Conference Session

Accreditation and Related Issues in ECE

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Ted Sarma; Massood Atashbar; S. Hossein Mousavinezhad

time taken to complete particularassignments indicate that certain assignments did require additional support materials. At the sametime, the students did express a great personal satisfaction in completing the more challengingproblems. The introduction of formal Computer Engineering best practices and assessments hasenhanced the student experience while at the same time providing valuable feedback to theinstructor in strengths, improvements and insights. Based on the assessment outcomes, this courseis continually updated and improved to reflect new technologies in this dynamically changingareas and to incorporate student feedback

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Nanette Keiser; Gloria Tressler; Arlen Gullickson

Evaluation Center (EC) at Western Michigan University is workingunder a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to conduct an evaluation project. Theoverall mission of this evaluation project is to assess the impact and effectiveness of NSF’sAdvanced Technological Education (ATE) Program and to provide technical assistance forongoing evaluative efforts (Gullickson & Lawrenz, 1998). The first phase of this evaluation was1 This study was conducted with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Any opinions, findings, andconclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Jack Lesko; Eric Pappas

successfully are most always excellentcolleagues who are successful in their careers and personal lives. Our philosophy of engineering education (as especially represented in our capstonedesign class) guides our teaching more than do industry trends or ABET requirements. At thecenter of this philosophy is our contention that students must develop a personal and professionallearning process—a method of "intentional growth" that includes learning and employing suchskills as critical and creative thinking, reflection, brainstorming, and effective conversation. Inaddition, students need to learn the discipline and motivation with which to apply these skills inorder to create their own lives, and find work and a lifestyle that are in harmony with

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Thankappan Pillai

, American Society for Engineering Education Physics 204 Laboratory Spring 2000 Dr. Pillai Tentative Schedule Fridays: January 28 Electric Charges and Coulomb force February 4 D.C Circuits February 11 Oscilloscopes February 18 Resistors, Bulbs and Diodes February 25 Magnetic Fields March 3 Reflection and Refraction of Light March 10 Lab Exam 1 (Spring Break) March 24 Radiation Lab March 31 Light Sensor, Intensity variation of Light April 7 Focal Length of Lenses April

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Eric Wiebe; Theodore Branoff; Nathan Hartman

. Also included were theconventional ways of representing these processes within a detail drawing. With an understandingof basic manufacturing processes and dimensioning constraints, it is the intent that students will beable to model objects in such a fashion to reflect potential design changes.Working Drawings, Sectional Views, Auxiliary ViewsTypically working drawings have been the focus in introductory engineering graphics courses.Sectional views and auxiliary views have been presented as standard and conventional ways forrepresenting objects on drawings. Although these topics will be covered in the revised course, thefocus will be on using them to enhance model creation and comprehension. Students will examinethese topics based on modeling

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Pierre Cilliers

variablesto measure personality, cognitive abilities, task orientation, environmental factors anddifferent indices of creativity. The correlation of these variables with “quality in design”, as Page 6.23.1 Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright 2001, American Society for Engineering Educationinferred from the student’s performance on a realistic Electronic Engineering design task, wasdetermined using exploratory statistical data analysis techniques. “Quality in design” wasrelated to the options, algorithms and implementation that reflect highly

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Merredith Portsmore; Chris Rogers

oscilloscope panel. Notice thatthe program is completely graphical. This makes programming and debugging substantiallyeasier. The first part checks to see if the user made any changes to the front panel (new samplingrate etc). If they did then the RCX is reconfigured to reflect those changes; otherwise theprogram continually reads the data from the RCX and updates the graph on the front panel.After the students have completed their first lab using existing code, the next experiment requiresthem to make some modifications of the existing code, bringing in issues of triggering andexternal clocking. Each lab is designed to add a little more complexity to their code, yet alwaysbuilding off of what theyhave already done. In the

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Robert Ryan

decided that the laboratory needed an apparatus designed to demonstrate thethermodynamics of air cooling and mixing processes which commonly occur in building airconditioning systems.An ongoing challenge for any instructional laboratory is the purchase of new equipment withinthe typical budgetary limitations of state-supported institutions. The purchase of apparatusdesigned by vendors specializing in education equipment avoids the development time requiredto build and refine an effective piece of equipment, but the cost is often difficult to justify due tothe many demands put upon the department’s equipment budget. Additionally, the equipmentdesign may not exactly reflect the educational purpose intended by the faculty. Specificeducational goals

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Rafiqul Islam

Smith chart and its applications for measuring input impedance as well as impedance matching. * Properties of TDR as test equipment for transmission line measurements in the time domain. * Characteristics of popular types of coaxial cables in terms of losses and bandwidth. * Terminations and reflections. * Radiation and Pickup. * Characteristics of DSL. * ETHERNET: 10BASE-5 Ethernet. 10BASE-2 Ethernet. Page 6.366.53. Twisted-pair Cables: * Characteristics of the different types of the

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Tycho Fredericks; Jorge Rodriguez

were collected which wasdetermined to be sufficient to reflect the views of the entire industrial engineering studentpopulation. The percentage of industrial engineering students surveyed by class level wasdetermined to be 8%, 13%, 17%, and 62%, for freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors,respectively. Note that the majority of students that responded were upperclassman. Ourrationalization of having the higher upperclassmen populations was that the upperclassman havea better understanding of the current industrial engineering program.Results of the survey showed that 40% of the students enrolled in the IE program areconcurrently enrolled in a minor aside from the mathematics minor that is incorporated in theindustrial engineering degree, 98

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Joseph K. Hitt; Wayne Whiteman

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Judith Waalen; Malgorzata Zywno

), the Active/Reflective dimension (how information is processed), and theGlobal/Sequential dimension (how information is understood). Detailed description of the Feldermodel and the LSI can be found elsewhere12, 13, 19, 20. Most students (85%) completed the inventory.Their learning style modalities are shown in Table 1, compared with engineering students at theUniversity of Western Ontario19, and chemical engineering students at the University ofMichigan20. The results show that engineering students tend to be Active, Sensing, Visual andSequential. Table 1: Learning Style Modalities, in % Study Active Sensing Visual Sequential Ryerson, 2000

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Elisabeth Sanchez; Alejandro Lozano; Victor Mucino

to sink in. This program shows that the concept is a viable one and the potentialexists to bring a direct benefit to industry and to all involved.VI. Conclusions Cultural differences indeed exist in industry, in academia and in the peoples ofdifferent countries. These differences are reflected in the way people deal with time,with pressure, with leadership, with deadlines. Also in the way people approach socialissues and nowadays, global issues. The internationalization of engineering curriculum has become a necessity, andwhile it is important to identify the reasons why it should be done, to provide answers tothe how to do it is at the very heart of the challenge of bringing the internationaldimension to engineering education

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Doria Hickman; Bala Ram; Sanjiv Sarin; Paul Stanfield

Copyright  2001, American Society for Engineering EducationThe “Educational Processes” function involves the imparting of education and the guidance ofstudent progression to a degree. Under this function, course development/revision andcurriculum development/revision processes must be performed in a team mode to reflect theviewpoints of faculty members with different technical expertise. We define course evaluationas the assessment of the content and delivery of individual courses relative to the intention of theacademic department. This assessment should take into account the role of the course in theoverall curriculum. This consideration is not a traditional function in an academic department butis an important one in light of new accreditation

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

K. Arthur Overholser

, 2000, 16 students] • “The Second Law of Thermodynamics”. With the aid of a textbook and web- based resources, the students spend the first half of the semester coming to grips with the historical and mathematical underpinnings of the Second Law, then embark on individual or team projects examining efforts of people to apply this concept to topics ranging from black holes to the reflection of entropy in certain branches of Hindu theology. [Fall, 1999, 14 students; Fall, 2000, 13 students] • “Engineering Careers --- Web-based Data Collection and Conferencing”. Taught almost entirely on-line, this seminar develops electronic

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Melinda Gallagher; Jenny Golder; Lawrence Genalo

that if the student changes the misconceptions themselves, theyhave truly incorporated the new knowledge, but if we “tell them” what is right it won’tpenetrate their formerly held perceptions.After completing a topic the students are asked to reflect on what they’ve learned. Thismay be a class or small-group discussion, a written document such as a journal or aproject report, or performing a summarizing project demonstration. The senior designproject in engineering can be seen as this culminating step as applied to the four-yearengineering curriculum.The Graduate CourseAfter gaining experience with the undergraduate class and interacting with in-serviceteachers, a need for a graduate-level course was observed that the in-service teacherscould

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Philip Young

-Accredited Figure 5: Required Physics Courses in Accredited and Non-Accredited EP Programs.EP programs also vary in their approach to the required physics courses. In order to bringphysics and engineering together into a single discipline, many of the programs have alteredtheir approach to some or all of their “physics” courses. In response to the questionnaire, 5 ofthe 9 accredited programs and 5 of the 14 non-accredited programs indicated that theyintroduce engineering topics and/or applications into their physics courses. The largerpercentage for the accredited programs reflects the ABET requirement for adequateengineering science and design in the curriculum.The engineering content in EP programs is much more varied. Figure 6 shows the

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Denny Davis; Larry McKenzie; Steve Beyerlein; Michael Trevisan

documents that report team roles, the design process used,design requirements, and the design product. A reflective essay constitutes the third componentof the mid-program assessment and provides further information on the team’s design processand communication performance, and on member understanding of teamwork andcommunication processes. Separate scoring criteria depicting three levels of achievementaccompany each task (See ref. 5 for a complete description of the assessments and associatedscoring criteria.).III. Establishing ReliabilityAny decision made or informed by assessment data requires that scores be obtained in aconsistent manner. Obtaining reliable, consistent scores obtained from subjective judgment, suchas those used to score the

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Ralph Staus; Henry Ansell

as low as use of the library) was out-of-class consultation with instructors.Every faculty member has office hours, and students needing help are welcome to visit theinstructor. Appointments can also be made for times other than the regular office hours. Anexplanation of the low rating for this item may be that the typical student in a class does not visithis or her instructor for help. The visits may be important to some individual students, but this isnot reflected in the averages. Another possible factor may be that some students who do receivesignificant help by visiting the instructor may be reluctant to admit this in a survey. Reading the textbooks received an average rating of 7 (out of 10), and ranked 11th on thelist

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Michael McGeen; James Friauf

technology changed (i.e. PowerPoint, electronic white boards). The key changeneeded to come in the types of presentations students were giving. The entire course and allpresentations should reflect the professional expectations of AE/BC graduates. At this point in Page 6.1001.3 “Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2001, American Society for Engineering Education”the evolution of the course, the instructors chose to model the presentations after the progressionof a professional/client relationship.It was also decided to better integrate the work

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Yogesh Potdar; Patricia Spencer; Kathryn Hollar

following questions: 1. The best part of this workshop was . . . 2. The part I liked least was . . . 3. Specific feedback for facilitators 4. Other commentsResults are tabulated by each team and submitted with the written comments and workshopmaterials to the Head TA Fellow at the end of training. These tabulated results and workshopmaterials are used extensively in summer training of TA Fellows (see section below). One aspectof the workshop that is consistently highly rated is the case study segment (detailed below) andthese are increasingly emphasized in the training. Specific feedback for TA Fellows is usually verypositive for this workshop, and reflects the amount of thought and preparation the teams put intothis

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Allen Estes; Stephen Ressler

: Organizing a Course S-12:Making it W ork 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 Value Conduct Rating (1-5) Figure 2. Composite Ratings from Participants at ETW 2000 at USMADuring ETW 1999, one of the senior mentors had his group maintain a diary8 throughout theworkshop which reflected thoughts, emotions, and perceptions on a daily basis through theworkshop. This provided keen insight into the progress made, skepticism felt, and the immediateeffectiveness of individual activities.To assess the longer-term effects of the ETW, participants completed a follow-up survey a

Conference Session

ASEE Multimedia Session

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Valarie Arms; Aly Valentine; J. Richard Weggel

which will be fully reflected in the results of academic year2001-02 should provide a rich and textured picture due to both qualitative and quantitativeinstruments. Faculty from Humanities and all engineering departments at Drexel University willhave had the opportunity and familiarity to employ assessment techniques and to profit from themin continuous quality improvement.ReferencesArms. V.M. (2001) Humanities for the Engineering Curriculum, 2nd edition, McGraw-Hill PrimisCustom Publishing, New York.Ewell, Peter T. (1997) Organizing for Learning: a New Imperative, AAHE Bulletin, December 1,pp 3-6Quinn, R.G. (1993) Drexel’s E4 Program: A Different Professional Experience for EngineeringStudents and Faculty, Journal of Engineering Education

Conference Session

Instrumentation and Laboratory Systems

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

David Beams

209C 3.15 × 10 6 442,000Table 1. Comparison of dc open- loop gains for various devices measured by both the prototypeand PCB versions of the Project TUGBOAT instrument. “Lot Code” reflects markings otherthan device type and manufacturer’s logo found on the devices.One minor modification has been introduced to the Project TUGBOAT virtual- instrumentprogram since the instrument was first described. It was found in testing the Project TUGBOATinstrument realized on a printed-circuit board that ac open-loop gain measurements of LM324operational amplifiers at 1 kHz and 10 kHz were grossly in error given the specified gain-bandwidth product of this device

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Wade Kenny; Kevin Myers; Heather Cornell

achieved in the MEB classroom: teachingstudents how to “think like a chemical engineer,” and the behavioral processes, or teachingstudents how to “act like a chemical engineer.” In his December 13th reflection on how the classwas going, the professor expressed his fears that students had not learned how “to break down aproblem into smaller, more manageable parts,” which is certainly a key (if not the key) way thatchemical engineers are taught to think about the problems with which they deal. Performanceson tests tended to support this statement, as the test average between the first test, whereproblems were very simple and required little in the way of being “broken down,” and thesecond test, which did require such skills, fell approximately

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Yi Shang; Michael Jurczyk; Hongchi Shi; Anupam Joshi

/server computing, hypertext transfer protocol,Web server installation and configuration, Web security, Java applets, Java servlets, Java Swing,extensible markup language, and XML and Java based e-commerce [1-6,11,12,14,16,17,19].To explore the forefront of WWW technology, the students are assigned significant hands-onwork, which is reflected in four small class projects and one term project.The four small class projects are as follows:1. Extending browser’s functionality. The students are asked to write an application program (maybe script) that wraps a standalone mpeg2 video player "mpeg2player" that a few command-line options. The application program should take from the standard input a list of options and pass the options to the

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Richard W Freeman; Carl J. Bern; Steven Mickelson

. The course meets twice a week and is a one credit gradedcourse. In the fall semester of 1999, the curriculum for ENGR 104 was changed to reflect achange in instructional philosophy and course goals. The published objectives for the course areas follows:Engineering 104x is designed to assist LEAD students in making a successful transition to IowaState University (ISU) and the College of Engineering (COE). 104x will also help make thebridge between coursework and real work. Students will learn about more about the engineering Page 5.424.8profession and the skills needed to be successful in engineering at ISU. Students will have theopportunity

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Robert K. Christianson; Jeffrey F. McCauley; Denny Davis; Michael S. Trevisan; Kenneth L. Gentili

activity engages students in a team design activity and producesworksheets that report team roles, the design process used, design requirements, and the designproduct. A reflective essay provides more information on the team's design process andcommunication performance and on member understanding of teamwork and communication Page 5.446.4processes. 4Table 2 presents an example to illustrate the framework for the mid-program assessment.(Additional detail is found on the TIDEE web page). Note the relationships among performanceindicators, assessment questions, and scoring. There are

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Ronald K. Goodnight; Gary B. Randolph; Dennis O. Owen

and proposal experiences through their workplace. The adultlearners also take a personal ownership in their project. This motivates them to elevate thequality of their proposals and presentations since they see this as a direct reflection onthemselves.The capstone project has allowed the measurement of comprehension, application, analysis,evaluation, and synthesis skills at a level that was impossible when conventional examinationswere used. Based upon this alone, the faculty feels that the methodology has improved studentpreparation for the workplace. Students also seem to apply themselves more willing to a projectthan to a conventional exam evaluation mechanism. Further, skills mastered at the upper levelsof Bloom’s cognitive domain are

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Matthew Ohland; Richard Layton

ratings. (KFF used a maximumfactor of 1.10.) The peer evaluation instrument varied from semester to semester as improve-ments were tried. The results from the different instruments are normalized to a common 0-100scale for comparison. (In a companion paper, it is shown that reliability coefficients for two ofthese instruments are similar enough to be normalized for comparison4.) Our students, like thosein KFF, never asked how these ratings are used to adjust their project grades.Peer evaluations are performed at the conclusion of each of the two projects. The evaluations atthe end of the first project accomplish several goals:• Students learn about the peer evaluation procedure.• Students reflect on the evaluation criteria.• Students get feedback