Conference Session

Learning to Communicate with Engineers and Non-Engineers

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Leslie Potter, Iowa State University; John Jackman, Iowa State University; K. Jo Min, Iowa State University; Matthew Search, Iowa State University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

skills pretest, an emailintroduction by each student of himself, an impromptu speech by each student introducinghimself, and an impromptu written paragraph in which each student assessed his presentation.Initial surveys were also administered asking the students to score their skills, confidence, andenjoyment with respect to communication. Outtake assessments were made of planned andimpromptu written prose, process internalization, and mechanics. Post-surveys wereadministered on skills, confidence, and enjoyment. Finally, ABET/IMSE outcome items (f) [anunderstanding of professional and ethical responsibility], (g), (i) [a recognition of the need for,and an ability to engage in life-long learning], and (p) [be able to provide leadership in multi

Conference Session

Innovative Courses/Pedagogies in Liberal Education II

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Paul Ross, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

” required in ABET certification standards and increasingly in work thatdemands a “liberal arts” perspective in addition to technical abilities.“High-impact educational practices” are well served by this syllabus.8 George D. Kuh’s“overview” includes the following examples of effective student engagement and contributionsto cumulative learning. Kuh includes first-year seminars and experiences, common intellectualexperiences, learning communities, writing-intensive courses, collaborative assignments,research, and global learning. Kuh notes that these and other practices may be carried out indifferent ways depending on the academic opportunities and environment. A detailed analysis isnot possible here, but the context of the UW-Madison FIGs program

Conference Session

Normative Commitments and Public Engagement in Engineering

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Erin Cech, University of California, San Diego

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

theprofession and their future career therein, it also alters the personal values and traits of thesestudents.1, 23 The “social consciousness” measure taps the personal importance to students ofimproving society, helping others, participating in their communities and easing racial tensions.If professional socialization is effective, students should emerge from their undergraduateexperiences more interested in public engagement and more socially conscious than when theyentered as freshman. The analysis below will not only be able to track these changes, butdetermine if a programmatic emphasis on ethical engagement actually drives these changes. Page

Conference Session

Liberal Education and Leadership

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Julia Williams, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology; Richard House, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology; Anneliese Watt, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

AC 2009-1610: COMMUNICATION PEDAGOGY IN THE ENGINEERINGCLASSROOM: A REPORT ON FACULTY PRACTICES AND PERCEPTIONSJulia Williams, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Julia M. Williams is Executive Director of the Office of Institutional Research, Planning and Assessment & Professor of English at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, Indiana. Her articles on writing assessment, electronic portfolios, ABET, and tablet PCs have appeared in the Technical Communication Quarterly, Technical Communication: Journal of the Society for Technical Communication, The International Journal of Engineering Education, Journal of Engineering Education, and The Impact of Tablet PCs and Pen

Conference Session

Communication and Collaboration

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Sally Blomstrom, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University; Hak Tam, University of California, Santa Barbara

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

ABET’s 3(d) criteria of demonstrating the ability to function on multi-disciplinaryteams and 3(g) criteria of demonstrating the ability to communicate effectively. In this study, we raised the following questions: Q1: Is there a difference between pre-test and post-test for all students in the course? Q2: Is there a difference between results from students in service-learning sections and results from students in sections using other pedagogies? Q3: What impact did service-learning have on student learning?Method All students in this study were enrolled in different sections of the speech course requiredby a 4-year university specializing in engineering and aviation. Eight sections were offeredduring the

Conference Session

Innovative Courses/Pedagogies in Liberal Education I

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Deborah Sinnreich-Levi, Stevens Institute of Technology; Susan Metz, Stevens Institute of Technology; David Silverstein, Stevens Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

. Togain an understanding of the workshops’ impact on participants, surveys sampled response totwo issues:• Students’ confidence in their ability to communicate effectively.• Students’ awareness of their need as engineers to communicate to broad audiences.The questions are included in Tables 1 and 2 below.Students completed an on-line version of the pre-survey and a paper version of the post-survey.The paper version was implemented to improve survey response rates because studentparticipants were not responding to the online post-survey at the rate that they had for the pre-survey. The paper survey was conducted in the classroom as opposed to the asynchronous on-line survey.Findings: surveysThe findings from the pre- to post-survey indicate

Conference Session

Normative Commitments and Public Engagement in Engineering

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Gary Downey, Virginia Tech

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

himrefocus on the University’s motto, “Enter to learn, go forth to serve.” Without giving up oneconomic competitiveness as a goal for both the country and the individual student, Alanexplains that he “realized students need to place their engineering solutions within their humancontext and understand the impact engineering can make on developing countries.”39. Expanding performance measures (for sustainability engineering)—James Mihelcic I tend to pursue things that integrated my heart and personal convictions with the structure of my engineering brain. I was always willing to devote the same time to an undergraduate in need as to a doctoral student of great promise. And I was always willing to assist a small community group that

Conference Session

Critical Thinking and Creative Arts

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Helen Donis-Keller, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

effectively as well as to communicatethrough oral, visual and written mechanisms. Modern advances in technology will necessitate theeffective use of virtual communication tools." Courses in the arts, humanities, and socialsciences (AHS) can address the need, at least in part, for broadening the educational base forengineering students. AHS courses that focus on the development of creativity, multiple meansof effective communication, improving critical thinking skills, and engagement by students withthe larger questions of living within contemporary society today would address some of theimportant concerns enunciated in these reports. However, AHS courses form an exceedinglysmall fraction of the total number of course credits required for graduation

Conference Session

Writing and Communication I: Innovative Models for Curriculum and Assessment

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Marie Paretti, Virginia Tech; Lisa McNair, Virginia Tech; Diana George, Virginia Tech; kelly belanger, Virginia Tech; Lisa Norris, Virginia Tech

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

were to construct a persuasive argument for a perspective on technology and society. A fewstudents were even observed enthusiastically engaging in an in-class debate about consideringboth engineering and human consequences of doing engineering research. The researchers wereimpressed by this occurrence and thought that it qualified as the students contextualizingengineering and its societal impact and the instructor helping students bridge gaps betweenengineering and the humanities.The students in the English class had previously taken an introductory Engineering course inwhich they reviewed the ABET outcomes and wrote reflections on its relevancy in theirelectronic portfolios. Because of this experience, they were cognizant of not only the

Conference Session

Communication - Needs and Methods

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Warren Waggenspack, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; Sarah Liggett, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; Warren Hull, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; David Bowles, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; Stephen Sears, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; Daniel Thomas, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; Paige Davis, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

and her master's degree in Industrial Engineering from Louisiana State University.© American Society for Engineering Education, 2010 Engineering from Louisiana State University. Page 15.718.2© American Society for Engineering Education, 2010 Incorporating Visual Communications Assignments to Enrich Education in All Engineering DisciplinesIntroductionAt Louisiana State University, a gift from an alumnus made possible the establishment of aprogram to improve students’ communication skills. As we described in a 2006 paper, theCommunication across the Curriculum (CxC) Program was established in 2004 with an initialemphasis on engineering

Conference Session

Liberal Education Division Poster Session

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Robert Meyer, Clarkson University; Dick Pratt, Clarkson University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

AC 2007-1451: THE CLARKSON COMMON EXPERIENCE CURRICULUM:GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS BASED ON STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMESRobert Meyer, Clarkson University Robert Meyer is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Clarkson University. He received a B.A.(1970) in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics, M.E.E. (1970) and a Ph.D. (1974) in Electrical Engineering, all from Rice University. He has been employed by Texas Instruments, and Exxon, and since 1974, by Clarkson University. His research has been on applications of computing in communications network monitoring, including software design, development, and testing, and the application of distributed artificial intelligence to

Conference Session

Engineering for Social Justice

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Charles Schreier, University of Dayton; Carl Eger, University of Dayton; Margaret Pinnell, University of Dayton

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

individually with hostfamilies provides the students with the opportunity to become fully immersed in the culture oftheir placement. These experiences expose the students to alternative, non-traditionaltechnologies that are based on fundamental science and engineering principles while enactingtangible and immediate impacts on improving the lives of those who use them. Such exposureallows students to recognize the far-reaching effects, positive and negative, of engineering andtechnology and thus the responsibilities of being an engineer in a global society. Upon return,students are required to write a formal technical report describing the work that they did, givetwo presentations to the campus community or other appropriate audience and write a

Conference Session

Multidisciplinary and Liberal Education

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Hilkat Soysal, Frostburg State University; Oguz Soysal, Frostburg State University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

science and engineering majors are usuallymore likely to know about the humanities than the average humanities major knowsabout sciences and engineering. Effective communication and understanding betweenmembers of the society with different educational backgrounds is crucial in making bettertechnological decisions that will impact the everyday life, culture, environment and thefuture generations.The idea of offering a course on science, technology, and society in general educationcurriculum for non-engineering students goes several decades back. In late 1960s andearly 1970s many institutions in the USA started to develop technology literacy courses(TLC) for students in majors other than natural sciences and engineering, leading to“Science

Conference Session

Liberal Education Division Poster Session

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Carole Goodson, University of Houston; Susan Miertschin, University of Houston; Barbara Stewart, University of Houston; Luces Faulkenberry, University of Houston; Curtis Johnson, University of Houston

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

Technology (CoT) at the University of Houston (UH), thereare core courses that primarily address social and cultural impact but also have technical content,and there are technical courses that incorporate cases or simulations to engage students inthought about issues broader than just the technology. The University has encouraged coursesthat integrate knowledge from more than one field for many years. However, the four coursesdescribed in this paper originated from the need to provide a wider world view for technologystudents. The need for students to integrate technological information within the framework ofsociety at large has been articulated by TAC/ABET (Technology Accrediting Commission of theAccrediting Board for Engineering and Technology

Conference Session

Critical Thinking and Creative Arts

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Beth Todd, University of Alabama; Garry Warren, University of Alabama; Susan Burkett, University of Alabama; David Cordes, University of Alabama; Marcus Brown, University of Alabama

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

useful methods forteaching ethics, societal impact, and contemporary issues throughout the curriculum 8. A reviewdescribing creative methods for teaching and learning these skills are given by Shuman et al 9.Student focused e-learning courses 10 as well as ePortfolio approaches 11 have been useful forplacing responsibility of the student on communicating knowledge of the ABET outcomes thatare difficult to assess.Still others have attempted to address contemporary issues and other ABET outcomes bycreating soft skill modules that can be included in any course.12,13 When lumped with ethical andsocietal impact modules, assessment of the contemporary issue module showed that studentconfidence when dealing with these topics went from an average pre

Conference Session

Questions of Identity

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mike Graham, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Amy Wendt, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Paul Peercy, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Patrick Farrell, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Jay Martin, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Sarah Pfatteicher, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Jeffrey Russell, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

an even more exciting and welcoming place towork and learn? Will the COE become an environment where not just students, but faculty andstaff also are inspired to keep learning? Or alternatively, will the people in the college be subjectto events apparently outside of their own control?”Our taskforce has been engaged in both thought and action on how to assist the UW-MadisonCOE in meeting these challenges, AND, as importantly, in improving as a university-basedengineering community. Our approach to (re)design of the COE for 2010 and beyond is and hasbeen centered on two realities: First, while the administration of the college sees many forces onthe horizon that will affect the activities of everyone in the college, individuals in the

Conference Session

Questions of Identity

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

David Ollis, North Carolina State University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

thescholarly impact: this author’s research reputation is based largely upon a small set ofpapers in the photocatalysis domain. Accumulating by age 50 an appreciable research success through increasingnarrowness, albeit a productive one labeled scholarship, in the early 1990s my path beganbroadening. My research group focus had been narrow, as befits most PhD groups. Tobetter prepare my graduate students for the broader world which might have no interest inthe as yet uncommercialized photocatalysis area, I created a graduate PhotochemicalEngineering course, and explored the broader topical range of photography andxerography, of microlithography in microelectronics and microfabrication, of light-basedwater purification, and photovoltaic energy

Conference Session

Liberal Education for 21st Century Engineering

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Heywood, Trinity College Dublin

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

communicated to students audiences. by teacherOrganizing system of the classroom in Organizing systems are complex: teacher and students both reachsimple one teacher teaches 30 students. out beyond school for additional information.Reading, writing and math are treated Disciplines needed for problem solving are integrated; listening andas separate disciplines; listening and speaking are fundamental parts of learning.speaking often are missing from the curriculum.Thinking is usually “theoretical” and Thinking involves problem solving, reasoning and decision making.“academic”Students are expected to conform to Students are expected to be responsible, sociable, self-managing, teacher’s behavioral expectations; and

Conference Session

Critical Thinking and Creative Arts

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Bill Genereux, Kansas State University, Salina; Elena Mangione-Lora, University of Notre Dame

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

“enriched learning environment”7 thatstudents will find interactive and engaging. In addition, such projects may help to address theneed for a broader education within already full engineering curriculums.ABET accreditation requires that all engineering graduates have effective communication skills,have an ability to function on multi-disciplinary teams, and have an understanding of the world,the economy, the environment and society.8 It is a challenge to fit the broad education requiredfor gaining this kind of understanding into an intensive engineering education. Digital videotechnology used in student video projects addresses this challenge.Student created video projects can be extremely effective educational tools as they encouragestudents to

Conference Session

Ethical Responsibilities of Engineers in the World of Corporate Business

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Donna Riley, Smith College

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

within engineeringeducation, with a strong emphasis on ecological as well as economic sustainability. For exampleParsons16 was engaged in developing a handbook for U.S. engineering students planning to workin developing countries. Emphasis was placed on listening to the community. For a review ofappropriate technology courses that involve a service learning component see Sandekian et al.17A strong model for service learning and appropriate technology is the ETHOS program at theUniversity of Dayton. The program connects students with service learning opportunities indeveloping countries, and offers a course which includes language and cultural preparation aswell as readings in appropriate technology to prepare students.18 Explicit recognition is

Conference Session

Approaches to Learning Outcomes Assessment in Liberal Education

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Steve Lappenbusch, University of Washington; Jennifer Turns, University of Washington

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

which the students talked about their experiences withportfolios and their sense of themselves as engineers. The excerpts presented in the findingssection come from these data sources.We engaged the gathered data first by simply reading the transcripts through from beginning toend. We saw that in their portfolio work students consistently grappled with a wide variety ofissues. We conceptualized these issues as problems and reduced the disparate data sources into acollection of over 500 problems. We then sought to organize the problems, focusing on fourdifferent types: identity, experience, conceptual knowledge or portfolio construction (and also“other”). We created a codebook operationalizing definitions for these four kinds of problemsand

Conference Session

Tree-huggers, Diggers, and Queers--Oh my!

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Dean Nieusma, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

students. A second course, on product design anddevelopment, is a 4000-level core engineering course and is required of and restricted to studentsin the Program in Design and Innovation (PDI), which has a strong focal area in sustainability.The third course, “Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Communities,” is a 4000-levelH&SS elective offered by the STS Department and open to students across the university.Rather than being motivated primarily by a desire to bring sustainability to engineeringeducation in this way, the cross-course collaboration was conceived of by faculty with sharedinterest in sustainability, design, and entrepreneurship. The proximate impetus for connectingthe courses was a request for proposals in entrepreneurship

Conference Session

Philosophy of Engineering Education: Epistemology and Ethics

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mark Valenzuela, University of Evansville; James Allen, University of Evansville; Brian Swenty, University of Evansville

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

eleven outcomes required byEAC-ABET. Of the 15 outcomes, the ones most relevant to a general education foundation are:“The civil engineer must demonstrate: • the broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global and social context (EAC-ABET h) • an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility (EAC-ABET f) • an ability to communicate effectively (EAC-ABET g) • an ability to function on multi-disciplinary teams (EAC-ABET d) • a recognition of the need for, and the ability to engage in, life-long learning (EAC-ABET i).”Although these are program outcomes for the assessment of civil engineering curricula, it can beargued that a strong foundation in the liberal arts can

Conference Session

Redefining the Boundaries of Engineering and Liberal Education: Contributions to the Year of Dialogue

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Erin Cech, University of California-San Diego; Kara Boettcher, Montana State University; Heidi Sherick, Montana State University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

, traditional engineering education has focused on developing students’ specializedknowledge so that they may solve challenging technical problems. As a result, engineers arehighly trained, but lack some of the skills that make other professionals successful:communication skills, teamwork experience, and societal sensitivity5,6. Hoping to remedy thisdisparity, ABET recently revised its “Criteria for Accrediting Engineering Programs” to requireengineering programs to train graduates in teamwork, ethics, communication, and global issues.These changes, though thought to make engineers more well-rounded people and responsiblecitizens, are given backbone by the widely-held belief that engineering graduates use these skillsin their work. If fewer engineering

Conference Session

Writing Is Fundamental

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Murali Krishnamurthi, Northern Illinois University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

comprehend the issues. Aslecturing students on academic dishonesty and citing course policies on plagiarism have not hada serious impact on students’ ability to avoid plagiarism concerns, the author implemented thefollowing scaffolds in his courses to promote academic integrity:≠ Developed and published with his colleagues an online tutorial on academic integrity at http://www.niu.edu/ai and required students to view the tutorial, learn the issues, take a series of quizzes, and print and submit a certificate of completion.≠ Discussed issues related to academic integrity in class and clarified students’ questions.≠ Modeled in class how to paraphrase or use verbatim information taken from external sources

Conference Session

Redefining the Boundaries of Engineering and Liberal Education: Contributions to the Year of Dialogue

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

William Grimson, Dublin Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

Deployment.IntroductionThere is a view widely held by academic staff responsible for engineering education that theappreciation by present day students of ‘what is’ engineering is poor compared to former times.If this view has validity the causes are likely to be complex but candidate explanations are nothard to find. First, there is a huge pressure on the design of any engineering programmecurriculum, often with the inclusion of more science at the expense of practical engineering Page 12.1453.2activities. Second, there has been a steady drift away from general engineering programmes, orprogrammes with common first or second years, to having specialist ones where

Conference Session

Tree-huggers, Diggers, and Queers--Oh my!

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Erin Cech, University of California, San Diego; Tom Waidzunas, University of California, San Diego

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

overothers, this can create a “chilly climate” for disadvantaged groups, deterring members of thesedisadvantaged groups from persisting in engineering education and beyond.Research on “chilly climates” within engineering education largely focuses on the experiences ofwomen and racial minorities. In the former, researchers have found “chilly climates” which areunwelcoming to women and can have negative impacts on women’s sense of self-efficacy withinengineering school.15, 16, 17, 18 Researchers investigating the experiences of racial and ethnicminority (REM) students have also found chilly climates which are biased against minoritystudents, particularly African-Americans, Latinos and Native-Americans.15, 19A key mechanism for the facilitation of

Conference Session

Beyond Individual Ethics: Engineering in Context

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Byron Newberry, Baylor University; William Lawson, Texas Tech University; Kathy Austin, Texas Tech University; Greta Gorsuch, Texas Tech University; Thomas Darwin, University of Texas at Austin

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

. Gorsuch, Ed.D. Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics and Second Language Studies, Texas Tech UniversityThomas Darwin, University of Texas at Austin Thomas Darwin, Ph.D. Director, Professional Development & Community Engagement, The Graduate School, The University of Texas at Austin Page 13.372.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2008 Design of Web-based Professional Ethics Modules to Alleviate Acculturation Barriers for International Graduate Students in EngineeringAbstractThis paper reports on an ongoing National Science Foundation (NSF)-sponsored research andeducation project.1 In recent years

Conference Session

Tree-huggers, Diggers, and Queers--Oh my!

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

George Catalano, State University of New York, Binghamton; Caroline Baillie, Queens University, Kingston

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

unify the many different influences on ourlives into the one life that is to be ours. Our actions, though free, are constrained by oursituation in a community with all its relationships and obligations.The implications of this perspective for engineering and engineering education are several-fold. At the very least it broadens the notion of whom we serve. In essence we now serveour clients, ourselves and the rest of humanity. In addition, it includes all three intodiscussions from the outset and changes the idea that we solve problems identified byothers. In fact we all are involved in the framing of the problem from the outset. Page 14.542.3In

Conference Session

Liberal Education for 21st Century Engineering

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Robert Grondin, Arizona State University; Chell Roberts, Arizona State University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

rigorously analyticalapproach to learning. In most cases, nearly all credits not used to satisfy universitygeneral studies requirements were allocated to math, science and engineering. Theseprograms in fact closely approximated the description that one finds in chapter 2 ofSheppard et al.1. This team was asked to avoid duplicating any of these degrees.Otherwise, the slate was clean. After extensive discussions, it was decided to build ageneral engineering program that emphasized three values: engaged learning, agility anda focus on the individual.As our goal was ABET accreditation, we developed a set of program outcomes, one ofwhich we called perspective. The perspective outcome is: An understanding of the role and impact of engineering in