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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Raman Menon Unnikrishnan; Ricardo V. Lopez

20 Learning Communities Improve Retention in Engineering and Computer Science Raman Menon Unnikrishnan and Ricardo V. Lopez College of Engineering and Computer Science California State University, FullertonAbstract As a comprehensive university, California State University, Fullerton (CSUF) servesapproximately 37,000 students from a variety of cultures and backgrounds, with the recentincreases tied to the immigrant population from Mexico as well as Central and South

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Estelle M. Eke

the notion of acceptability of solutions, and are aware of errors encountered incomputing and how it relates to real-world designs. The team approach reveals to each memberthat the learning experience consists of frustration, compromise, and ultimately success. Futuredevelopment already approved by the department of mechanical engineering includes offering asimilar structure in an introduction to computer programming course so that students mayappreciate at the onset why understanding programming concepts is essential for engineers.Emphasis will also be placed on communication between MATLAB and the Basic Stamp2. Thisapproach establishes a most important link between theory and implementation.AcknowledgmentsProject examples presented in this

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

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Thomas J. Impelluso

70 Distance Learning and Cognitive Load Theory to Enhance Computer Programming for Mechanical Engineers: Qualitative Assessment Thomas J. Impelluso, Ph.D. Associate Professor Mechanical Engineering San Diego State University ABSTRACTA computer programming class for students of mechanical engineering was re-designed withregard to both content and

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Yusuf Ozturk; Emrah Orhun; Chris Bowerman

386 TOWARDS A JOINT DEGREE PROGRAM IN AMBIENT COMPUTING1 Yusuf Ozturk*, Emrah Orhun**, Chris Bowerman*** Electrical and Computer Engineering, San Diego State University* Computer Science Department, Troy University** Department of Computing and Technology, University of Sunderland***Abstract ⎯ Funded by the US-EU Atlantis Program, International Cooperation in Ambient ComputingEducation (ICACE) Project is establishing an international knowledge-building community for

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Frederick Harris; Gordon Lee; Stuart H. Rubin; T. C. Ting; Billy Gaston; Gongzhu Hu

enabled individuals, small groups, and small countries to have an equal voice by providingas much access, visibility and opportunities as large businesses and advanced countries. One of the major impacts of computing is in the area of human learning, that is, cognitiveand logical inference activities that will inevitably change the way we learn, work and live [1].Lifelong learning will be the focus for long term and continuous economical development. In areport from the European Parliament and the Council on Key Competences for Lifelong    Proceedings of the 2009 American Society for Engineering Education Pacific Southwest Regional Conference

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Gordon W. Romney; Paul D. Juneau

web server, the default web page ofthe ISS server was reporting to users that the server required them to use a secure connection.When we added “s” to the “http” in the address bar, it would redirect them to “http://soet-web/index.aspx”. Somehow, the server process left the “s” out of the default web page. Throughresearch and some handy JavaScript code, we were able to create a custom 404-3 error thatwould redirect requests to the correct site using SSL.2.4 User Client’s Requirements ChangeIT emphasizes synergistic solutions between technology, people and processes to successfullyresolve enterprise computer problems. In the ITM program, students learn that people, namelythe client, drive the development process. IT professionals, with their

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Richard K. Herz; Gregory E. Ogden

102 SimzLab - Interactive simulations of physical systems for active individual and team learning by Richard K. Herz Chemical Engineering Program and Nanoengineering Department, University of California, San Diego and Gregory E. Ogden Chemical and Environmental Engineering Department, University of Arizona, Tucson Teaching by

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Pradip Peter Dey; Thomas M. Gatton; Mohammad N. Amin; Mudasser F. Wyne; Gordon W. Romney; Alireza Farahani; Arun Datta; Hassan Badkoobehi; Ralph Belcher; Ogun Tigli; Albert P. Cruz

learning (Helic, Maurer, & Scerbakov, 2004; George LucasEducational Foundation, 2008); team-based learning (Michaelsen, et al., 2008); web-basedLearning (Lee & Baylor 2006; O'Neil & Perez 2006); and participatory learning (Barab, Hay,Barnett, & Squire, 2001). There is no conflict between these methods and APDT since it canadopt these methods if needed.2. PROBLEM DRIVEN TEACHING IN MATH FOUNDATIONS (Main Author: P. Dey)At National University, the APDT method was applied in a graduate course on mathematicalfoundations of computer science (National University course number CSC 610). Cohen (1997)was used as the textbook for this course. Lectures, class discussions, brain storming and quizzeswere used regularly following the textbook

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Gordana Jovanovic Dolecek; Fred Harris

systems are connected4. Students learn better, remember longer and are better able toidentify the appropriate concepts to solve new problems when they learn by addressing concreteproblems and actively participate in exploration and pursuit of knowledge3. The availability of personal computers (PCs), their increasing calculation power, and theirenhanced graphical possibilities enable teachers to take the advantage of the pedagogicalpossibilities afforded by new technologies5. Computer-aided learning has become extremelypopular and its use in classroom can be very helpful by adding more analytical capabilities in allengineering areas6. It can be applied in the aspects of teaching, learning, validation, and researchin engineering education4

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Amelito G. Enriquez

perception of the effects of this classroomenvironment on their learning experience. These results indicate that the interactive classroomenvironment developed using wireless Tablet PCs has the potential to be a more effectiveteaching pedagogy in problem-solving intensive courses compared to traditional instructor-centered teaching environments.1. IntroductionStudies have long shown that the traditional instructor-centered lecture format is an ineffectivelearning environment, and that active participation, as well as interactive and collaborativeteaching and learning methods, are more effective in various areas of science and engineeringeducation including Chemistry1, Physics2, Engineering3, and Computer Science4. Various usesof technology have been

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Arun K. Datta; Jacqueline Caesar; Daphne Rainey; Stephen Cammer; Julie Schuman; Oswald Crasta

teach students from diverse disciplines someessential concepts on computer technology in the context of applying cyberinfrastructure. Thesecourses developed for K13 & K14 levels will be offered in an innovative classroom setting forhands-on experimental learning with a focus on solving scientific problems as a team. Thesecourses will also be deployed for online learning in a virtual classroom. The effectiveness of suchan approach, introducing concepts from engineering education to the non-engineering students,will be assessed through formative and summative methods for further development anddissemination._____________________________________________________________________________*CIBRED is funded by NSF award OCI-0753375 to O

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Ranjan K. Sen; Pradip Peter Dey

 that  are  relatively  easy  for  traditional  programmers  to  learn  rapidly  and  use.  These  new  technologies provide support for both shared memory as well as distributed  memory parallel programming models such as a decentralized software service model. However, the presentation of these technologies needs to build on the general background of the stored programmed memory model used by the traditional programmer. It needs to add structures that enable them to incrementally move from sequential model to the parallel model of computation. The goal of the paper is to present a comprehensive structure that integrates the parallel programming model with the sequential model and introduces the technologies in this context. The paper argues

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Bruno Osorno

404the way we must engage [3] students into deep learning. Keeping that in mind, we started tocreate our own online model for this class. Figure 1 Student EngagementSoon into the semester, it was obvious that a change was needed to deliver the content of thecourse more effectively. It was decided to require the use of MatlabTM in some assignments andit was used as a tool to explain EE concepts. While this method worked for a while, there weresome issues with the access of Matlab. Students had to buy their on version since they could notget to campus to use the University computers. Power World is software that we have been usingsporadically. Since the student version is free, the access to it was not a

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Kurt Colvin

learning, and can be used to improve a variety of courses orsolve particular problems. Some universities have used the hybrid model to solve classroomspace shortages, to improve communication between students and instructors in large classes,and to address students' needs for computer and technology literacy (Lindsay, 2009).There is a wide range of interpretations of how to define blended learning (Boyle, 2005;Whitelock & Jelfs 2003; Driscoll 2002). These arise partially from the different motives thatunderpin the use of a blended learning approach. These vary from cost-saving considerations topedagogical considerations of producing more effective methods of learning. At the base ofthese descriptions is usually a mixture of asynchronous-based

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Thomas MacCalla; Jacqueline Caesar; Michael Maxwell; Shay Vanderlaan; Sandra Valencia; Terena Henry; Matt Leader

became the first U.S. highereducation institution to offer an integrative STEM Education graduate program to develop21st century K-16 STEM educators, leaders, scholars, and researchers to promote trans-disciplinarity (http://teched.vt.edu/TE/STEM.html)Another part of the framework is the digital media and learning environment orCyberlearning space, which is supported by networked computing. The National ScienceFoundation’s 2008 Task Force Report on Fostering Learning in the Networked World (8)envisioned a “Cyberlearning” noted that content is no longer limited to books, filmstrips,and videos associated with classroom instruction and that networked content today providesa rich immersive learning environment that incorporates accessible data using

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Lawrence Fong; Brian P. Self

283 Modeling the Dynamics of a Small Catapult to Enhance Undergraduate Studies Lawrence Fong and Brian Self California Polytechnic State University, San Luis ObispoAbstractIt is estimated that the average engineering student will work 3000 "back of the book" stylehomework problems by the time that they graduate. While these problems can certainly helpwith the learning process, many do not mimic any type of real world systems that an engineerwill encounter in their careers. Furthermore, most do not require the student to

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

5. Dinner Speech: Cultivating Collaboration and Interdisciplinary Practice, Thomas MacCalla 10 6. Keynote Speech: Innovations in Undergraduate Bioengineering Education, Melissa Kurtis Micou 11 7. Concluding Speech: When Did Engineering Become so Cool? Engaging a New Generation, David Hauhurst 12 8. Classifying Student Engineering Design Project Types, Micah Lande 13 9. Learning Communities Improve Retention in Engineering and Computer Science, Raman Menon Unnikrishnan and Ricardo V. Lopez

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Vasco D. Polyzoev; Eniko T. Enikov

Department of The University of Arizona, it isnot unusual for the Control System Design course to have enrollment of about 100 students. Thismakes offering a lab section with the course nearly impossible. As a way to avoid canceling thepractical experience of the course, we developed an inexpensive and portable setup, which canbe taken home by the students, and they can work on it as their term project. Besides addressingour organizational problems, this solution brought an opportunity to demonstrate to students amodern approach towards control systems using computers and implementing the controller insoftware.II. Experimental setup descriptionThe setup consists of a small DC electrical motor, operating at 0-5V, attached to one of the endsof a light

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Kyle A. Watson; Ashland O. Brown

elective for undergraduate students. Therefore, the majority of engineering programs do not require coverage of FE theory and application as a component of their undergraduate curriculum. Industry is placing an increased emphasis on the ability to apply this powerful computational tool; so it follows that students earning an undergraduate degree in engineering should learn this skill in order to meet the demands of entry-level engineering job descriptions. The persistence of the deficiency of FE coverage in undergraduate engineering programs is due to various reasons, such as the recent focus on reducing credit-hours in engineering programs; the need to remove other material at the expense of adding this new material; and the fact

Collection

2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Gordana Jovanovic Dolecek; Fred Harris

application of educational software is to measure theusefulness of the software in the teaching-learning process. To this end we defined the evaluationform with set of questions attempted to test the usefulness of the software and the quality of itsdesign features. All questions are rated with marks varying from 1 to 4; with the latter being thehighest mark. The following set of questions has been asked: 1. Justification for the computer use in teaching random variables. (1=unjustified; 4=absolutely justified). 2. Contribution to study of random variables by demo program use. (1=irrelevant; 4= very effective). 3. Clarity of explanations and features of demo. (1=confusing; 4=absolutely clear). 4. Did this demo help you to understand better

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Paul Blowers

and Energy BalancesIn the sophomore material and energy balances course, there were a total of 94 students whofinished the course out of the 103 who began the course at the beginning of the Fall 2008semester. This course is the first core course in chemical engineering and is one of the twooptions engineering management students must take in order to meet their energy-basedcurriculum content requirements. Students in engineering management may take this courseduring their sophomore, junior, or senior years, while chemical engineers will be sophomores.A variety of instructional support tools were used in this course that had an impact on the use andevaluation of concept maps in student learning. These tools were primarily computer-based

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Donna M. Schaeffer; Patrick C. Olson

learn by experiencing. His observation for education is that the system inexistence at the time of his work is based on an important fallacy. This is that the experiencesdesigned by adults – and particularly to be credible to adults – to teach children were failing.Further, they were failing because these experiences assumed that the child’s experience would bethe same as the adult’s experience. As one might assume, this is a liberating idea for professional educators. Of course likemany liberating ideas, the liberation soon began to resemble anarchy. To get an idea of how thismight have looked in the 1920’s, one can view the play or movie Auntie Mame. The title characteris left to raise her nephew and chooses several avante garde

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Gordon W. Romney

ofInformation Technology (IT) students for multiple technology purposes beyond just webdevelopment. RoR has proved to be a multi-faceted agile teaching tool in IT courses from anelementary to very advanced level. It is database agnostic and allows students to easily switchdatabases from MySQL to MS-SQL and Oracle and experience an immediate comparisonvirtually impossible with other frameworks. It functions ideally under virtualization and in thiscontext is the perfect tool for working under both Windows and Open Source environments andin being the vehicle for implementing problem-focused learning scenarios. Of equal importance,RoR teaches proper application development formality using the RESTful approach thatincreases performance and resilience and

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

James Helbling

472 INTEGRATING DESIGN APPLICATION AND COMMUNICATION SKILLS INTO SENIOR DESIGN COURSES James Helbling, Department of Aeronautical Engineering Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Prescott, AZThis paper recounts the evolution of a capstone senior design course taught at Embry-RiddleAeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona. It will discuss the development of the applicationbased learning objectives and the integration of a technical communication component into thecourse in question, and the challenges and negotiations involved in successfully implementingthese

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Jesa H. Kreiner; Peter W. Othmer; Timothy W. Lancey

223 The Capstone Design Experience in the Mechanical Engineering Department at California State University, Fullerton Dr. Jesa H Kreiner, Dr. Peter W. Othmer & Dr. Timothy W. Lancey Professors Mechanical Engineering Department California State University Fullerton, CA 92834AbstractThe terminal learning experience in the mechanical engineering program at California StateUniversity, Fullerton is the series of two design classes: ME 414 and ME 419

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Hassan Mohamed-Nour

-based.These include power flow analysis, short-circuit studies and power system stability amongother studies. With rapid developments in computer visualization tools, virtual depiction ofmost engineering concepts and design methods is now possible and fairly affordable.Advances in communications and in digital signal processing and the wide use of the Internethave led to the feasibility of remote laboratories. In this case, real equipment andinstrumentation may be housed in a remote location while the control of this equipment can beperformed locally. Furthermore, the instrumentation and equipment can be animated locallyin conjunction with real audio and video received form the remote equipment location. Thisvirtual local animation of a laboratory is

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Reza Raeisi; Deepak Anand

application in order to enhance and promote experiential learning inundergraduate education for computer engineering students.System Architecture“Multipoint remote temperature monitoring and data acquisition system using RF technology” isa project taking advantage of wireless technology and mobility of embedded system. It aims tomonitor temperature at various zones and report back wirelessly the temperature of these zonesto a master node. It is possible for the master node to monitor the temperatures of different zonesfor controlling purpose. The system architecture overview is shown in figure 1. Temperature Sensor HCS12 HAC-UM 96

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Geon S. Seo; Eniko T. Enikov

280Properties and Micro/Nano Technologies for Biological Systems” in Fall semesters 2005 and 2007at the University of Arizona. In both semesters, students learned the same topics and performed thesame design term project based on a microcantilever sensor. However, in 2005 they designedcantilever sensors and simulated their deflection using computer programs such as ANSYS,SolidWork, and MatLab, and in 2007 the students fabricated their own cantilever sensors andperformed the experiment on deflection measurements with them. Table 2. The results of surveys. Fall 2005 Fall 2007 Questions (Answer: 1 - 10

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Stephen Beck; Joshua Brent; Thomas Brown; Agostino Cala; Eniko T. Enikov; Richard Lucio

teaching materials compared to other expensive, specializedproducts. Our project involved presenting students with a task of designing a ribbon-climbingrobot which must detect a randomly placed marker and report its height through a wirelesscommunication link. The students were provided with basic mechanism design formulas andcalculations allowing them to optimize their design. The project culminated in a finalcompetition between the teams in the class. The project emphasized self- and team learning. Theteamwork and the final competition encouraged flexibility, interaction and support between thestudents, behavior necessary of successful engineers.IntroductionEngineering is often a daunting subject for incoming students. Lack of knowledge about

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2009 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Kate Disney; John Krupczak

underlying science. With a “How Stuff Works” class, students aregiven a foundation that can be applied later to learning about other technologies not covered inthe course. The benefits to having a technological foundation are clear – many important issuesof our time have a technological component. With a proficient understanding of currenttechnological issues, citizens could be more participatory and effective members of society. Proceedings of the 2009 American Society for Engineering Education Pacific Southwest Regional Conference 180Much work has been done through NSF funding to bring engineering, science, and technology tothe