Collection

2015 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Bhaskar R. Sinha; Pradip P. Dey; Gordon W. Romney; Mohammad N. Amin; Debra A. Bowen

worksettings. This curriculum stresses multidisciplinary knowledge, presented to the students with acombination of theory, lectures, independent research, projects, and presentations, emphasizingand promoting self-directed learning. It also requires students to complete a capstone project intheir final year, as a concluding experience, to determine the students’ ability to apply programknowledge and skills to real-world problems2. These projects are defined, designed,implemented, tested, and presented to a group of experts for thorough review and assessment in athree-month period. This research demonstrates that structuring these capstone projects byfollowing best practice guidelines is a repeatable, measurable and practical way to ensure asuccessful

Collection

2015 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Susan Wainscott; Julie Longo

grant-fundingagencies. Students also may apply for graduate fellowships that require a description of theapplicant’s research project. The term ‘technical writing’ is used hereafter to describe the formsof writing that the students encounter as they attempt to describe and discuss their research.Conducting a literature review requires a variety of skills, including information literacy, criticalreading, and composition as well as time management. While faculty and program staff mayassume that entering graduate students are equipped with these skills, many are not1. In fact,many graduate students experience significant barriers to initiating and completing qualityliterature reviews, including library and composition anxiety, with higher levels

Collection

2015 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Kevin R. Anderson; Clifford M. Stover

. Financial support from an industrialsponsor, along with regular contact between the industry representative and the student groups,presents a real-world setting for the course. Students must learn to work together to order fromoutside vendors, stay within a budget, and prepare for presentations. The Engineering Design Proceedings of the 2015 American Society for Engineering Education Pacific Southwest Conference Copyright © 2015, American Society for Engineering Education 48Project gives about-to-graduate engineering students an experience which is, in an academicenvironment, as close as possible to the realities of how

Collection

2015 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Zekeriya Aliyazicioglu; Rajan Chandra

skills and foundation that is needed for the two majors, but also have agreat impact on retention for later engineering courses. Research indicates that students often getoverwhelmed by these two classes and change his/her major. The goal of this paper is to describea set of course supplement tools that we have used in these classes to improve the students’ learningand retention. Our freshmen programming class is usually populated with bimodal group ofstudents- some with exceptional programming background while others are totally inexperiencedin this area. In order to best utilize the class time and to make both groups of students happy aflipped mode type of instruction is used. Of which when providing students with additionalmaterials, they

Collection

2015 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Pradip Peter Dey; Gordon W. Romney; Amir Rezaei; Amelito G. Enriquez; Bhaskar Raj Sinha; Mohammad Amin

, University of Chicago Press.8. Skinner, B. (1957) Verbal Behavior, Copley Publishing Group.9. Skinner, B. (1969) Contingencies of Reinforcement: A Theoretical Analysis, Appleton-Century-Crofts.10. Chomsky, N. (1959). "Reviews: Verbal behavior by B. F. Skinner". Language 35 (1): 26–5811. Fosnot, C. (editor) (2005) Constructivism: Theory, Perspectives And Practice, Teachers College Press (2nd edition)12. Barrows, H. S. (1985). How to design a problem-based curriculum for the preclinical years. New York: Springer.13. Hmelo, C. E., & Evensen, D. H. (2000). Problem-based learning: Gaining insights on learning interactions through multiple methods of inquiry. In D. H. Evensen & C. E. Hmelo (Eds.), Problem-based learning: A research

Collection

2015 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Thais da C. L. Alves

constructionstudents organized by a student chapter in the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), inwhich students attend a series of presentations by industry practitioners. Even though students donot get credits for these seminars, which are offered throughout eight semesters while they are atUNLV, they are required to attend the seminars and get exposed to industry practices. Thestudent chapter officers get to manage the seminar and help the program offer this opportunity totheir students,The close relationship between engineering programs and the industry, and its benefits, are alsodiscussed by Soltani et al. (2013)4. Having a degree is no longer the main condition necessary forrecent graduates to get a job. Recent graduates should be able to demonstrate

Collection

2015 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Dr. Mudasser Wyne, National University Dr. Lu Zheng, National University Keynote SpeakersDr. Don CzechowiczB.S. University of Southern CaliforniaM.S./Ph.D. Penn State UniversityDr. Czechowicz is currently Project Leader at General Atomics where he has worked for the last25 years on a variety of applied technology programs mainly focused on advanced energydevelopment. Previously Dr. Czechowicz was at Los Alamos National Laboratory where he didhis Ph.D. thesis research, and was involved in nuclear power programs for space applications.For the past 15 years Don has served as advisor to the UCSD Engineering Honor Society, TauBeta Pi. In this role Don has been a link between the best