Conference Session

Methods, Techniques, and New Programs in Graduate Education

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Cyndi Lynch, Purdue University, West Lafayette; Kathy Garza Sears, Purdue University, West Lafayette

Tagged Divisions

Graduate Studies

and responsibilities asthey relate to the missions of an institution of higher education, along with the type of institutionincluding community colleges, liberal arts colleges, research universities, and minority-servinginstitutions.The institutional data along with program evaluations reflect the efforts of these programs.Application, enrollment, and degree numbers are steadily increasing. The number of studentsparticipating in the program is also on the rise. Continued growth in the number of URMstudents receiving doctoral degrees will provide a more culturally diverse faculty, thus achievingthe AGEP program goals.Significance of Project and RationaleIt is projected that by 2050 the population that is now considered a minority will surpass

Conference Session

Methods, Techniques, and New Programs in Graduate Education

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Justin P. Micomonaco, Michigan State University

Tagged Divisions

Graduate Studies

teaching-as-research project as a result of participating in theinstitute.14 The latter finding indicates that participants concluded the institute with a clear planto engage in reflective teaching practice. The most common high-level engagement CIRTL program is a mentored teaching-as-research project. Although implemented differently at each institution, these programs providegraduate students an opportunity to engage in a project to improve undergraduate learning. Theteaching-as-research project requires graduate students to develop research questions abouteffective teaching, design the research project, collect data, analyze the data and report thefindings. For example, Vanderbilt University implemented the Teaching-as-Research

Conference Session

Professional Graduate Education and Industry

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Ronald J. Bennett, Univeristy of Saint Thomas; Elaine R. Millam, University of Saint Thomas

Tagged Divisions

College Industry Partnerships, Graduate Studies

-III, the final in the series. The student would report on the results of the action learning projectat that time, share what they had learned in their leadership of that project, and how they hasimpacted their organization through their leadership of the team. Finally, the students wereasked to continually update their plans to reflect new learning, new progress and newinformation about themselves, integrating new knowledge and lessons from experience.At that time, much remained to be done in order to know the overall impact of this innovativedesign. As we looked to the future, we had some hunches about overall outcomes. It was ourintention to continue to monitor the individual and collective outcomes as the students movedforward in their

Conference Session

Educating Students for Professional Success

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Robert J. Gustafson, Ohio State University

Tagged Divisions

Graduate Studies, New Engineering Educators, Student

Programs In a review of the development and characteristics of future faculty preparationprograms2, it is pointed out that they can provide a smooth transition between graduate schooland faculty positions. These programs evolved from TA training programs that proliferatedbetween 1960 and 1990. Establishment of the Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) program in 1993formed a base for a sustained national initiative to transform doctoral education. The PFFprogram has three core features3 of 1) addressing the full scope of faculty roles andresponsibilities, 2) students have multiple mentors and receive reflective feedback and 3) bothare addressed in the context of a cluster of institutions typically involving a doctoral degree-granting institution

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Daniel W. Walsh, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo; Lanny Griffin, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo; Robert S. Crockett, California Polytechnic State University

Tagged Divisions

Graduate Studies

significantly and systematicallydifferent from starting salaries in another location. The MS salary significantly exceeds the BSsalary, by between twelve and fifteen percent depending on the year. The data show that startingsalaries for MS graduates is increasing over time, and that their salaries do increase with time inservice. The data are presented in Figure 2. The x-axis in this plot reflects the student year ofgraduation, the open circles reflect starting salaries reported by students who graduated with their4+1 degrees during that year. The open squares reflect the reported current salaries – salariesreported during the last survey - for students who graduated during the year indicated on the xaxis . There is not necessarily a one to one

Conference Session

Educating Students for Professional Success

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

David F. Ollis, North Carolina State University

Tagged Divisions

Graduate Studies, New Engineering Educators, Student

. For our earlier, one semester proposition course (1), students rate as mostvaluable the “writing the rough draft, comments received on the rough draft, and givinga practice talk.” Rated as generally helpful were “doing a literature review; writing theproposal outline (with references); preparing the technical presentation, and classquestions after the practice talk.” These qualitative reflections indicate that continual,formative feedback for every phase of proposal construction is important. The formaldeliverables are the final paper and presentation and defense, but the greatest learning Page 22.1495.6appears to have been in the exercises and

Conference Session

General Topics in Graduate Education

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mysore Narayanan, Miami University

Tagged Divisions

Graduate Studies

. Page 22.248.1 c American Society for Engineering Education, 2011 Assessment Based on Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences Mysore Narayanan, Miami University, Ohio.Abstract Scholars in the area of cognitive science and educational psychology agree that‘assessment’ as ‘learning’ should not be treated like a third-party research project orsome administrator’s questionnaire. Assessment must be actually viewed as acommunity effort or nothing. Assessment must be driven by a faculty's owncommitment to reflect, react, innovate and improve. Educators have also recognized thatit is very important that instructors make a strong effort to teach to the

Conference Session

Mentoring Graduate Students, Diversity, and Assessment

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Gregg L. Fiegel, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo; Ben Mason, University of California, Berkeley; Nicholas W. Trombetta, University of California, San Diego

Tagged Divisions

Graduate Studies, Minorities in Engineering

prior to beginning their work at Davis. Three ofthe five undergraduates were given the opportunity to work extensively with the centrifuge testdata and results. Two of the five undergraduates continued to work at the centrifuge facility forover a week after the test was concluded, helping with report preparation and data analyses. Inaddition, for one of the centrifuge tests, we recruited two undergraduates to work together asresearch assistants.AssessmentStudent QualificationsThe data summarized in Table 5 illustrate that the research team was successful in recruitinghighly qualified undergraduate participants, which reflects well on the recruitment programestablished for this project. All of the undergraduates had grade point averages greater

Conference Session

Mentoring Graduate Students, Diversity, and Assessment

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Robert M. Brooks, Temple University; Amithraj Amavasai; Jyothsna Kavuturu

Tagged Divisions

Graduate Studies, Minorities in Engineering

conceptswere correct but incorrect calculations in one step resulted in a failing grade. By breaking aproblem into steps and concepts and rewarding success at each step, students were encouraged tocomplete a problem and ask for help if they did not remember an abstract concept or equation.This paper describes a method for rewarding students for levels of knowledge during the finalexamination of a transportation engineering course.Kolb’s learning style theory 1 identifies four types of learning styles: (1) Concrete Experience(feeling), (2) Active experimentation (doing), (3) Reflective Observation (watching), and (4)Abstract Conceptualization (thinking). While every student has some component of each of thesefour learning styles, there is usually one

Conference Session

General Topics in Graduate Education

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Suzanne M. Kresta, University of Alberta; John A. Nychka, University of Alberta; Roger Graves, University of Alberta

Tagged Divisions

Graduate Studies

, but interestingly, a vast majority of students find “Exercise 5: Visual Abstract” verydifficult the first time they reflect on their research. However, most students comment that thevisual abstract exercise is crucial to them realizing what it is they are doing in their research. Ageneral written outline exercise has been used in the past for students to reflect on their research,but it is not as powerful as the visual abstract, likely because the students tend to make visualconnections and image cues in their minds when thinking about their research, which cannot beas easily captured for them with words on a page. By performing the described exercises graduate students feel that they have become better

Conference Session

Panel on Innovative Graduate Education Concepts: Organized by the National Institute of Aerospace

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Amy E. Landis, University of Pittsburgh; Melissa M. Bilec, University of Pittsburgh; Leidy Klotz, Clemson University; Annie R. Pearce, Virginia Tech

Tagged Divisions

Graduate Studies

facilitated discussion at the end of the semester, students expressed frustration with the“report back” parts of exercises. This is reflected in the student feedback in Figure  2 wherestudents wanted to see fewer instances of cross-university student interactions. The large numberof groups among the three universities made it difficult to maintain attention during informalreport backs, especially since audio and video feeds were difficult to hear and see. Studentsrecommended that future reporting from active learning activities incorporate visuals such asslides so that students at other sites could clearly make out what was being shown

Conference Session

Mentoring Graduate Students, Diversity, and Assessment

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Joy L. Colwell, Purdue University, Calumet; Jana Whittington, Purdue University, Calumet; Carl F. Jenks, Purdue University, Calumet

Tagged Divisions

Graduate Studies, Minorities in Engineering

scholarly writing with the first personactive voice—“I performed the experiment” is a typical construction. Students tend to addresstheir written work to their professors as if they were making an oral report directly to thatprofessor, which leads to immediate problems. The work will not meet scholarly stylerequirements because it reflects an informal tone. A review of literature in engineering andtechnology will reveal that almost no published scholarly work uses the first person in describingthe technical data or the process employed. This is often the result of students not havingfamiliarity with the literature in the field or the style of writing expected. Many of them havewritten first-person experience papers or statements, but not lengthy

Conference Session

Graduate Student Experience

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Katherine E. Winters, Virginia Tech; Holly M. Matusovich, Virginia Tech

Tagged Divisions

Graduate Studies, Student

have differing GTA interpretations. Lecture andworkshop course coordinators provide PowerPoint slides for all GTAs and instructors eachweek, and then lead weekly meetings to go over the slides and associated activities. Natedescribes that the course coordinators communicate to the GTAs “that within some bounds wehave a lot of freedom”, but that “I‟m not sure that I‟d be free to change [course materials] verymuch because it has to reflect their decisions.” In GTA meetings, “the overall theme of theiranswers [to GTA questions about making changes] has been „you can feel free to personalize,but we have to maintain consistency‟. It‟s always been that kind of emphasis on consistency”.However, Sam seems to have different perceptions of the same

Conference Session

Methods, Techniques, and New Programs in Graduate Education

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Michele L. Strutz, Purdue University, West Lafayette; James Edwin Cawthorne Jr., Purdue University, West Lafayette; Daniel Michael Ferguson, Purdue University, West Lafayette; Mark T. Carnes, Purdue University, West Lafayette; Matthew W. Ohland, Purdue University, West Lafayette

Tagged Divisions

Graduate Studies

I would be smart enough to do that, or, I would have enough expertise to do that. One of the big things that I got out of my experiences [at my University] is understanding the importance of reflection, and understanding, thinking back over my life, and about choices I‟ve made, and what‟s meaningful, and what I learned. − EmmaAlex adds to Emma's comments what he learned from the PhD experience: The appreciation for what makes good research. So it took me a while to realize that, you didn‟t just have to find a reference, you really had to find all the references. And you had to look at all the work that‟s been done not just here‟s something somebody did, I‟m building on it. End of story

Conference Session

Methods, Techniques, and New Programs in Graduate Education

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Diane L. Peters, University of Michigan; Shanna R. Daly, University of Michigan

Tagged Divisions

Graduate Studies