main research questions we aimed to address. (1) How did elements of our course design, including the course structure, impact student learning on creativity? (2) What can we learn from reflections about students’ creativity in an experiential learning environment? And (3) How can reflections be used as a learning tool as well as a formative assessment tool? The goal of this work is to ultimately understand how instructors can use reflections to better facilitate, encourage, and foster creativity.II. Background A. Course design and objectives The course is designed as an experiential learning environment, in which students are directly implementing and using what is being studied (Tate, 1978). This means that learning goes beyond
purpose of this work-in-progress paper is to present our methodology forfeedback from the community, our preliminary results from the initial Fall 2019 data, and to start a larger conversationabout the importance of studying conceptual understanding from a longitudinal perspective.1 IntroductionThis work-in-progress paper outlines our planned study of students’ conceptual understanding of signals and systems.Signals and systems (SS) is the focus of an electrical engineering (EE) science course at most universities, and topicsin SS, such as filtering and Fourier transforms, are fundamental to control theory, signal processing, and machinelearning. Despite the importance educators place on SS concepts, previous studies have shown that students
instrumentis to raise awareness of student interest and potential in engineering and is not intended to serveas a screening instrument. This work describes the instrument development, the input from theengineering and education communities in the context of content validity, the pilot and revisionof the draft instrument, and the content validation of the final instrument.IntroductionSince Sputnik’s launch in 1957, our nation has focused on STEM education improvement. Keylegislation, policies, and campaigns have been introduced during every presidential term, withthe hopes that measurable gains will be made in our leadership position in the STEM fields.The education focus in the STEM content areas, specifically engineering, is closely associatedwith
classrooms, as both an avenue to technologicalliteracy and to enhance the engineering pathways, is critical to broadening participation [8]. This integration 1emphasizes the need for inquiry-based, culturally sensitive programs, aligned with both school curriculaand STEM career needs, that engage students in hands-on projects, community engagement, andconnections with industry [9, 10]. Implementation of such programs would require instructional strategiesthat are aligned with engineering needs and capture students’ interest [11].The effectiveness of teachers is crucial to this effort [12]. Ensuring that classroom instruction focuses bothon the logical/mathematical intelligences as well as the
CIT-E community of practice (CoP) is a group of faculty members who teach civilinfrastructure-related courses at different institutions. Currently, the CoP is supported by awebsite and a model course on Canvas. The model course is composed of 43 lessons that aregrouped into five categories: Fundamentals, Water, Energy, Transportation, and Capstone. InSpring 2021, a survey was conducted among the CIT-E CoP, which revealed that over 4,000students have been impacted by the group, and that respondents are enthusiastic about improvingtheir understanding of and pedagogical skills related to addressing issues that connectinfrastructure and social justice in the classroom [1]. This project is a direct result of that survey,and our goal is to increase
indicates that students who attend institutionswith competitive department-level admissions have a lower sense of belonging, self-efficacy,and sense of the department as welcoming than those with more open admissions [7].Some research on belonging in the computer science space indicates specific methods thatsupport student sense of belonging and takes an active approach towards enhancing students’sense of community. For example, Geller [8] described the inclusion of a badge for a “women incomputing” group that supported women in an undergraduate program. Reckniger et al. [9]employed a storytelling intervention for upper-level students to support perseverance in themajor. They found those who watched storytelling videos of students struggling then
studentsbuild a community of support that they will continue beyond this course. These anecdotal find-ing are consistent with more rigorous statistical studies of student involvement in active learningclassroom spaces.18 As the instructor is also the academic advisor for the sophomore class thatexperienced this active learning environment, she plans to ask students in two years if they thinkthe active learning experience changed how they interact with their peers.The flipped-classroom approach was not successful for this semester. There was marked change Page 24.134.9in student performance on formal assessments, both on the exam on the homework
, sustainability, and community engagement. She is also a licensed professional engineer in Colorado. ©American Society for Engineering Education, 2024 Neurodivergent and Neurotypical Students in a First-Year Engineering Design Course: Identity, Self-Efficacy, and ExperiencesAbstractThis Complete Research paper explores the attitudes and experiences of neurodivergent (ND)and neurotypical (NT) students in the context of a first-year engineering design (FYED) coursewhere students work in teams on open-ended projects. The data set includes post-survey datafrom Spring 2023 and pre- and post-survey data from Fall 2023. The end of the survey asked ifstudents self
has initiated several successful programs with the purpose of engaging students at all academic stages in the excitement of engineering and research, with focus on underrepresented groups. She has authored and coauthored two book chapters and more than 185 journal papers and refereed conference articles. Bugallo is a senior member of the IEEE, serves on several of its technical committees and is the cur- rent vice chair of the IEEE Signal Processing Society Signal Processing Theory and Methods Technical Committee and the chair of the EURASIP Special Area Team on Theoretical and Methodological Trends in Signal Processing as well as an elected member of the IEEE Signal Processing Society Sensor Array and
among graduate students of the range of choices, opportunities, and challenges that women must navigate, and of the impact of culture, community, and context on women, whether in their personal lives, in higher education, or in the workplace. 2. Encourage and support the development of community among graduate students.The first goal is more specific, and reflects a desire to promote Michigan State University’s corevalue of inclusiveness.4 Graduate students participating in this program were encouraged toreflect on the unique choices and challenges posed to women in STEM fields, and to considertheir own goals and measures of success. The second goal reflects broader efforts within theCollege of Engineering and Michigan State
1 This work proposes that engaging freshmen chemical engineers within an online socialnetwork prior to their arrival will ease the stress of the high school to college transition. It willbe accomplished by initiating a dialogue among freshmen and select members of theDepartment, and building a community of learners. Selznik described a “community of learners”as those sharing 1) Identity, 2) History and Culture, 3) Mutuality, 4) Plurality, 5) Autonomy, 6)Participation, and 7) Integration 9. Although these elements were originally developed for face-to-face interactions, they can likewise be addressed through activity within the online network.For example:• Identity and Autonomy - Personal biography posted on the website, and an
students by engaging them in integrating distributedcomputing and networking concepts into their course work through laboratory modules andcapstone projects.There are benefits in joining the practice and theory of different computer science areas via anintegrated laboratory environment such as the one provided by CNL. First, it is easier to developlaboratory modules that help students to put different theoretical concepts together5,6. Second, anintegrated laboratory is a low-cost solution compared to developing separate physicallaboratories to serve different areas of computer science.The laboratory has proved to be a dynamic educational tool for providing in depth understandingof essential concepts by incorporating state-of-the-art technologies
, less is known about specific challenges that librarians andcaregivers may experience in engaging in online engineering learning. As such, this studyinvestigates rural librarians and caregivers’ goals and challenges for providing onlineengineering learning for children, and identify engineering-related funds of knowledge tounderstand how these challenges might be addressed. A case study methodology was employedbased on interviews and ideation sheets of 21 caregivers and 10 librarians as well as librarians’engagement during co-design sessions. Findings demonstrate abundant funds of knowledgeacquired from rural participants’ familial, community, recreational, and interactional practicesthat are related with skills and habits of engineering. The
the traditional teacher-student feedbackmechanism and offered a more realistic model of how writing is done. One student reflects:[A challenge I had to overcome was] learning how to write an article. I had issues with theformat and my writing style is different from the technical writing style. But I learned a lot justby our seminar and reading other people’s work and seeing what types of articles get acceptedin the top journals.The sample size (number of participants) was not large enough to provide sufficient power todetermine if the learning community approach impacted goals or satisfaction as measured by thefive-point exit survey scale. However, anecdotally, it does seem to be moving outcomes in theright direction. In fact, students were
since we were on virtual.” Structure 1. “Rigid structure.” 2. “The almost forced responses, felt awkward at times.” NA/none 1. “Nothing I can think of.” 2. “NA”4 DiscussionThe purpose of this pilot study was to investigate the impact of a guided communication activityas part of a sequenced and articulated intervention program for adaptation in any undergraduateengineering course. We facilitated the SC class activity to gauge engineering students’ attitudestoward communication skills practice generally and, in particular, in a course in which a teamproject
disciplines of engineering offered at Tufts andrange from freshman to graduate students. The video interview contained thirteen questions thataddressed the students’ experiences in outreach and how it impacts their engineering skills.Additional questions about their background were also asked, such as how and why they becameinvolved in outreach, and why they decided to become an engineer.The survey consisted of eight questions dealing with the impact of outreach on the students’lives. Students were asked to rate the level and type of impact that outreach had on differentareas of their lives such as communication skills, presentation ability and self confidence. Thescale used for rating the impact ranged from negative five to positive five, with
, she worked as a reference librarian at Johnson & Wales University-Charlotte and Central Piedmont Community College. A large focus of her day-to-day work and research interests lies in the fields of data informed decision making, information seeking behavior, and student library engagement and motivation. c American Society for Engineering Education, 2018 An Assessment of the Impact of Library Instructional Strategies on Engineering Students’ Information Literacy Jeffrey McAdams, MLS (Co-Principal Investigator) Assistant Professor and Engineering Librarian, J. Murrey Atkins Library Rebecca Croxton, MLIS, PhD (Co
betterequipped to determine their academic and career goals and how they will need to work toachieve them. In advising sessions, faculty can suggest minor degrees, internships, and additionalspecialized skills which can help students in reaching their career goals. Additionally, studentscan get tips and advice on many common problems students face like study skills, timemanagement skills, and communication skills. Moreover, professors may be able to suggest on-campus resources that students can take advantage of, like counseling, tutoring, financial aid, anddisability accommodations. For professors to be able to provide students the one-on-one timeneeded for this support in an advising session, the advising process needs to be as automated
theories on theimpact of affect. Attractive, well-designed interfaces/environments have a positive effect on aperson’s emotions, and in turn these affective qualities impact a person’s performance with thatinterface/environment, increasing the amount of time that they are likely to pursue a task that isdifficult 15. By providing an interface that is brightly colored, largely pictorial, and cartoon-styled, we hope visitors will be encouraged to linger and explore the game (see Figures 2 and 3).Special attention must be given towards implementing strategies to motivate the participation ofgirls, because girls are anecdotally less likely to become engaged by technology-heavy sciencecenter exhibits 3, 5. Children are documented as being able to
that VR-based simulators were useful as a means of improving training in prostatepalpation through virtual prostate palpation simulator. Also, Singh et al. [18] study comparedthe effectiveness of VR videos to traditional 2D videos in fostering immersive experiencesfor interdisciplinary teams addressing clinical problems. Their study highlighted that VRenhanced collaboration and communication skills among participants, potentially extendingvirtual immersion to global clinical settings for broader student awareness in BME education.In addition, the study by Wilkerson et al.'s [19] explored the efficacy of VR videos inengaging students and improving their understanding in an undergraduate course. While thestudy revealed positive impacts on
to argue that because they are by their nature contingent, an informationgiving curriculum based on a collection of traditional disciplines is unlikely to developtechnological competency. The most likely curriculum to develop technological competencywill be problem/project based, accompanied by a study of qualitative engineering. Because itis likely to require students to obtain knowledge independently, and because individuals andorganizations learn, its base should be an active understanding of the nature of learning.Some examples of transdisciplinary programmes are mentioned together with sometransdisciplinary texts, but they err on the side of information giving rather than problemsolving and critical thinking which lie at the heart of
,role models, and adequate academic preparation, and these problems can cause these students totransfer out of engineering5-8. For example, Espinosa9 examined the effects of precollegepreparation, college experiences, and institutional characteristics, on the trajectories of over1,000 women of color and almost 900 White women pursuing a STEM degree in 135 institutionsnationwide. While the picture can get blurry across this many different institutions and this widerange of majors (considering that the participation of women is vastly different in biology than,say, in physics, or in environmental engineering versus mechanical engineering), she found thatwomen who engage in peer discussions on classwork outside of the classroom, and women ofcolor
Gaudio represent only a handful of a multitude of companies that appear to be tapping into akind of consumer-creative zeitgeist, a cultural drive to “reclaim” a past where artisans andentrepreneurs embodied a liberated “creative class.”3 As such, energy and excitement about thepossibilities for 3D printing and small-scale manufacturing clearly exist beyond industry: in non-profit and community groups offering access to community “makerspaces,”4 , 5, 6 in universitieswhere even social science and humanities departments are beginning to offer studio-based,“hands-on” educational elements in their curricula,7, 8 and in US government funding agencieslike the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Endowment for the Humanities(NEH), which
work. Irrespectiveof the rigor of the grading system itself and any analyzable data it might generate, he is able to,through his engagement with his students and their work, make decisions that impact what he willdo in class this week to help his students’ learn as well as what he will do to improve the coursenext time it is offered.Quinn is an instructor in a multi-section course. She teaches one of many large sections. Whileactive learning strategies are employed, the size of the section is such that it is difficult to knoweach student. The grading is performed by teaching assistants. Quinn can look at the gradebookfor overall performance on an assignment and might even dig into a bit of student work, but thesection size limits her ability
participants shared similar academic curricular experiences there waslittle consensus on the most important problem-solving skills, beyond “understand the problem”and “breaking down the problem.” A great variety of other components were mentioned in the Page 15.545.11interviews. These components ranged from “communicating with team members” to “don’t freakout,” suggesting there was little overt curricular focus on problem-solving as proceduralknowledge at this Research University.Development of Problem-Solving Skills For the students in this study, the critical skill of problem-solving seemed to developwithout much explicit focus in courses in
trainingsession is below. This scenario enables students to organize their ideas, to increase clarity andcompassion of their messaging for better impact and have a simple framework with which toshare these ideas with clients, colleagues, peers, executives as well as with non-technicalaudiences.Sample Scenario: One of the most difficult communications is when our engineer is ethicallytorn between challenging/standing up to or agreeing with upper management. In this scenario,we explored the ethical choice of challenging a NO from the boss in a diplomatic and effectiveway, outlining the step-by-step phrases as we advocate for our idea, position it for the mutualbenefit of the larger team/project and make our ask.Topic 5: Elevate Conversation SkillsMost STEM
identified collaboration and communication as core aspects ofengineering work. Discussions of other social aspects of engineering, such as engaging withstakeholders, collaborating with users, or considering the societal implications of engineeringwork, were relatively limited. Understanding engineering students’ beliefs about the socialaspects of engineering work based on their previous experiences can help us better alignengineering curricula to promote more holistic and inclusive views of engineering.1. IntroductionEngineering is an inherently social discipline. The social aspects of engineering work include thevarious ways that engineers, within the context of their professional roles, impact, interact with,and relate to both broader society and
youthinking about the impact of these experiences so even though I hated the idea I thank you for it.Overall, although participants’ initial reactions to the use of photos and images varied fromcuriosity and sincere interest to blunt rejection, most of them agreed to cooperate. During theinterviews, most of those who submitted pictures fully engaged with the photo elicitation activityand many acknowledged its usefulness.DiscussionThis study adds to the body of research that uses photos as a stimulus to prompt discussion of theimpact of change on the experience of individuals. That 18 of 21 interviewees were willing tocomply with the request to bring photos or images suggests that photo elicitation is a viablemethod for gathering data about
study investigated howstudents perceive the importance and utility of these experiences by exploring the ways inwhich students’ attitudes toward group work changed through experiences on technicalteams. For the purposes of this study, the terms “team” and “group” will be usedinterchangeably.ABET, the accreditation board for university programs in applied sciences, computing,engineering, and technology, identified communication skills and teaming as twoimportant qualities students should develop during their engineering education. It is nolonger enough for engineering students to graduate with technical skills and sufficientknowledge. They must have the skills and abilities necessary to communicate effectivelyand function adequately on
Institution of Incorporated Engineering (an institution for technicians) itbecame the Institution of Engineering and Technology Given the proposition that students aswell as the public at large are unlikely to change their perceptions it might be propitious forASEE to consider changing its name so as to incorporate technology, that is, Society forEngineering and Technology Education.Note on textual supports. Supporting is to be found in numerous official and semi-officialdocuments. These have been categorised into a series of exhibits for the purpose ofsupporting the argument. Each document has been assigned a bracketed number and isreferred to as an “item” in the text e.g. item 16. Other references and notes are numbered inthe text in the usual way