Conference Session

IS and IT Education

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Sandra Gorka; Reza Kamali; Jacob Miller; Han Reichgelt; Eydie Lawson; Barry Lunt; Joseph Ekstrom

volume of the CC2001 document defines 14knowledge areas, which are additionally broken down as necessary. In keeping with ouragreement to work toward writing the IT volume of the CC, we next endeavored to define theknowledge areas for IT.After several iterations, the knowledge areas presently defined for IT include the following nine:IT Fundamentals; Programming Fundamentals; Web Systems; Hardware and Operating Systems;Networking; Human-Computer Interaction; Information Management; Social and ProfessionalIssues; and System Integration.Timeline for IT Curriculum DevelopmentThe 4-year IT curriculum committee formed a writing subcommittee in October of 2003, for thepurpose of writing the IT volume of the CC document. As mentioned before, this

Conference Session

IS and IT Education

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Fanyu Zeng

certification, for example, CCNA. So students in this program will have anintensive training on CISCO networking equipments. Even though CISCO is a majormanufacturer in network router and switch, it does not make all equipments for networkand telecommunication industry. Or it means a person who gets a CISCO CCNA Page 9.75.5 Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2004, American Society for Engineering Educationcertification can not have his knowledge on all the networking equipments because of thelack of understanding the fundamental theory.Certifications and

Conference Session

Potpurri Design in Engineering Education

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Clifton Johnston; Diane Douglas

process.Most writing texts stress the initial stages of composition: understanding the needs andexpectations of the audience and identifying the purpose of the discourse. Questioningwhat the audience wants (or think they want) is as fundamental to communication asunderstanding the needs of the client is to engineering design. Defining the purpose of thediscourse in order to choose the most appropriate arguments and supporting evidence isto composition what defining function is to design. The writing process and the designprocess corroborate one another, making the engineering design lab a particularlyresponsive environment in which to introduce the basic principles of clearcommunication (Table 1

Conference Session

Technology, Communications & Ethics

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

John Wise

grading schemes that ebb and flow in their accuracy. CPR applies theprocess of scientific peer review to education. Students perform research (study), write abouttheir “findings”, submit it for blind review (and act as reviewers themselves), and finally usepeer feedback to improve their understanding. All of this is possible without intervention fromthe instructor using CPR.This paper reports on part of a continuing study on the utility of CPR in engineering education.In this instance, CPR was introduced into a writing-intensive laboratory course in chemicalengineering. Students worked in teams, but were required to submit individually-craftedexecutive summaries using the CPR system. Assessment was based on instructor inspection ofstudent work

Conference Session

The Fundamentals of Fun

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Brewer Stouffer; Jeffrey Russell

training in the fundamentals of creativity, it is little wonder that so few engineers areviewed as creative professionals and that only 3% of the population associate “creative” withengineering. As with leadership, it is a far too common a notion that creativity is an inherent giftthat one either does or does not possess. Not only can creativity be taught, it is taught effectivelyat all levels of education, from kindergarten to graduate school. Some engineering professorsmake creativity an explicit component of their courses (Ghosh 1993; Masi 1989; Richards 1998).A select few programs such as Olin College and Worcester Polytechnic Institute even go to great

Conference Session

The Fundamentals of Fun

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Matthew Morris; Dawn Conniff; J. Ledlie Klosky

throughout the course, instructors involve the students in verynon-traditional education opportunities (Hanus and Estes, 2002). This is accomplished throughprops, video clips, music, and demonstrations related to the lesson objectives. This “intellectualexcitement” keeps students engaged for the entire class allowing interaction, discussion, andcontinuous feedback leading to better understanding and the opportunity to explore the subjectmatter in greater depth (Lowman, 1995). Bringing drama into the classroom requires asignificant amount of preparation to enable smooth and practical application and must be fine-tuned and highly coordinated to be an enabling tool (Hanus and Estes, 2002). Without properpreparation, dramatic presentations can waste

Conference Session

Project Management and Team Issues

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Eldon Larsen

Session Teaching a Project Management Fundamentals Course to Working Professionals Eldon R. Larsen, Ph.D. Marshall University, College of Information Technology and EngineeringAbstract Project management has become very important in today’s business world. Yet, mostworking professionals have had to learn project management skills almost entirely byexperience, with little formal college training in this field. At Marshall University, the Master ofScience in Engineering degree program includes an emphasis in Engineering Management, ofwhich Project Management is

Conference Session

Unique Courses & Services for Freshmen

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Audeen Fentiman; John Demel; Richard Freuler

evolutionary progress waspartially documented1-4 in previous efforts. The present work provides both comprehensive andup-to-date description and details of the Fundamentals of Engineering for Honors Program(FEH), in part by incorporating some highlights found in more recent companion papers5-8 intoone work.In response to a national concern in the early 1990s about poor retention of students inengineering combined with a real, or some would say critical, need for more engineers, OhioState worked with nine other schools to form the Gateway Engineering Education Coalition.This need for engineers was and currently is driven by society's ever- increasing consumption oftechnology. The Coalition, led by Drexel University, was established as a result of the

Conference Session

Creative Ways to Present Basic Materials

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

David Niebuhr; Heather Smith

guessed. The average scorefrom the new lab on these questions was 3.7 points ± 0.2 points out of five, indicating a resultthat is more likely attributable to student learning than random guessing. This finding may seemobvious, but we wanted to know if the integration of statistics into the lab was actually retainedat the conclusion of the course. Three of the questions required basic understanding ofreplication and experimental error. Based on the poor performance by the old lab students, itseems clear that an appreciation for sources of variation in an experimental setting was notgrasped by these students. We found this fundamental oversight disturbing. However, it wasencouraging to see that upon completion of the new lab, students better

Conference Session

Emerging Trends in Engineering Education

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Ken Ports

students, with team memberssplit between the two universities. They are working on a project focused on a system for thewireless tracking of materials and people. A university in Switzerland has indicated an interestin a similar arrangement. An Aerospace Engineering team is currently collaborating with a teamfrom the Indiana Institute of Technology, and there is consideration of doing a three-universitysenior design team in the future.How About a Real, High Tech Start-Up?What if a senior design team wants to go from emulating being part of a start-up to actuallystarting up a company to take its senior design “product” to market? Florida Tech is prepared tosupport this type of activity, and as of this writing, three current or recent projects are

Conference Session

Writing and Communication II

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

James Hanson; Julia Williams

engineers. In this paper, the authors share theassignment template they developed and discuss the evaluation rubric that the instructor used tograde assignments. The authors also identify the learning outcomes specified for the assignmentand show how student writing correlated to their performance in the course. Finally they discussthe advantages and disadvantages of the Writing-to-Learn approach in the engineeringclassroom.IntroductionThis project began with the premise that asking students to write is a means to improve whatthey learn in the engineering classroom. The premise is not new; advocates of the Writing-to-Learn approach have argued for the incorporation of writing in courses outside of the traditionalsites for writing instruction.1-3 As

Conference Session

Computed Simulation and Animation

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Michael Filsinger

fundamental ofprogramming skills.Student FeedbackOnly anecdotal feedback exists, in the form of informal personal comments and comments madein lab reports and teaching evaluations. In general, student comments fall into two categories.First (and by far more vocal), are the students who complain that “This is not a programmingclass, so why am I required to write programs?” To some extent, I see this attitude as validationof my belief that the students need more programming practice, not less. In fact, many of thesestudents later come back to me and tell me how much more confidence they have concerningprogramming after the assignment. Much of their initial resistance stems from their lack ofconfidence and practice. As they discover that the problem is

Conference Session

Writing and Communication I

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Roberta Harvey

strategy is that it does not help students to become independentlearners. In “Applying the Science of Learning,” Halpern and Hakel argue that this isparticularly important at the post-secondary level. Colleges and universities do not aim forminimum competencies; rather, the assumption behind advanced education is that “knowledge,skills, and attitudes learned in this setting will be recalled accurately, and will be used in someother context at some time in the future”6. Post-secondary teaching, then, should not be directedonly at optimizing student performance in the school setting but should instead promote transferof learning. This assumption suggests that the fundamental strategy behind the use of learningstyles—offering diverse modes of

Conference Session

Writing and Communication II

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

John Spinelli

communication and ethics. Placingtechnological developments related to Electrical Engineering within a societal and humancontext is one way of approaching ABET’s criteria for ethics (3f), communications (3g),and broad education (3h), in a course with significant technical content. In senior exitinterviews, students have described the course as especially useful in developing the oraland written communication skills needed in their capstone design experience. The course begins with the writings of Franklin and Faraday, detailing theirexperiments in the fundamental nature of electricity and magnetism. Wherever possible,primary source material is used, and historical controversies are explored. Studentsexamine the methods by which “consensus” was

Conference Session

Writing and Communication II

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Elisa Linsky; Gunter Georgi

to consider the impact of scientific information on designdecisions, which is the goal of an engineering lab. Thus the design side of the labs is oftenneglected in favor of the results side: making a robot that works is considered to be moreimportant that making a robot that is designed well.While this might not seem to be a writing problem, this preconception results in reports that aredescriptive without actually demonstrating engineering information--and in the case of the finalproject, a proposal that is descriptive without being persuasive. As the results of the exit surveyhave shown, the nonlab writing assignments in EG 1004 have gone a long way to demonstratingto students that writing can be a fundamental aspect of engineering

Conference Session

Writing and Communication II

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Richard Bannerot

builds upon that model by reflectingdiscipline-specific values in academic writing.WID is based on the premise that writing is thinking, and thus should be both taught and used asa learning tool throughout all fields of study. WID staff partner with faculty, departments, andcolleges to answer the following questions: • What are common forms and writing conventions within this discipline? • What writing skills are required at each level? • What are students’ common writing weaknesses and strengths? • What is “good writing” in this discipline?As these questions are addressed, the perception of writing instruction and practice on the UHcampus fundamentally changed. Writing is no longer the province of one department or a skillmastered

Conference Session

Emerging Trends in Engineering Education

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Daryl Caswell; Clifton Johnston

Session 1793 Fundamentals of a First-Year Engineering Design and Communication Course: Familiarization, Functionality and Testing D.J. Caswell, C.R. Johnston, O.R. Fauvel, D. Douglas, M. Eggermont Department of Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering/Faculty of Engineering, University of Calgary Calgary, Alberta, CANADAIntroductionThere is a large body of pedagogy surrounding the use of a common design methodology inengineering. The well known description of the design process as a series of steps fromproblem identification, through conceptual design to detailed

Conference Session

Course/Program Assessment

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Suguna Bommaraju

to preparea 3-minute lecture to present it to a High school class. The following is the list of topics chosenfor this short writing assignment: 1. How to determine unknown voltage in circuit? (Week 2) 2. Explain the fundamentals of resistance. (Week 4) Page 9.507.4 3. Understand and explain the fundamentals of current and voltage. (Week 6) Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2004, American Society for Engineering Education 4. Explain charging and discharging of a capacitor. (Week 8) 5. Understand the concept of energy

Conference Session

Emerging Trends in Engineering Education

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Elisa Linsky; Gunter Georgi

Session # Integrated Technical Writing Instruction in Freshman Engineering Elisa Linsky, Gunter Georgi. Polytechnic University, Brooklyn, New York.Convincing freshman engineering students that acquiring technical writing expertise is critical totheir success is central to the mission of the writing program in General Engineering. Bydeploying writing consultants to each section of our benchmark introductory course, EG 1004,we teach the fundamentals of good writing within the context of regular engineering coursework.EG 1004 is a survey course designed to introduce various engineering disciplines to ourincoming freshmen. Teamwork

Conference Session

Entrepreneurism in BME

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

David Smith; John Troy; Penny Hirsch

challenges engineering educators to structure learning so that competency is builtprogressively throughout a curriculum. The engineering community well understands the needfor proficiency in all modes of communication, with written communication considered of highimportance. For example, a panel of ten representatives from biomedical companies, assembledat Northwestern University in the summer of 2001, stressed the importance of communicationskills for entry-level biomedical engineers. Representatives from Abbott Laboratories, Datex-Ohmeda, and Nova Bionics said that entry-level engineers in biomedical engineering specificallyneed to be able to detail all project subtasks in project design, find and evaluate research relevantto a project, write

Collection

2004 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Theodore W. Manikas; Gerald R. Kane

approach to teaching research writing to nonnative writers," Professional Communication, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 46, pp. 210-220, 2003.[5] M. Breuer, M. Sarrafzadeh, and F. Somenzi, "Fundamental CAD Algorithms," IEEE Trans. Comp.-Aided Design, vol. 19, pp. 1449-1475, 2000.[6] J. R. Young, "Libraries Try to Widen Google's Eyes," in The Chronicle of Higher Education, vol. L, 2004, pp. A1, A31-A32.[7] E. C. Pappas and R. W. Hendricks, "Holistic Grading in Science and Engineering," ASEE Journal of Engineering Education, vol. 89, pp. 403-408, 2000.THEODORE W. MANIKASTheodore W. Manikas is an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Tulsa. He is amember of the ASEE, ACM, and IEEE. He

Conference Session

Teamwork and Assessment

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Heather Sheardown; Donald Woods

; is done in a defined situation and for apurpose; is done in the context of published goals, measurable criteria and agreed-upon forms of evidence; and is based on multiple forms of evidence.A rationale is given for why this skill is important. Self assessment is an importantskill because it provides an element of ownership of the learning, is needed inprofessional life, helps to develop self confidence and provides a way to give promptfeedback. Self assessment is a valued skill because it seems to be related to self imageand self confidence which, in turn, are related to exam anxiety, and propensity toprocrastinate.We used five components to develop and apply skill in self assessment: a 4 to 6 hourworkshop, resume writing, reflective journal

Conference Session

Assessing Teaching & Learning

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Larry Stetler; Stuart Kellogg

Engineering Education Campus-Wide Writing Rubric A1S = Strong = 4 A = Acceptable = 2 W = Weak = 0Student ID#: __________________OUTCOMES EVALUATION S A W1. The CONTENT of the document is effective.2. The document is ORGANIZED and FORMATTED appropriately for its intended audience and purpose.3. STYLE and TONE are appropriate for the intended audience and purpose.4. The document shows knowledge of writing FUNDAMENTALS.5. The NON-TEXTUAL

Conference Session

Improving Mechanics of Materials Classes

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Jr., Hartley T. Grandin, Hartley T. Grandin,; Joseph Rencis, University of Arkansas

Engineering in 1980, a M.S. from Northwestern University in 1982 and aPh.D. from Case Western Reserve University in 1985. V-mail: 508-831-5132; E-mail: jjrencis@wpi.eduHARTLEY T. GRANDIN, JR.Hartley T. Grandin, Jr. is a Professor Emeritus of Engineering Mechanics and Design in the Mechanical EngineeringDepartment at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He has authored the textbook Fundamentals of the Finite ElementMethod that was published by Macmillan in 1986. Since his retirement from WPI in 1996, he teaches a mechanicsof materials course each year and is currently writing an introductory textbook with the author. In 1983 he receivedthe WPI Board of Trustees’ Award for Outstanding Teaching. He received his B.S. in 1955 and an M.S. in 1960 inMechanical

Collection

2004 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Joseph J. Rencis; Hartley T. Grandin

. GRANDIN, JR.Hartley T. Grandin, Jr. is a Professor Emeritus of Engineering Mechanics and Design in the Mechanical EngineeringDepartment at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He has authored the textbook Fundamentals of the Finite ElementMethod that was published by Macmillan in 1986. Since his retirement from WPI in 1996, he teaches a mechanicsof materials course each year and is currently writing an introductory textbook with the author. In 1983 he receivedthe WPI Board of Trustees’ Award for Outstanding Teaching. He received his B.S. in 1955 and an M.S. in 1960 inMechanical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and a Ph.D. in Engineering Mechanics from theDepartment of Metallurgy, Mechanics and Materials Science at Michigan State

Conference Session

International Engineering Education I

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Dyani Saxby; Saeed Foroudastan

including, “…taking notes,answering questions, and writing essays” 2. They also grapple with oral presentations as,“One specific challenge (for faculty) involves teaching ESL (English as a SecondLanguage) students how to successfully complete coursework which requires oralperformance” 3. These are some of the common problems that international students faceconcerning their studies. However, oral and written communication tasks can be an evengreater problem for international students majoring in engineering. This is becausegenerally speaking, “Engineering students are for the most part, less skilled than theircounterparts in the Arts and Science faculties where much of the research into studentwriting has been carried out” 4. This coupled with the

Conference Session

DEED Poster Session

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Will Cluett; Peter Weiss; Kim Woodhouse; David Bagley; Susan McCahan

part,through a seminar style approach. Overall, the resulting course is a departure from a typicaldesign course.Course OutlineThe course plan can be roughly broken down into four parts. The major material introduced ineach part is as follows: Part 1. Introduction to design, team skills, professional writing, and reverse engineering Part 2. Human, social, and environmental issues in the design process; Introduction to oral communication, and critical reading Part 3. Project management and project planning Page 9.1171.1 Part 4. Major design project“Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for

Conference Session

Instrumentation and Laboratory Systems

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Alex See

design was to allow students to write codes in LabVIEWTM software for data acquisition, signal measurements and perform some fundamental Digital Signal Processing (DSP), namely the FFT (Fast Fourier Transform). This paper reports that LabVIEWTM software may be employed as a useful tool for practical teaching and learning some DSP fundamentals to engineering undergraduates. A National Instruments PCI (Personal Computer Interface) 6036 E series DAQ (Data AcQuisition) device and a Connector terminal Block, CB 68LP were provided to the students for this work. This paper illustrates the gain of knowledge by the students who had worked on this project. Students had appreciated the DAQ functions to perform data acquisition, measurements and basic

Collection

2004 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Lance C. Perez; Jerald L. Varner; Michael F. Anderson

305 Probability and Random Processes,ELEC 462 Communication Systems, and ELEC 464 Digital Communications. The laboratoryplatform chosen for the ISSL is the Telecommunications Instructional Modeling Systems(TIMS). This paper describes how the laboratory is being used in the junior level course ELEC305 Probability and Random Processes.ELEC 305 is a required three credit hour course in the undergraduate curriculum in theDepartment of Electrical Engineering with course objectives that emphasize the fundamentals ofaxiomatic probability theory and random processes and their application in electrical engineeringdisciplines. ELEC 305 has significant mathematical and theoretical content and is a prerequisitecourse for senior level elective courses in

Conference Session

Professional Ethics in the Classroom

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Robert Houghtalen

class discussion that follows produces a lively debate about the ethicallapses of most of the engineering constituencies. This is followed with a summary of the code ofethics and a framework for ethical decision making.6 Then the students are asked to write a two-page essay on the ethical situation faced by the consulting engineers before and during the mockpublic meeting, the fundamental principles and cannons that apply to the situation, and theappropriate action(s) that should be taken by the consulting engineers. These essays are thensubmitted to the Rose E-Portfolio system for documenting student learning outcomes.Personal TestimonyAnother successful technique that I have used to introduce my students to the topic ofprofessional ethics is