education research methods at UNC Charlotte. She studies college access and success issues and has a particular interest in first generation and STEM students. Page 25.425.1 c American Society for Engineering Education, 2012 Developing and Implementing Guided Inquiry Modules in a Construction Materials CourseIntroduction In recent years, leading engineering research and accreditation agencies have called forengineering education to become more reflective of real-world engineering practice. TheNational Academy of Engineering (NAE) suggests better alignment of
the mandatory language fordesign and analysis, and mathematical proof the industry standard for final justification. In thislast point there is some overlap between the perspectives of engineers and JPFs: Both sometimesused formal mathematics for post hoc justifications of solutions obtained by other means.The epistemological aspect of skeptical reverence recalls the broader concept advanced by Kingand Kitchener (1994)32 of reflective judgment. Mainly applied to college students, reflectivejudgment is the endpoint of a developmental continuum corresponding to the recognition of thecomplexity and uncertainty of real-world problems, an awareness of the need to interpretknowledge in the context in which it was constructed (and revise it in light
to write a description of the wind tunnel and the experimentalprocedure used to acquire the data. This assignment was read by each faculty member andreturned to the students at the beginning of the next class period. To encourage reflection, Page 25.459.3grammar, style, word choice, etc. issues were simply underlined so that the students could thinkabout their individual writing challenges. During a one-on-one meeting with each student, anyquestions concerning corrections were addressed. The most common problem encountered wasthe challenge of being able to proofread their writing. Table 1. Workshop
). Figure 14 shows the wind speed data between3:30 PM of January 6 and January 7, 2010. These are instantaneous wind speeds sampled everyfive minutes between 3:30 PM of January 6 and 7 of 2010. Average speed for the day was 8.1mph. It is noted from Figure 4 that the average monthly wind speed is 8 mph for Mercedes.This data reflects a typical January day. Expectedly, wind mostly blows during afternoons andslows down significantly during early mornings. While early morning wind speed drops to below5 mph for several hours, the speed picks up as high as 20 mph and above, occasionally hitting 25mph. While this is not the best wind month for this area, this is a good representation of theaverage wind speed for the area as is clear from Figure 4
toolssuggested some necessary refinement for students to get most benefit from the game experiences.ACKNOWLEDGMENTThis work is supported under a Innovations in Engineering Education, Curriculum,and Infrastructure grant EEC#0935089 from the National Science Foundation.BIBLIOGRAPHY[1]. Bowen, B. A., “Four puzzles in adult literacy: Reflections on the national adult literacy survey,” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 42, 314-323, 1999[2]. Klemp, R., “Academic Literacy: Making Students Content Learners,” http://www.greatsource.com/rehand/6-8/pdfs/Academic_Literacy.pdf[3]. Stothard, S. E. and Hulme, C., “A comparison of reading comprehension and decoding difficulties in children,” Cornoldi C. and
Librarianship 36:158-165, 2010.7. Meyers, KL, SE Silliman, and NL Gedde, A comparison of engineering students’ reflections on their first-year experiences, Journal of Engineering Education 99:169-178, 2010.8. Angelique, H, K Kyle, and E Taylor, Mentor and muses: new strategies for academic success, Innovative Higher Education 26:195-209, 2002.9. Khazanov, L, Mentoring at-risk students in a remedial mathematics course, Math and Computer Education 45:106-118, 2011.10. Rodger, S, and PF Tremblay, The effects of a peer mentoring program on academic success among first year university students, Canadian Journal of Higher Education 33:1-18, 2003.11. Thorsheim, H, H LaCost, and JL Narum, Peer mentoring of undergraduate research in
2016.Design Sequence ArchitectureAs a starting point for achieving the three objectives stated earlier, the undergraduate committeebegan by reviewing the design component of the curriculum at peer Electrical EngineeringDepartments with similar size and ranking. Our senior capstone design course was organizedalong the same lines as many other departments, and reflects ABET criteria. In addition togeneral lectures concerning professional engineering topics, there are weekly laboratory sections.In self-defined project sections, students first complete predefined laboratory assignments duringthe first half of the semester before beginning a self-defined project approved by their instructor.In other sections, student teams select a major design
others. Some departmentshave much more discretionary funds than others”. 6 While substantial amounts of facultytime and effort were required for curriculum revisions, historically lecture and theorybased courses, have been dramatically upgraded to reflect the concepts and skill sets needby today’s graduates.OutcomesPretesting identified little difference between those students who took the lecture onlycourse and those who also took the course with a laboratory component. Quantifiablecomparisons from those with the lab component show a substantial increase in quiz/testscores, and final course grades. In addition, the laboratory sessions served as a classroomassessment technique providing real time validation of the problem solving pedagogy
% Figure 8. Summary of post-intervention journal themes (n=29)ConclusionsThis study revealed that the elementary students’ conceptions of robots changed from naïve torealistic with instruction, and this change was reflected in their drawings both immediately andafter a 3-month delay. Furthermore, student journal entries and teacher comments clearlyindicate that the students enjoyed the outreach activity. Anecdotal comments from the teachersalso suggest that the robot programming activities facilitated student learning in mathematicslater in the school year during an introduction to the coordinate system grid.Key characteristics of the outreach activity include the following features: (a) it is very low-cost;(b) it minimizes the impact on the
r car fuel in an econo my car, or ddiesel fuel inn a gasolineengine. Commentary is provided to caution students about real world performance issuesassociated with certain parameter choices. The activities call for the student to first predict ideal engine performance under differentscenarios. Next, the students will use the simulator to explore the effects of changingparameters. Initial changes are specified in detail to acquaint students with the simulator, withsubsequent explorations requiring students to make decisions regarding how to determineanswers. Students utilizing the activity are frequently encouraged to look at additional optionsand scenarios according to their interests. Finally, students are asked to reflect on
, students spend less time inreflection over the course material, which is unfortunate because reflection is more likely to lead todepth in conceptual understanding and critical thinking about the material2, 3.Evidence that the traditional collegiate-level strategies are not successful in developing deep, criticalthinking in college students has been making national headlines. The recently published“Academically Adrift” by Arum and Roksa4 concluded that colleges and universities graduate studentswith no significant increase in critical thinking. Meanwhile, over the past few decades, the author citesthat average GPAs are on the rise. Albeit critical thinking isn’t the only lens to view success (nor isthe Collegiate Learning Assessment used in “Adrift
27 3.0 1.2 41% crunching 3. Book didn’t complement the problem set 25 2.8 1.4 32% 4. Spreadsheets took focus away from 27 2.8 1.3 26% concepts 5. One group member did the work, but all 27 2.3 1.3 27% got credit 6. Too much repetition of concepts 26 2.3 1.1 11%The feedback from the students regarding interferences provided us with opportunitiesfor reflection and adjustments. Given the size of the class and support budgets for thecourse, it is difficult to see what can be done to reduce class wait time for help. A moreeffective way to run the course, especially given all the other inductive
theexperience was positive and that they would want to do further research work.Initial Conclusion and Future WorkThis initial study indicates that some students who performed an undergraduate researchexperience are not encouraged to continue with post-graduate education. Students whoparticipated in the summer were required to work continuously for about two years giving littletime for reflection, relaxation and regeneration. Those that originally wanted to pursue post-graduate education where encouraged and those that had questioned the benefit werediscouraged. This may truly make for a better graduate student once they get into a graduateprogram. The students that attended the Graduate Institution did not have that same benefit. Inevery category in
. Figure 5: Aluminum Clamps with ABS Plastic iPod Holders mounted on an aluminum specimenExperimental Results and DiscussionIn measurements reported below, we kept the distance LG between the two clamps to beapproximately 4½” to achieve comparable precision in G measurements by both inclinometersand iPods. Figure 6 shows a plot of shear stress versus shear strain data points in the elastic rangewith least-square line fits to determine the shear modulus of 2024-T351 aluminum alloyspecimens. Since the inclinometer display changes by as much as 0.15 often, the horizontalerror bars for inclinometer data reflect this 0.15 uncertainty whereas the iPod data error barsreflect the Clinometer display resolution of 0.1. Table 1 below summarizes the
homework, or extemporaneouslyanswers student questions in front of the entire section from the active minority who ask.Students seldom witness or encounter what to do if they are “stuck” and cannot see a clearsolution path. On the other hand, studios are designed to engage all students in the classroom.They are activity based where students spend the majority of the class time in action to answerconceptual questions, solve problems, explain phenomena from in class demonstrations, work onvirtual laboratories, etc. The GTAs or instructors interact with students in a facilitative modewhere they ask probing questions designed to enable the students to reflect on appropriateprocedures and concepts so that the students themselves can identify what to do
: NumericallyControlled Oscillator (NCO); Cascaded Integrator Combo (CIC) filter; Channel Equalizer;Digital Communication Transmitter; Digital Communication Receiver; and Pulse Shaping.Course Benefits and AssessmentThis course is an important elective course to graduate students interested in the topics of DSPand reconfigurable hardware design. It plays a vital role in stimulating their interest to performresearch in the area of hardware implementation of DSP systems. Through lectures, readings,and working with practical designs, students learn the pros and cons of different implementationmethodologies. Each time the course is offered, its contents change to reflect the new trends inindustry including any new features of the tools and hardware platforms
the majority of the female figures named here were not, uponclose reflection, from STEM fields, but rather other socially important fields. More about thiswill be discussed subsequently. Table 4. Group Statistics for R3. Student Gender (Male vs. Female) N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error MeanQ1 Male Figures Male 513 5.14 2.204 .097 Female 634 4.91 2.155 .086Q1 Female Figures Male 513 .18 .482
Strongly Agree.From Table 4, it can be seen that the students were not very satisfied by the support from theindustry. This was the first time a project of this nature and scale was done as a part of this class.The industry support to the students while working on the project was not made available at thelevel or frequency that was planned. This is clearly reflected in the student feedback. Thedetailed feedback from the students has provided the instructors with better ideas regarding howto engage students and industry during the course of the project. The plan is to currentlyimplement these improvement measures during the upcoming semester. The feedback indicates that working on the project and the material covered in class wasuseful to
countries were equally encouraged toparticipate. Interestingly, when the program was held in California, the majority of participantswere from Danish Universities and when the program was held in Denmark, the majority of theparticipating population of students were from the United States. Regardless of the disciplinestudied and the degree level pursued, the formed groups reflected examples in a diverse teamthat investigated the opportunities and challenges facing renewable energy implementation frommany directions.Program StructureThe California - Denmark Renewable Energy Summer Workshop consisted of three majorcomponents; lectures, field trips, and project work. All components varied from year toyear based on the feedback received from the
perceptions relating to the aspects of the course that they liked and that should beaddressed in the future. First order themes indicate the main ideas that students took away fromthe course related to each of the main topic areas. In certain instances, first order themes arefurther broken down into second order themes to better communicate the students’ experiences.4.3 Reflections on Assignment Design with Respect to Bloom’s TaxonomyTo determine if the assigned activities required the students to engage in and practice higherorder thinking skills, the assignments were assessed based upon the Bloom’s taxonomy scale.We created a rubric with keywords6 that described each level of Bloom’s taxonomy. Threereviewers (chosen from the instructors of the
Page 25.1251.7delivery and teaching pedagogy. Evaluation results show positive learning experiences.Future work includes more pilot-testing in biomedical engineering courses.AcknowledgmentPartial support for this work was provided by the National Science Foundation's Course,Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) program under Award No. 0837584. Anyopinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are thoseof the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.Bibliography1. Y. Guo, S. Zhang, H. Man, and A. Ritter, “A Case Study on Pill-Sized Robot in Gastro-Intestinal Tract to Teach Robot Programming and Navigation”, Proceedings of ASEE Annual Conference and
the student’s performance wasnoticeably less than the others. In the second case the student did not turn in one assignment,missed several classes (to include two while on vacation), and was late with the long report. Thesecond student was assigned a grade that will require the student to repeat the course.On reflection I would teach the course the same, if I had been assigned it again. I enjoyed theclass and so did the students. I learned and the students seemed to also.RecommendationsThis format worked well with mature, motivated graduate students. I would personally hesitateto use this approach with undergraduates. The approach worked well for me since I have abackground in both the theory and practice of engineering management and try to
computingenvironment that can be shaped to reflect thought processes, metaphors of knowledgeconstruction, and organizational goals. Mathcad’s ability to hide or bypass selected intermediatecomputations provides a natural way to highlight important cause-and-effect relationships.These features make Mathcad ideal for engineering design work, but practiced teachers willrecognize the pedagogical value of a computing environment that can be adapted to individuallearning styles and focus student attention on essential information. Used in a Web-based setting,Mathcad can also be used to direct external resources into rich, integrated learning experiences. Page 6.941.2
curriculum, 2) when it was presented, 3) whether it was an elective, and 4) which disciplinethey taught.Even though the response was small (18 responses), we feel that it reflects the current trendtoward FEA being offered in engineering programs. The results indicate that roughly 78% of theuniversities currently offer the FEA course in the junior or senior level of a four-year program. Inroughly half of these colleges, FEA was offered as an elective. A finite element analysis coursewas offered in virtually all of the mechanical and mechanical technology programs, and most ofthe civil engineering curriculums. Curiously, only a few responses related to structuralengineering programs offered finite element analysis courses. The prerequisites varied
lights. The photo switch is a retro reflective switch, i.e., the contacts open when a box is at position A. Draw the PLC and I/O electrical control circuit and the PLC logic. Specify all the switches from the Automationdirect.com catalog. Page 6.1119.7 Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright 2001, American Society for Engineering EducationThese design projects worked out extremely well and received very good reviews from thestudents. At the end of the course the students felt confident about their ability to tackleactual design projects.An added
orthe values of parameters can be reflected in graphic display immediately. For example,the effect of damping ratio on the magnitude response can be easily demonstrated.III. A Real-time Process Control ProjectIn this section, a Process Control System course project is presented to illustrate how VBcan be used for real-time applications. The main objective of the project is to control thetemperature of a housing enclosure (Figure 3.) with a PC based control system (Figure 4). Figure 3: A housing enclosure Figure 4: PC based Control SystemIn this control system, two thermocouples are used, one for interior, the other for
candidates for our efforts. We tried to select aswide a variety of industries as possible in order to reflect the diversity of our graduates jobopportunities. The contacts above often provided us with enough detailed information to identifyspecific individuals within a particular company. We have also tapped into our alumni as asource for membership on the advisory board, but we are careful as to not over represent thisconstituency. Once a pool has been formed, and members decide to “retire their membership”we often ask them to recommend another contact at their company for possible service.Attendance is another challenge that we face. We try to schedule meetings at times that ourmembership is available, and this is often in the early evening. We
order to test multiple sensor arrays at once, multiple control PCs must be built and maintained.The instrumentation Research Laboratory was approached to find a solution that solved some ofthe inadequacies of the current heater control methods.The SolutionThe solution being implemented replaces the PC and the analog output card with a PIC micro-controller controlling the duty cycle of a Pulse-Width Modulated (PWM) output that drives theaverage power to the heater. While the PIC is driving the heater with the full power available, anA/D reading is taken that allows the PIC to perform simple PID controller calculations. Duringthe output pulse, the PIC adjusts the duty cycle to reflect an adjustment that will help correct forerrors
-by-512 using a 3-by-3 FIR filter can be processed in under0.5 seconds. It takes about the same amount of time to calculate a fast Fourier transformof the image. A grayscale image of size 512-by-512 has a memory footprint of a littleover 1 MByte or 4 bytes per pixel plus a few bytes of overhead, reflecting the machinerepresentation of an integer on most architectures in use today. These facts confirm thatthe Digital Image Processing package and Mathematica are a versatile, efficient and fastimage processing environment.Bibliography1. URL: http://www.wolfram.com, Wolfram Research, Inc.2. M. Jankowski, New electronic courseware modules for selected upper-level electrical engineering courses, ASEE Annual Conference Proceedings, Session 1526
aresimilar and the mean and medianfor the Internet taught course doesnot lie in the traditionally taughtcourses’ 95 percent confidenceintervals.) This, in part, reflects thefact that students were given three Figure 3. Traditional Course Quizzes Sp00tries to get a good score. However,the set of questions was more difficult. The high mean scores and heavy top end weighting ofthe distribution seem to support the supposition that the students were learning the material quitewell from the Internet approach.IV. HomeworkThe actual homework problems forthe Internet taught course were, forall intents and purposes, identical tothose given when the course wastraditionally taught, the differencebeing the delivery. The weeklyhomework assignment was