Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 4 Conference

Authors

Allison Kipple; Dieter Otte

compensation for participating in the course. Inaddition, a course coordinator has overall responsibility for the course and tracks students’progress throughout the semester. The result has been an improvement in instructor motivationand attitudes, the quality of student products, and student preparation for successful graduatecareers.Overall Course StructureAn example overall course structure follows. Each instructor has a three-week module to discussa specific topic related to sustainability at the graduate level. The remaining weeks are devotedto an overview of sustainability, soft skill development, and project presentations. • Weeks 1-2: Introduction; Panel discussion: “What is Sustainability?”; Student project selection and planning

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 4 Conference

Authors

Brian Meadows; Charles Judah; Michael Berman; Derrick Jones; Ryan Rawson; David Alvarez; James Flynn; Sharlene Katz

hardware essential to implementing an SDR system. Section III will outline therequirements of the design project given at the beginning of the year. It will go on to discuss theapproach used to complete the project on both the hardware and software sides, as well asintegrating and testing the final design. Section IV will discuss the results of the project anddiscuss some of the interdisciplinary and soft skills that were learned. It will also focus on thepitfalls encountered during the project and further improvements that could be made. Section Vdiscusses our assessment of the educational outcomes listed above. Finally, Section VI willpresent the summary and conclusions.II. BackgroundThis project was based on the concept of software defined

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 4 Conference

Authors

Wangping Sun

globalengineers, to assist in technology transfers, international design collaborations, and globalmanufacturing issues14. Even though there is no consensus on the definition of “global engineers”12,some educators believe that a global engineer should have two sets of skills, soft and technicalskills8,15,16,17, 18.The soft skills:  Innovation that addresses the attributes needed for success in a changing global environment;  Entrepreneurial experience to understand consumer needs, domestic and foreign markets, and market needs;  Multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary team experiences;  Global awareness in another culture and foreign language skills;  Awareness

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 4 Conference

Authors

Amelito Enriquez; Kate Disney; Erik Dunmire

X X X 1 2R = Recommended X = Required choose one combined course3 4 5 Careers/soft skills Design specialized Intro to Civil only6

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 4 Conference

Authors

Lizabeth Thompson Schlemer; Faith Mimnaugh

projects, or team laboratory assignments to help studentsdevelop skills necessary for their professional careers. Teamwork skills have traditionally beendeveloped by exposing students to team activities without discussion of teamwork techniques. To someextent, this lack of formal instruction does produce results, but a better approach was undertaken at theUniversity of Dayton2 where student teams were instructed on teambuilding and leadership. Manyresearchers have struggled with the difficult task of assessing teamwork and other soft skills involved inmulti-disciplinary PBL teams. Plumb and Sobeck3 put together a framework for developing assessmenttools. They urge instructors to develop a rubric to track performance over time.Teamwork in PBL is

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 4 Conference

Authors

Jose Rivera; Gemunu Happawana; Patrick Reilly; Walter Mizuno

265The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Laser Targeting System founded by Edwards Air Force Baseenticed a team of interdisciplinary mechanical, computer and electrical engineering faculty andstudents at CSU, Fresno. The main objective in this project was to enhance electrical, computerand mechanical engineering students’ technical as well as soft skills through a comprehensiveteamwork experience. Under the supervision of four professors from electrical, computer andmechanical engineering, an interdisciplinary team of over 15 students engaged in the design andtesting of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV).In a team environment, the students had a team leader with task specific members whoperformed the specified tasks and reported to the team leader and the

Collection

2010 ASEE Zone 4 Conference

Authors