Conference Session

ASEE Multimedia Session

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Thomas Walker; Patrick Devens

students and no group specific indicators of varying performance have been identified. • Afro-American freshman engineering students parallel the overall student performance at a lower total SAT level. The lower group average SAT scores are reflected in the group grade performance. However, it appears that “pockets” of these students respond well to targeted support programs that attempt to ameliorate the academic and social struggles common to all students. • Hispanic freshman engineering students tend to follow overall student norms but display large variations in performance. This is attributed to the limited number of Hispanic students used in the study. As a result, no general

Conference Session

Assessment of Biomedical Engineering Programs

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Ann McKenna

classroomenvironment was restructured to support collaborative and reflective learning, and provideopportunities for students to practice skills expected in engineering practice. For example,students presented their findings, defended their positions, and debated with fellow students andfaculty instructors their conclusions; such interactions allowed development of core engineeringcompetencies. This paper provides an overview of the challenges and learning activities thatwere developed for three specific courses that have been implemented at Northwestern. Wefocus on the assessments used to measure student understanding of the scientific concepts, aswell as the development of engineering skills. Studies were conducted in the domains of bio-optics and

Conference Session

ASEE Multimedia Session

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Leonardo Rivera

, pictures, diagrams and demonstrations are favored; Verbal Learner when sounds and words (and their written representations) are preferred.• What is the organization of the information preferred? If prefers to start from applications and phenomena to infer fundamental principles from them is an Inductive Learner; if, on the other hand, prefers to know the technical foundations, the basic concepts and then derive the applications and uses is a Deductive Learner.• How is the information processed? An Active Learner likes to take part in physical activities and group discussions, a Reflective Learner likes to have time to himself to reflect and elaborate individually.• How does the person move towards the understanding of the

Conference Session

ASEE Multimedia Session

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Roger Wallace; David Adams

Learning Across theDisciplines1 highlighted some of these approaches; it also serves as a useful summary ofsome of the issues involved at different institutions.The plan that emerged for the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineeringincorporated some of these strategies and the practical experiences of the technicalwriting specialist. It also reflected the need to produce some positive results with limitedresources and within three years.This effort is now in its fifth semester. This paper describes the history of the effortwithin the department, the plan that emerged, some reflections of a lead professor from acritical course, the problem of assessment, and some of the issues and opportunitiesencountered along the way.II. HistoryOver the

Conference Session

ASEE Multimedia Session

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Benjamin L. Sill; Elizabeth R. Crockett; Matthew Ohland

, student organizations, and which math course is thehardest.Schedule career-related material toward the end of the semester. We felt that students neededcareer-related material most just before they leave for the semester break. This would givestudents an opportunity to reflect on summer employment that might help them investigate apotential career, and some ambitious students might take the opportunity to talk to employers intheir hometown about a summer position. Page 7.1203.4 Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2002, American Society for

Conference Session

Trends in Energy Conversion/Conservation

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Scott Dunning

Society for Engineering Education One of the toughest challenges for engineering technology educators is to ensure thatcoursework reflects current technology trends in industry. Overall curriculum revisions requiringthe deletion or additional of technical classes needs to be carefully examined to fit long termcareer placement trends. Topic changes within existing courses needs to occur yearly to keep upwith new technology trends. The changes presented in this paper represent both curriculum revisions and topicalrevisions. The curriculum revision reflects the changes in job opportunities available to ourstudents. We are deleting material that is not deemed necessary from the current employers ofour graduates. The topical

Conference Session

Closing Manufacturing Competency Gaps I

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Balasubramanian Kailasshankar; Devdas Pai

their self-analysis findings and self-improvement achievementsResultsThe class had an enrollment of 23, and 16 students chose to participate. Student self-analysisreports were collected at the end of the semester but before the final exam, and do not reflecttheir performance on that event. A sample student report is presented in Figure 1. Studentcomments gleaned from the self-analysis reflect overall satisfaction with the process in terms oflearning their professional strengths and weaknesses. Sample comments are quoted below: · I learned that there is direct correlation between the amount of studying time and score awarded. Secondly there is also correlation between the allotted time for assignment and the score. Those

Conference Session

ASEE Multimedia Session

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Dianna L. Newman; D. Reinhard

study had as its basic educational objective the integration ofknowledge of materials handling with expected practices and outcomes. Its goal was thedevelopment or refinement of problem-solving skills via virtual interactions in increasinglycomplex materials handling settings. The content reflected basic principles of materials handlingwith interpretations and uses offered by managers, engineers, and students. Diverse settings wereportrayed via media-supported clips of actual uses and oral as well as written overviews.The module was targeted to meet the needs of two types of learners:· Engineering juniors or seniors who had strong modeling skills but limited knowledge of

Conference Session

Learning Styles

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Michael Pavelich; Barbara Olds; Ronald Miller

software on 88 students and faculty from two collegesand students from a high school. Data from standard Reflective Judgment interviews and fromCogitoã have been analyzed in a variety of ways using neural-net software. The better fits showcorrelation coefficients between Cogito ã and interview ratings of 0.5-0.8. Most other fits showcorrelations below 0.4. These results are slightly to significantly better than previous paper-and-pencil instruments for measuring intellectual development. We will discuss what our resultsmean for effective assessment. Are R values in the 0.5-0.6 range good enough? Why is there anapparent ceiling on R values for paper-and-pencil instruments?Keywords ¾ intellectual development, assessment, neural network, Cogito

Conference Session

Grad. and Upper Level Undergrad. BME Courses

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Dominique M. Durand; Dmitri Kourennyi

- synaptic transmission - calcium dynamics in neurons - cellular and molecular basis of plasticity in the nervous system - examples and models of abnormal electrophysiology: epilepsy, de-myelinazation, etc. - extracellular recording and stimulation. We do not require a particular textbook for this course. Instead, we recommend severaltextbooks for additional reading, while detailed handouts are provided in the lectures. Therecommended textbooks include quantitative3,4,6,8,9 , semi-quantitative1, and descriptive5,7 texts,so that students have opportunity to look at the subject from different points of view. The coursematerials and progress of students is reflected in the course webpage. Homeworks are designed to stimulate in

Conference Session

Global Engineering Education

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

William Paterson; Samantha De Bon; Jean-Yves Chagnon; Deborah Wolfe

reflect such issues as technological advances and thegrowth of the engineering team in the workplace. Over the past decade the CEAB increased therequirements for complementary studies (soft skills) and moved from a proportional measure ofcurriculum to an absolute measure. Changes under consideration at the present time include: · refining the curriculum content requirements for Basic Science and Mathematics, · including morale and commitment of faculty, support staff and students as a component of the qualitative evaluation, and · including the requirement for students to be exposed to the concepts of project management.The engineering profession expects of its members competence in engineering as well as anunderstanding of the impact of

Conference Session

ASEE Multimedia Session

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

David Livingston; James Squire

Engineering, both before and after making the course robot-centric.Students showed a statistically-significant bias towards preferring the robotics-oriented course(p=0.05), and although this was reflected in a lower first-semester dropout rate the statisticalcorrelation is not as strong (p=0.23). A weaker correlation is expected since perception of theintroduction to engineering course is only one factor in students’ decision to change majors orleave the school. We have observed common confounding variables include performance in thecalculus sequence, financial, and home issues; other universities report similar findings 10.We believe the increased student engagement is caused by the fact that the robotics-basecurriculum addresses a wide

Conference Session

Special Topics

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Kimberly Barron; Anita Todd; Robert Pangborn

that the surveys described in this paper constitute onlyone part of the overall assessment effort in the College. Although it represents important anduseful feedback, much of the information obtained from surveys reflects the percept ions of therespondents, rather than direct measures of educational outcomes. Therefore, a wide variety ofassessment practices and new initiatives are underway in the departments and programs thatinvolve evaluation of student work and competencies. The program faculty have, in most cases,recruited external (industry) representatives to partner with them in evaluating students’ progressand abilities in various knowledge and skill areas. The College has also engaged in a multi-yearstudy of students’ intellectual

Conference Session

ASEE Multimedia Session

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Joe Wakeman-Linn; Alex Perry

about $200 per basic kit with each serving a team of 2-4 students. The proposed unit was piloted by a pair of volunteer Department of Energy researchinterns over the course of seven one-hour segments. The purpose of piloting the course was todetermine the effectiveness and feasibility of this proposal. The projects that the interns completedwere similar to the projects that are proposed for the actual course. It should be noted that theinstructor teaching the course should treat the course outlined in this paper as a set of guidelines,and should apply his or her own creativity to enhance the unit.Research Procedures This project reflects the results of a review of literature about engineering classes taught atother universities

Conference Session

Undergraduate Research and New Directions

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Pradip Srimani; Joseph Hughes

technical specialties within computer engineering, electricalengineering, and computer science. Their institutions and programs are reflective of the diversityamong academic institutions. Several members of the committee are actively involved inengineering accreditation or have experience in academic administration. Additionally,contributions to specific elements of the body of knowledge have been solicited from otherindividuals and the draft document will be available for review by educators and practitioners inthe discipline. Table 1. Members of the CC2001 Computer Engineering Committee. Dave Soldan (chair), Kansas State University Joseph Hughes, Georgia Institute of Technology Mitch Theys (editor), Univ. of Illinois

Conference Session

Teaching Industrial Engineers Design

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Vis Madhavan; Janet Twomey; Don Malzahn; Lawrence Whitman

created. Different To-Bemodels are generated to reflect different design scenarios. These models are then viewed togetherto identify good design characteristics and these evolve into an implementable, improved design.The use of virtual reality is here primarily directed at developing an ‘As-Is’ model of the virtualenvironment.Virtual Reality and Case StudiesIf a picture is worth a thousand words, then an interactive 3D model is worth a thousand Page 7.1090.3pictures6. Virtual reality (VR) is beginning to be widely used in fields such as entertainment, Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference

Conference Session

Understanding Students: Cognition

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Scott Husson; Richard Rice; James Haile; II, S. Michael Kilbey; Graham Harrison; Douglas Hirt; David Bruce; Charles Gooding; Deborah Switzer

Problem-solving strategy Educational goals Reflections Portfolios Pop quizzes Page 7.219.5 Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exhibition Copyright © 2002, American Society for Engineering Education Lab Exercise 4: How much stuff is that? I. Background Information Equipment: Scale accurate to 1 lbm with a range of 250 lbm

Conference Session

Physics in the K-12 Classroom

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Vivian Vasquez; Andrea I. Prejean; Sarah Irvine; Teresa Larkin

the pre-institute. Thus, the teachers and studentswere given a considerable amount of time to work together within their teams to plan anddevelop their lessons. Each morning, the institute began with a group discussion of the previous day's "reflectionquestions." Each day participants were given several questions to ponder after the conclusion ofthe day's events and activities. Participants were asked to go home and keep track of theirreflections in a journal. The reflection questions were typically associated with informationpresented during that day's sessions. The intent of the reflection questions was to give teacherstime to digest information they had received during the day, and to reflect on how thatinformation might have relevance

Conference Session

Computed Simulation and Animation

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Vivek Venkatesh; Nawwaf Kharma

Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright Ó 2002, American Society for Engineering Education”simulators. However, their approach is rather limited because: a) it requires that the user be quiteproficient in spreadsheet use, and b) it “.. does not allow [users] to study timing problems.”[3]. The above examples are simulations, while MagicBlocks is a gaming environment: thefunctionality that is derived from one or any construction of blocks reflects actual performanceof underlying hardware circuitry. Further, according to the first-hand experience of Singh [4],students who use simulations place too much confidence in the precision of the results, “notrealizing that they are only

Conference Session

Teaching Tools for Humanities and Ethics

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Rosalyn Berne

human life. Therefore, their consideration is warranted in anengineering ethics curriculum. An extraordinary teaching experience withundergraduate students at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and AppliedScience (SEAS), suggests that intergenerational dialogue is one pedagogy that canenliven and enhance the undergraduate engineer’s ability to engage moral deliberationabout technology and the future. This paper recounts one such intergenerationalexperience, highlighting excerpts from dialogues which occurred, and from studentessays which reflect upon them, as documentation of the exceptional effectiveness of thisprofound teaching technique.Engineering Ethics and The Technological FutureNanotechnology, cryonics, cloning

Conference Session

Teaching Innovations in Arch. Engineering

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Murali Paranandi

survey form.14 Through a descriptive reflective essay.15 Conducted during Fall 2000, is based on author’s four years of experiences in teaching design studios focused on using digital media. Page 7.180.416 Hanna and Barber [2001: p 258] describe how these processes were at work in Alvar Aalto’s design methodology and that for him major ideas emergedafter restraining the rational. They also concede that the choice of ‘which’ mode of thinking to suppress depends on the architect himself and his designapproach (functional/aesthetic). Proceedings of the 2002 American

Conference Session

Using Technology to Improve IE Education

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Liezl Van Dyk

semester of 2001 (Figure 2c).Figure 2d represents the average time allocation reflected by seventeen WebCT facilitatorsinterviewed at the University of Pretoria. Traditional contact time is reduced and flexibility oftime and location is increased when a WebCT learning environment is introduced. Theskewness of this figure towards non-contact time may be attributed to the fact thatpostgraduate courses (which consists normally of fewer contact hours) take precedence whenWebCT is introduced. Whether contact teaching is considered or whether non-contactteaching is considered, WebCT influences flexibility in terms of communication.3.2 Flexibility in communicationsCollis20 solely refers to communication with the facilitator (“instructor”), when she

Conference Session

Course Assessment in ET

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Wayne Hager; Ronald Land

across the board is career services. All of these points are important inputfor system-wide quality improvement plans and will influence plans for system improvements inthe coming year. As a scan of Table 1 illustrates, it is difficult to use the tabulated responses to theindividual survey questions to pick out important programmatic issues. A more effective methodis to recognize that certain subgroups of questions examine the same aspect of students’satisfaction. Individual questions in the subgroups simply examine issues from differentperspectives. Collectively, these subgroups define broader-based measures, or “qualityindicators.” For example, looking at Table 1, items 1, 2 and 6 reflect students’ satisfaction withinstruction in their

Conference Session

ASEE Multimedia Session

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Gulnur Birol; Todd Giorgio; Sean Brophy; Ann McKenna

three levels of assessment: (i) course as a whole which was achieved bypre/post tests and concept mapping activities, (ii) module specific assessment which includedsurveys, muddiest points (9) and reflection activities, (iii) assessment of learning objectiveswhich included homework, two take home examinations and class participation.Pre and post-tests were administered at the beginning and at the end of the quarter (Table 4). Thetests consisted of three parts, the first part was designed to capture general, ‘adaptable’ problemsolving skills (e.g. students’ abilities to design a plan and identify necessary resources), thesecond and third parts were designed to gauge understanding of concepts covered in Bioreactor(M1 and M2) and Microbial

Conference Session

Freshman Success/Retention Strategies

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Rachelle Heller; Nathan Campeau

national trend where more than half of allengineering students do not graduate as engineers, with freshmen comprising half of thatnumber.1 For some students, transferring is the best option. Clearly, many students whostart out in engineering find that their calling is elsewhere, and the first two yearsespecially can be seen as a weeding out period as students find their niche. However,there was concern that SEAS was losing students who could be successful and happy intheir curriculum if had received more attention or more information about the field. AColorado study found that students lost to attrition were not academically different thanstudents who remained in the engineering program.2The retention problem reflected a greater problem at SEAS: a

Conference Session

ASEE Multimedia Session

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Ronald Bennett; Elizabeth Orwin

working in teams led to varied results andstudents did not want to work outside of class. Page 7.1214.4 Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright ã2002, American Society for Engineering EducationStudent Evaluations Our feelings about the course were reflected in the student evaluations at the end of thesemester. The question “Considering everything, how would you rate this course?” received anaverage score of 2.65 out of 5 (n=34), while the question “Considering everything, how wouldyou rate this instructor?” received an average score of 3.20

Conference Session

Tricks of the Trade Outside of Class

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Donna Summers

separated intoparagraph form. Key ideas should be stated in clear, concise, succinct and focusedsentences. Readers can easily lose track of key ideas in a maze of confusing orconvoluted sentences. Supporting information which provides details, interpretations andinterrelationships should be presented in an organized and logical manner in order toenable learning.Keep the writing succinct. Be ruthless when editing to maintain your focus on theessential ideas. Good texts simplify the presentation of the material without a loss ofmeaning.Proper pace is critical. New material must not flow at the reader in such a rate that thereis no time for reflection or review. Authors need to help readers make connections byendeavoring to write explanations that

Conference Session

Graduate Student Experiences

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Kristine Csavina

, American Society for Engineering EducationAt ASU the first-year Exploratory Phase is structured as a bi-weekly seminar series that meets onFriday afternoons and is one credit hour for the fall and the spring semesters. The seminarsinclude such diverse topics as faculty roles in different settings of higher education, teachingstrategies, grant writing for a diverse student population, preparing for the job market, andunderstanding the future of institutions of higher education. These are eye opening, 3-hourseminars that leave the participants excited yet full of questions about academia and grateful forthe career development. Students submit a reflective journal to the Graduate College followingeach session. This not only serves as an arena for

Conference Session

ASEE Multimedia Session

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Jessica Mitchell; James Sweeney; Kristine Csavina

concentration. With the career panel, we would like the first year students tohear about the successes and struggles that new graduates face in the workforce. The panel isintended to be a diverse representation of career paths taken upon graduation including graduateschool, medical school, and industry. The panels not only serve to highlight career opportunities,but also serve as reflection for the students that their current challenges and concerns are likelyshared by upperclassman and by graduates currently working in the field.Module 3: Department of Bioengineering at ASU Session 1: Preparing for an Active Undergraduate Experience Session 2: BME DayThe final module serves to pull the other five sessions together and to make students aware of

Conference Session

Reaching Out to the Community

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Alan Gomez

-yourselfers. In the same year, local service stations and automotiveservice facilities recycled 194 million gallons of oil. 3 The chart on the left reflects the purchase location of lubricating oil. The chart on the right reflects who installs the product.It is important that we understand that sometimes it is not used oil that is disposed of improperly. Unfortunately, within our classroom, we would have a hard time generating solutions to correctthe laziness or bad habits of people who discard their used oil improperly. We can, however,focus on the containers that lubricating oil is shipped and dispensed in. Many do-it-yourselfersare simply impatient and careless with the containers that