Conference Session

Philosophy of Engineering Education: Epistemology and Ethics

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Heywood, Trinity College-Dublin

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

of the essay “TheRhythm of Education.” He distinguishes between three stages of mental growth – romance,precision and generalization. “Education should consist in a continual repetition of suchcycles.”53 They may be of a long duration or of a short duration. Thus in the long term thestages shown in exhibit 1 can be related to primary, post-primary and higher education. ButWhitehead would argue that we approach problems however simple or complex in this way. Sounderstanding the stages leads to particular types of curriculum and instruction. There is animmediate lesson for those promoting the teaching of engineering in elementary and post-elementary schooling: that is, that the emphasis should be on the stage of romance. This is notto say that

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

futurecommunication. This assessment step is a key part of the communication skill set.Given the recognized need to improve communication skills by the engineering educationcommunity as well as curriculum assessments of our industrial engineering (IE) program(described by Potter, et al.19), we have developed an innovative communication course to addressthe skills gap. In this paper, we describe the new course and present assessment results from thefirst offering of this course during the Fall 2007 semester, including skill assessment, self-efficacy data, and qualitative feedback from students. Examples of student work and assessmentprocesses are included. Finally, we describe short term changes to the course and long termimpact expectations.Course content

Conference Session

Beyond Individual Ethics: Engineering in Context

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Kristyn Masters, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Sarah Pfatteicher, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

. Furthermore, many instructional obstacles exist to incorporating ethicsinto the engineering curriculum, including instructor hesitancy to teach about issues in whichthey may have little training, difficulty identifying which ethics teaching practices are effective,and already-packed syllabi that allow little room for introduction of new topics. Thus, in thispaper, we describe a module in ethical problem-solving and an accompanying assessmentmechanism developed by the authors. This ethical problem-solving module addresses theaforementioned obstacles and may be readily adapted to other courses and engineeringdisciplines to achieve ethics education across the engineering curriculum. Implementation ofthis ethics module in biomedical engineering courses

Conference Session

Approaches to Learning Outcomes Assessment in Liberal Education

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Lorraine Fleming, Howard University; Kami Carey, Howard University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

in Transition. Association of American Colleges and Universities (pub.).5. Hutchings, P. (2000). Opening lines: Approaches to the scholarship of teaching and learning. Menlo Park, CA: Carnegie Publications.6. Kuhn, T. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.7. Lee, W. S. (1993). Social scientists as ideological critics. Western Journal of Communication, 57, 221-232.8. National Academy of Engineering (2004). The engineer of 2020: Visions of engineering in the new century. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.9. National Academy of Engineering (2005). Educating the engineer of 2020: Adapting Engineering education to the new century. Washington, DC: The

Conference Session

Liberal Education for 21st Century Engineering

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Nadia Kellam, University of Georgia; Joachim Walther, University of Georgia; Tracie Costantino, University of Georgia; Bonnie Cramond, University of Georgia

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

tointegrate disparate learning throughout their entire university experience as they progressthrough the program. This leverages the strengths of traditional courses in existing programswhile making the connections between courses explicit in this curricular innovation.The implementation of this approach to a continuously integrated curriculum at the University ofGeorgia (UGA) involves the design and implementation of the Synthesis and Design StudioSeries in an Environmental Engineering program;13 the first iteration of this new course havingbeen completed in the Fall of 2009. The following describes both the theoretical curriculummodel and the pedagogical characteristics to achieve curriculum integration and subsequentlyexplores how these were

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

continually revising their engineering curriculum and programs in aneffort to produce the highest quality practicing engineers. Both the nature of the job of anengineer and the marketplace have changed dramatically through the years. Today’s engineerworks in a highly competitive and global marketplace. Additionally, they are required to havefar more than just good technical skills. They must also have good communication, leadershipand business skills. Many innovative programs have been developed to better prepare studentsfor the changing global economy and for the new demands being placed on engineers. Onepedagogical technique that has been found to enhance the educational experience ofundergraduate engineering students is service-learning. Service

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

research on engineering learning. Page 12.1608.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2007 What portfolio construction efforts reveal about students’ search for engineering identityAbstractWith the desire to contribute to both the research and practice of improving engineeringeducation, we set out to explore portfolios as a curricular intervention to help students integrateengineering content knowledge. Unexpectedly, our data have been helping us see thesignificance of the identity work students do in creating portfolios. Students built their portfoliosthrough a semi-structured curriculum. Each

Conference Session

Beyond Individual Ethics: Engineering in Context

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Dean Nieusma, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

AC 2008-1891: INTEGRATING TECHNICAL, SOCIAL, AND AESTHETICANALYSIS IN THE PRODUCT DESIGN STUDIO: A CASE STUDY AND MODELFOR A NEW LIBERAL EDUCATION FOR ENGINEERSDean Nieusma, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Dean Nieusma’s research and teaching focus on interdisciplinary design collaboration and the expertise that enables it. With a BS in mechanical engineering and another in general studies and a PhD in interdisciplinary social sciences, Dean has worked as a member of design teams in contexts as diverse as the U.S. and European automotive industries; Sri Lanka’s renewable energy sector; and STS, engineering, and design curriculum planning. He teaches across Rensselaer’s Product Design and

Conference Session

Liberal Education for 21st Century Engineering

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Heywood, Trinity College Dublin

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

Institution of Electrical Engineers, and two gold medals and a silver medal from the Junior Institution of Engineers. In addition to a doctorate he has Masters degrees in engineering education, and letters. he is a fellow of the Chartered Management Institute Page 15.1.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2010 “Brief Encounter:” A Reflection on William’s Proposals for the Engineering CurriculumAbstractIn 2003 Rosalind Williams argued a case for a new approach to the engineeringcurriculum. She envisaged that there would be a convergence between technological andliberal arts education that would be

Conference Session

Innovative Courses/Pedagogies in Liberal Education II

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

George Catalano, State University of New York, Binghamton

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

. Sustainableengineering encompasses all engineering disciplines, and is consistent and compatible withsound engineering design principles. It is, in part, focused on design with the objective ofminimizing overall environmental impact (including energy utilization and waste production)throughout the life cycle of a product or process -from initial extraction of raw materials toultimate disposal of materials that cannot be reused or recycled at the end of the product life.However, this approach may not be adequate to address the continued and acceleratingdeterioration of the Earth. Ultimately a new engineering design paradigm may be required – onethat addresses the following question --rather than designing to reduce the negative impact, canwe now design products

Conference Session

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

Collection

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Dean Nieusma, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

(often irrespective of actual environmental impact) or in “green-washing” of their corporateimage (again, irrespective of the corporation’s actual historical or contemporary impact on theenvironment). This risk will be picked up again in the discussion below.Background: A Sampling of Efforts to Leverage Sustainability in Engineering EducationEfforts to include sustainability approaches and content in engineering education are certainlynot new, and, unsurprisingly, there has been a flood of attention to various facets of sustainabilityin engineering education at the ASEE Annual Conference and in similar venues over the pastfew years. While other scholars have systematically reviewed the range of efforts that have beenput forward, 2 a brief review

Conference Session

Approaches to Learning Outcomes Assessment in Liberal Education

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Kyle Oliver, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Traci Nathans-Kelly; Sandra Courter, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Laura Grossenbacher, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

pedagogical focifor courses in engineering ethics: “the Professional Engineer’s Code of Ethics, humanistreadings, grounding in theoretical ethics, ethical problem solving heuristics, case studies, andservice learning.” He goes on to evaluate the effectiveness of each approach in light of threeobjectives that will help students deal with ethical problems: “we need to enhance the efficacy ofour students’ divergent thinking, help them see engineering outcomes through the eyes of non- Page 12.743.2engineers, and give them access to the common vocabulary of ethical articulation.”If the quantity of papers on the subject at last year’s annual conference

Conference Session

Innovative Courses/Pedagogies in Liberal Education II

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Katherine Wikoff, Milwaukee School of Engineering

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.It seems unlikely that any formal curriculum could have prepared Jobs for his innovativeachievement as did the serendipitous and intuitive (or even “karmic”?) self-directedpursuit of his own creative learning interests. That is why ABET Criterion 3(i), whichcalls for “a recognition of the need for, and an ability to engage in life-long learning”presents the Liberal Education Division with an intriguing challenge. It seems to be theone outcome that studying calligraphy could satisfy. If “lifelong learning” were just a new term for “continuing education”—achievingcertification by moving through a formally

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

appointments in the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs and the Office of Academic Affairs. In 1998-99 he was as an American Council on Education fellow. His research interests are in environmental biology. Page 12.1399.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2007 The Clarkson Common Experience Curriculum: Graduation Requirements Based on Student Learning OutcomesAbstractTraditional graduation requirements have been composed of required and elective courses in astudent's major together with courses selected to meet a "general education" requirement. Withthe growing emphasis on student learning

Conference Session

Multidisciplinary and Liberal Education

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Robert Martello, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering; Jonathan Stolk, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

first step towardsunderstanding these educational approaches and implementing them in a customizedinterdisciplinary activity. Beginning in 2003, the authors initiated a double-sized integratedcourse block titled Paul Revere: Tough as Nails that combines an introductory materials sciencecourse with a history of technology course, allowing students to work on engineering projectswith broader implications than the purely technical. This course takes place at the Franklin W.Olin College of Engineering, a relatively new undergraduate college located in Needham,Massachusetts, whose small student body consists solely of engineers. To date the instructorshave taught this course twice, with a third offering in progress in spring of 2007. The authorshave

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

. Furthermore, while writing remains an essential means ofcommunication, visual digital technologies such as video and still photography have gainedwidespread acceptance and are now ubiquitous as primary modes for communication, notablyvia web-based means. Despite recognition for the need to embrace "new media" courses thatdirectly address creativity and effective communication using such tools are not plentiful withinthe engineering curriculum. There are many competing interests that influence curriculum designthat will equip the next generation of engineers to be technically competent, competitive in theglobal economy, and effective as responsible citizens. The Association of American Collegesand Universities report College Learning for the New

Conference Session

Learning to Communicate with Engineers and Non-Engineers

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Judith Norback, Georgia Institute of Technology; Nicoleta Serban, Georgia Institute of Technology; Nagi Gebraeel, Georgia Institute of Technology; Garlie Forehand, Georgia Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

Basic Statistical Methods course as a pilotproject in 2006[25] and then during the Fall of 2007. This paper focuses on the results from 2007. Page 13.304.2To the best of our knowledge, the approach is unique in the following ways: 1 1) The instruction is based on workforce input. Engineers, managers, and senior executives have been interviewed to see what communication skills new engineers need to be job competitive and to quickly ascend the career ladder. 2) The instruction involves repeated practice of oral

Conference Session

Communication - Needs and Methods

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Sarah Lockwood, University of Calgary; Daryl Caswell, University of Calgary; Marjan Eggermont, University of Calgary

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

the role of the communications instructor to capitalize on this manyfaceted skill set that, if properly integrated, can greatly enhance the quality, scope andrelevance to the engineering educational coursework.IntroductionCommunication is increasingly an element of engineering education. A brief survey ofthe curriculum of ten Canadian and American engineering programs1 reveals that at leastone course in communication is mandatory across the board. In the past this course was Page 15.292.2almost exclusively a university-dictated compulsory communications course, designedfor students in many disciplines. While certainly better than no communications

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

, when combined with thereality of starting new, caused us to choose to accredit this program under the generalcategory of ABET. In this accreditation model the program satisfies just the generalcriteria of the Engineering Accreditation Commission but does not concern itself withany of the program specific criteria. This type of accreditation had been recentlyreviewed by Newberry and Farison 3. Newberry and Farison noted that one of the morecommon purposes of this approach is associated with the launch of a new engineeringprogram and that as the program matures the “general” program is abandoned andreplaced with discipline specific degrees. Our intent however is to permanently remain.Newberry and Farison then identified three main “uses” for

Conference Session

Beyond Individual Ethics: Engineering in Context

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Donna Riley, Smith College

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

wish to think. On the other hand, engineers’ responsibilities are decreased in certain waysif it is recognized that other actors play important roles and share responsibility for certaindecisions and outcomes.Answering this call to incorporate social ethics, macroethics, or STS topics in the engineeringethics curriculum requires reform and innovation of both content and pedagogy. Clearly, thecontent needs to change when the questions posed are themselves new and different. Thepedagogy also needs to change because the type of thinking required is new and different fortraditional engineers. It is clear that with the more contained microethics problems, it has beenpossible for textbook authors to make analogies to ways of thinking in engineering

Conference Session

Engineering for Social Justice

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Steven VanderLeest, Calvin College

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

2006-85: JUSTICE AND HUMILITY IN TECHNOLOGY DESIGNSteven VanderLeest, Calvin College Steven H. VanderLeest is a Professor of Engineering at Calvin College. He has an M.S.E.E. from Michigan Tech. U. (1992) and Ph.D. from the U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1995). He received a “Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers” Award in 2004 and 2005 and was director of a FIPSE grant “Building IT Fluency into a Liberal Arts Core Curriculum.” His research includes responsible technology and software partitioned OS. Page 11.851.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2006 Justice and

Conference Session

Learning to Communicate with Engineers and Non-Engineers

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Laura Wilson, University of CIncinnati; Teresa Cook, University of Cincinnati; Jo Ann Thompson, University of Cincinnati; James Everly, University of Cincinnati

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

careers, this late emphasis on writing competency was lessbeneficial to the college: the lessons learned were not likely to trickle down to lower-levelcourses. In order for writing instruction to be truly beneficial, a better approach is needed: onethat stresses and prioritizes the role of writing throughout a student’s education and across alldisciplinary boundaries.More notably, research suggests that, commonly in the field of engineering, students were notmaking the connections among their writing and engineering courses, and thus did not regardwriting in their engineering courses as “important.”4 In order to underscore these connectionsfor the students, a junior-level capstone course was introduced in the Electrical and ComputerEngineering

Conference Session

Thinking around the Bachelor of Arts in Engineering

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Sharon Jones, Lafayette College

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

Wisconsin-Madison’s Engineering Honors in Liberal Arts, Colorado School of Mines’ McBride Honors Program, Georgia Institute of Technology’s McEver Program for Engineering and the Liberal Arts Page 13.1204.4i This is a historical solution, however there are also some new 4+2 programs leading to ABET-accredited M.S. orB.S. engineering after 4-year liberal arts degree e.g. Northeastern University. 3 o Provides the highest academically ranked engineering students with an enrichment curriculum

Conference Session

Integrating H&SS in Engineering I

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Arthur Snider, University of South Florida

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

subject of fine artfrom a perspective where technology-oriented students would have an advantage, rather than ahandicap; to exploit the experience so as to reinforce some aspect of engineering science byreviewing it in a new context; and to place the engineering students in an environment composedmostly of others in the same discipline.BackgroundAlthough many engineering students would argue otherwise, an exposure to the arts is anessential part of every undergraduate's curriculum. This is underscored by its de facto inclusion,in some form, in the required "distributional elective" hours imposed by virtually every degreeprogram in the United States. Educators recognize that many young people who selecttechnology as a career objective at an early

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

Normative Commitments and Public Engagement in Engineering

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Juan Lucena, Colorado School of Mines; Jen Schneider, Colorado School of Mines; Jon Leydens, Colorado School of Mines

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

and philosophical exploration of the term under a NSF grant on HumanitarianEngineering Ethics (HEE). We learned about humanitarian medics and relief workers emerged inthe 19th century, became organized under the International Red Cross, played significant roles inWW II, but until the 1960s included no engineers. In short, the history of humanitarianism andthe histories of engineering for most of the 19th and 20th centuries are not connected. In thishistorical journey, we came across Doctors without Borders (MSF), perhaps the oldest and mostcomprehensive approach to humanitarian work by a profession. It became clear that the veryrecent Engineers Without Borders (EWB), and other similar organizations, found inspiration inMSF yet were doing

Conference Session

Venturing Out: Service Learning, Study Abroad, and Criterion H

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

David Ollis, North Carolina State University; Anthony Smith, CPE-LYON FRANCE

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

discussesher experience integrating service learning activities into a Spanish language course, alogical association because the student service occurred within a pre-dominantly Hispaniccommunity. Neville and Brigg10 proposed but have not executed use of problem-basedlearning (PBL) modules to place Spanish into a biological engineering curriculum. Ourintegration efforts here have taken a broader approach, introducing foreign languageimmersion into a laboratory program for engineering students. An additional, if less tangible aspect, is also present. One of the ABET/EC 2000engineering criteria for the undergraduate degree is “the broad education necessary tounderstand the impact of engineering solutions in a global/societal context

Conference Session

Venturing Out: Service Learning, Study Abroad, and Criterion H

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Duffy, University of Massachusetts Lowell; Carol Barry, University Massachusetts Lowell; Linda Barrington, University of Massachusetts-Lowell; David Kazmer, University of Massachusetts-Lowell; William Moeller, University of Massachusetts Lowell; Cheryl West, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

the impacts of engineering solutionsin a societal context. Also, if S-L projects replace traditional analytical exercises in courses, theoverall workload will typically not increase for the students. If students are motivated to spendmore time on S-L projects, they are free to do so and should learn more in the process.The approach of S-L, with its roots in experiential learning, is consistent with the theories andempirical research of a number of leading educators and developmental psychologists, asdocumented by Brandenberger3 and Jacoby1. The approach is also consistent with the recentchange in paradigm in education from a focus on teaching to a focus on learning1,3. Astin et al.4found with longitudinal data of 22,000 students that service

Conference Session

Philosophy of Engineering Education: Epistemology and Ethics

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Gayle Ermer, Calvin College

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

the contribution of multiple factors. Sorting these factors into categories canhelp to better understand the nature of the factors and to ensure that all of the necessarycategories are considered carefully in the design process. This categorization can alsohelp engineering educators to make certain that all of the different categories are studiedin the engineering curriculum in appropriate places. In this paper, the categories ofindividual ethical responsibility, societal evil, and human finitude will be used to discussthe character and importance of various contributions to specific engineering disasters.The technological systems to which these categories will be applied include the HeliosFlight 522 crash, the Bhopal chemical plant gas

Conference Session

Beyond Individual Ethics: Engineering in Context

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Arthur Sacks, Colorado School of Mines

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

unique in this regard. As such, and as been offered here, with the properselection and explication, film study can be a highly useful educational approach that can assistin creating the “seeing” engineer who can better perceive with clarity the world in which theylive and act and their own responsibilities as engineers, as citizens, and as individuals. Page 13.292.11References1 Towne, Robert, “Chinatown,” in Two Screenplays: Chinatown [and the] Last Detail, 2nd ed. New York: Grove Press, 1997. Chinatown copyright, 1974, pp. 3-146.2 Eaton, Michael, Chinatown, 4th ed. London: BFI Publishing, 1997, p. 21; Erie, Steven P., Beyond Chinatown: The