU in two of the engineeringcourses – one in Mechanical and the other in Civil Engineering concentration areas.Specifically, these two courses emphasize learning through a series of hands-onlaboratory experiments, which provide knowledge and better understanding of the theorythat has been discussed in lectures. One of the goals is to provide the students withexperience in designing and implementing laboratory experiments, given specificobjectives as well as constraints. The development of the experiments and associatedlaboratory equipment for teaching these courses will be presented. All experiments arecarried out in

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Edgar C. Clausen; W. Roy Penney; Alison N. Dunn; Jennifer M. Gray; Jerod C. Hollingsworth; Pei-Ting Hsu; Brian K. McLelland; Patrick M. Sweeney; Thuy D. Tran; Christopher A. von der Mehden; Jin-Yuan Wang

Laboratory/Demonstration Experiments in Heat Transfer: Forced Convection Edgar C. Clausen, W. Roy Penney, Alison N. Dunn, Jennifer M. Gray, Jerod C. Hollingsworth, Pei-Ting Hsu, Brian K. McLelland, Patrick M. Sweeney, Thuy D. Tran, Christopher A. von der Mehden, Jin-Yuan Wang Ralph E. Martin Department of Chemical Engineering University of ArkansasAbstractLaboratory exercises or demonstrations which are designed to compare experimental data withdata or correlations from the literature are excellent methods for reinforcing course content. Aspart of the requirements for CHEG 3143

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Theodore W. Manikas; Douglas E. Jussaume; Gerald R. Kane

time and space permits. Teaching assistants are available duringscheduled office hours throughout the week for consultation and grading. This paper discussesthe application of this approach to the development of specific laboratory courses.BackgroundAn important part of any engineering curriculum is laboratory courses, which supplement thetheoretical knowledge gained in lecture courses with practical applications. ABET requirementsstress the importance of engineering students obtaining the ability to design and conductexperiments1. Ideally, this would be accomplished by supplementing each engineering coursewith a co-requisite laboratory. However, the requirements of laboratory courses can oftenexceed the resources of most small departments.At

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Norman D. Dennis

1 2 3 Engaging Engineering Students through 4 Improved Teaching 5 6 7 Norman D. Dennis 8 University of Arkansas 910111213 Abstract1415 National enrollment statistics show that engineering programs historically lose more than 55% of16 their entering students to attrition of some form1. Whether this attrition is to other academic17 programs or from college altogether it is clearly a problem that must be reversed if we are to18 attract and retain the best and brightest minds to the engineering profession for the future. While19 there are a wide variety of reasons for the poor retention of

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Karen S. Hays

and habits of prudent behavior in the laboratory so thatsafety is a valued and inseparable part of all laboratory activity.1In 1997, the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Arkansas began thedevelopment of laboratory safety training for all undergraduate students participating in theinstructional laboratories. Over the past eight years, this program has expanded. Initially, thetraining consisted of a simple one hour session for undergraduate students, focused primarily onHazard Communication and the departmental lab rules. Now, the laboratory safety programincludes safety seminars held monthly for all chemical engineering graduate students, trainingfor the instructional laboratory teaching assistants and periodic reviews

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

R. L. Kolar; K. M. Dresback; E. M. Tromble

, which we have hosted over the summer for the lasteight years; and students hired to work on single-investigator projects. Mentoring requires a muchdifferent skill set than teaching, so carrying out this activity in conjunction with their major pro-fessor is excellent preparation for academic life.Instructional Activity Sequence - Year 4. In the fourth year, GAANN Fellows serve as one of thefollowing: 1) primary instructor for a team-taught course; 2) sole instructor for a laboratory orrecitation section; or 3) team leader for one CEES’s K-12 programs (see above). Also, GAANNFellows will take the second of the two required education courses (EDAH 5123).Year 4 educational tasks culminate with GAANN Fellows submitting their completed

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Stephan A. Durham; Mark L. Kuss; Ernest Heymsfield; Hanna Sheppard

which neither parent holds acollege degree. The overall objective of this program is to increase enrollment for students inhigher education institutions. This program involves a six week summer program in which thestudents are engaged in “hands on” activities in the areas of math, laboratory sciences,composition and literature. The Department of Civil Engineering assists in the laboratory scienceportion of the program. Since the Department’s involvement, students have become involved ininnovative ongoing research. Research the students perform is practical and experimental andincludes topics such as field permeability of asphalt, in situ permeability of concrete, andtheoretical specific gravity of asphalt mixtures. At the end of the six week

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Kamesh Namuduri; Ravi Pendse

which have IAScurriculum certified by the Committee on National Security Systems (CNSS) 4. If one of these institutions happens to be within the vicinity, it is strongly advised topartner with such an institution. Especially, institutions designated as Centers ofAcademic Excellence are already well established with several IAS related education,training and research programs. Associating with such CAEIAE institutions andpartnering with the teaching and research faculty at these centers will tremendouslyreduce the amount of initial preparations that are needed to offer IAS courses and trainingprograms at your own institution. The University of Tulsa, in Oklahoma is one of the first few universities that receivedthe CAEIAE designation

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Chris Ramseyer; Beth Brueggen

their donation of materials.We thank Kyran Mish, director of Fears Laboratory, for his understanding and support and MikeSchmitz, lab facilities manager, for his help organizing the lab.Bibliography1. J. Fredricks Volkwein & D.A.Carbone, “The Impact of Departmental Research and Teaching Climates onUndergraduate Growth and Satisfaction,” The Journal of Higher Education, March – April 1994 pp. 147-1672. A.C. Schoenfeld & R. Magnan, “Mentor in a Manual” 2nd Edition, Magna Publications, Inc. Madison,Wisconsin, 1994 pp. 267 Proceedings of the 2005 Midwest Section Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Stephan A. Durham; W. Micah Hale

shelter. Students on severaloccasions have stated that upon leaving the class, they not only learned the class material, buthad fun doing it.IntroductionStructural Materials, CVEG 2113, is a required civil engineering class at the University ofArkansas. The class is typically taken by second semester sophomores or first semester juniors.The course introduces students to construction materials used in everyday civil engineeringapplications. Approximately two-thirds of the class discussions involve concrete materials withthe remaining lectures concerning steel, wood, and fiber reinforced polymers. The classschedule consists of two fifty-minute lectures and one three hour laboratory each week of thesemester. The laboratory is designed to emphasize

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Jason Weiss; Farshad Rajabipour; Thomas Schmit; Sebastian Fait

of the lecture. In addition to encouraging nearly 100% participation and enabling nearlyinstant grading and attendance, the methodology developed enabled problem-based, peer-interactive learning during the large lecture format. This format enabled the students to work onpractical problems by teaching one another, thereby reinforcing important class concepts.This paper will describe: 1) the background of civil engineering materials classes at Purdue, 2)the motivation for investigating how to improve the learning experience in the materials courses,3) the background of interactive classroom technology, 4) methods to incorporate the personalresponse devices in class, and 5) plans for future developments.1. The Background of the Civil

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Dale E. Schinstock

lecture, lab, and homework coalesce the topics of course throughout the semester.The course reduces the specific topical coverage while increasing expectations for greaterunderstanding of the topics covered. In addition, it focuses on a few key concepts usedthroughout the semester to tie the topics together.This course has been a great success story. From the author’s experience of teaching at threedifferent universities, this required course is usually despised by a majority of mechanicalengineering students. Now that these course changes have been implemented, student interest isat an all time high and their praise for the course is abundant.Description of the LaboratoryThe laboratory is an important part of the course. Each student attends a

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

K. Madhavan

at CBUChristian Brothers University is a small Catholic university. The School of Engineeringoffers degrees in electrical, mechanical, chemical and civil and environmentalengineering. The CEE program requires studies in structural, soil, traffic andtransportation, hydraulics and water resources in addition to other courses in physics,chemistry, mathematics and the liberal arts. Only the courses in the geotechnicalsequence are described here. Three required courses are offered in geotechnicalengineering (geotechnical engineering, geotechnical engineering laboratory and design offoundations) along with elective courses. In the first two courses, students learn thefundamentals and in the third course, they are required to design various types

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Ken French

Vertical Integration with a Vortex Tube Ken French John Brown UniversityAbstract Vortex tubes are made by small groups of students in a freshman engineering‘concepts and design’ class. The tubes are made from specially prepared kits with detailsimportant to performance left un-finished. Students in an elective manufacturingmethods class produce the kit components once they are designed. An upper division fluid mechanics class will use laboratory sessions to measureand compare the performance of the freshman teams’ vortex tubes. Design, CAD andteam dynamic are essential components of the learning10.Background The vortex

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Julia L. Morse

outcomes.Grading sheets in engineering education literatureThe use of exam or assignment grading sheets is certainly nothing new. Walvoord andAnderson’s 1998 work on Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment1 redirectedthought on the use of grading rubrics to specify desired outcomes, objectives, or “primary traits”expected from student work. This was considered a dual attempt to (1) encourage specificdesired learning outcomes and (2) make grading more fair and efficient. V. L. Young et. al.,applied Walvoord and Anderson’s Primary Trait Analysis to the grading of laboratory reports ina senior capstone chemical engineering course. In addition to meeting goals (1) and (2), Youngand her colleagues also noted the benefits of their grade sheets

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

A. Lambert; D. J. Russomanno; P. Palazolo; S. Ivey

as engineers will require a type of flexibility to adaptto continual changes on multiple fronts: technological, biological, and global.. Just asthe profession changes based on global demands, so will engineering educators change inorder to teach and model the types of skills engineers of the future will require.1Statistical data relating to attrition and retention of students majoring in science,technology, engineering, or math (STEM) fields continues to be alarming, with high-ranking administrators and researchers describing these trends as a “leak in theengineering pipeline.”2,3,4 Put simply, far too few students are choosing to major inSTEM fields, and of those who do, far too few are retained. These issues have serious implications on

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Brandon W. Olson

effectively organized teams canaccomplish tasks that are well beyond the abilities of individuals, and teach students to think innew and creative ways4-8. Students, however, are typically somewhat resistive to these grouptechniques for the following reasons: 1) Workload and credit are not fairly distributed amongst group members. 2) Scheduling group time together outside of class is very difficult. 3) Students do not know or trust other group members.It is interesting to note that the majority of these concerns are related to organizationaldifficulties, rather than an inherent dislike of cooperative learning. Instructors also typicallyexpress concerns over their ability to cover sufficient material and in managing group activities9.These

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Larry N. Bland

Can ABET Professional Skills Stimulate Curriculum Changes That Aid in Student Recruitment? Larry N. Bland John Brown UniversityIntroduction In November 1996, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET)board of directors approved one of the most significant changes to accreditation of engineeringprograms in modern times. Previous accreditation requirements had been a very rigid set of rulesfrom almost thirty pages of detailed requirements that covered course requirements, credits anddistribution, faculty staffing, and laboratory facilities. [1] The new criteria became known asEngineering Criteria 2000. These

Collection

2005 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Melissa Miller; Randall Reynolds

project based upon sound curriculum. The challenge for the project was to create anactivity involving a simulation-based video game relating to a particular aspect of IndustrialEngineering. The activity was to then be used as a laboratory exercise for INEG 1103:Principles of Industrial Engineering and also modified for use as a classroom activity for juniorhigh school students. Obviously, a major issue was designing the activity with a proper level ofdifficulty for both age groups while keeping the subject matter relevant to meaningfulengineering and junior high instruction.The materials developed are intended to help students acquire fundamental problem solvingcapabilities as well as a basic understanding of some tools used in Industrial