Conference Session

Math and K-12-Freshman Transitions

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Tan-Yu Lee; John Dantzler; Robert Leland; Jim Richardson

. Some students give up and make plans to switch majors.Others continue to struggle in spite of increased study effort. A common complaint is, “I understand thematerial, but I can’t seem to work the problems on the exam correctly.”We are developing a course to make freshman engineering students better problem solvers. We focus onhow to set up problems that are unfamiliar to the students, but can be solved with the math concepts thestudents are already familiar with.We emphasize the use of hard problems and explanation. In hard problems the solution method andconcepts needed for solution are not immediate. Exercises are designed to train students to expend effortto obtain a mathematical understanding of a problem sufficient to allow its solution

Conference Session

Manufacturing Program Innovation

Collection

2005 Annual Conference

Authors

Lenea Howe; Jr., Elijah Kannatey-Asibu

program which includes our REUstudents. Typically, our REU group consists of eight students. Rackham includes ourstudents along with theirs when making flight reservations, room reservations, schedulingfor the GRE preparation class and when planning their evening speaker series. Inaddition, all of the students visit another Big-10 college campus in July where theypresent the essence of their research. The ERC participates in the different facets of theprogram with Rackham since the additional programming creates a stronger overallsummer experience for our REU students. The REU students therefore interacteffectively with the SROP students all summer, which adds a strong social element. TheERC/RMS provides the research component and the classes

Conference Session

Minorities in Research

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Gbekeloluwa Oguntimein

,”according to the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC) “Educating For the21st Century: The Maryland Plan for Postsecondary Education 3 .” In 1993 Morgan State University was funded through the Office of NavalResearch’s (ONR) Infrastructure Support Education Program (ISEP) for multifacetedintervention and outreach programs with Dr. P. Mack as the principal investigator. Thisgrant was implemented in order to strengthen and integrate the University’s science,engineering and mathematics (SEM) projects and initiatives directed at increasing thenumber of minority students who graduate prepared to effectively contribute to the SEMworkforce. The primary objectives of the program were to:1. To double the number of SEM degrees awarded to African

Conference Session

Trends in Construction Engineering I

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Sunil Sinha; Randolph Thomas; John Kulka

socialimpact awareness and ethical behavior into professional practice. The challenge engineeringeducators face is to develop strategies that will raise the awareness of students regarding ethicalissues related to construction at the same time that they are developing their technical expertise.Education has a special opportunity to train people to live and work in accord with societalvalues. Construction Courses in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at thePennsylvania State University focus on the planning, organization, monitoring and control of theconstruction projects. The emphasis of these courses is on engineering design of constructionprocess. The student gains the knowledge necessary to apply engineering principles in

Conference Session

ERM Potpourri

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Glenn Ellis; Baaba Andam

understanding. They individually rankeach program’s humanness and list its strengths and weaknesses. Later this information isshared and discussed by the class.Once students have completed the previous activity, they are then ready to begin a more in-depthinvestigation of chatterbots. In this assignment students choose one of the chatterbot programsthat they have already worked with and write a paper describing in detail the logic it uses toimitate conversation. Key to this assignment is the student’s effort to develop a logical plan ofquestioning that exposes the chatterbot’s programming logic. For example, part of a line ofquestioning could be the following questions. 1. Are you alive? 2. Are you alive? 3. You are alive

Conference Session

Innovative Graduate Programs & Methods

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Jennifer Dockter; Carol Muller

inengineering and related sciences, including planning and implementing a pilot program to linkgraduate students and pre-tenure faculty with tenured faculty in one-on-one e-mentoringrelationships.Present State of Knowledge in the FieldThe underrepresentation of women in science and engineering, both in industry and in highereducation, has negative implications for the future technical work force, for equal opportunity,for individuals, and for the disciplines and professions themselves. In academic science andengineering, women comprise less than 20% of faculty positions in 4-year colleges and onlyapproximately 22% of full-time senior faculty appointments in life sciences 1, despite that fieldbeing the scientific and engineering field graduating the

Conference Session

Electrical & Computer Engineering Poster Session

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Mohammad Alam

Education___________________________________________________________________________ Program Objectives3 1. To provide a comprehensive educational program in Computer Engineering, founded upon strong basic instruction in science, mathematics, and hardware and software engineering fundamentals. 2. To provide students with the background, means, and opportunity to plan and conduct experiments and to apply appropriate techniques for data collection, analysis, and interpretation. 3. To develop within students necessary computer engineering design skills, including the capacity for problem formulation, background research, solution generation, decision making, implementation, communication, and teamwork. 4. To continuously refine the curriculum

Conference Session

Unique Courses & Services for Freshmen

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Catherine Blat

help students implement effective study, test taking, time management, organization,planning, and networking skills. Mentors meet with groups of 3-4 students, who are enrolled insimilar courses, for one hour per week throughout the semester. Students voluntarily participatein mentoring for as many semesters as they feel they need the support. In some cases,probationary students are required to regularly meet with a mentor as a condition of continuedenrollment or readmission to an engineering program. Generally, though, only about 5% of theparticipants are required to attend MAPS in any given semester. Virtually all of the studentsparticipate on a purely voluntary basis.Mentors provide a variety of support mechanisms and regular, constructive

Conference Session

Innovative Hands-On Projects and Labs

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Nasir Bilal; Harold Kess; Douglas Adams

laboratory. Experiments in the roving laboratory are to be carriedout in class, in two different on-campus facilities, and in the field. These experiments are usedby the instructor to motivate each and every theoretical discussion in class, to teach students howto plan, conduct and interpret their own experiments, and to expose students to importantemerging areas of experimental mechanics. The unique observational instructional approach ofthe course complements the roving laboratory by reversing the roles of theoretical andexperimental techniques that exist in traditional laboratory oriented classes. Instead of usingexperiments to validate theories, theories are used to validate experiments. The make-up of anindustrial advisory committee, which

Conference Session

Computers in Education Poster Session

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Matthew Campbell, University of Texas at Austin; Kathy Schmidt, The University of Texas at Austin

for the project. This student cleverly uses a screencapture of the developed spreadsheet and stock photography from a related website. Inaddition to the challenge of adding pictures, the student must also focus on what a clearabstract should say about the project. All the details of the project are most likely not ofinterest to the web audience, so the student must carefully plan the text so that he/shecommunicates the newly found skills and interests. The simple and professional look of the website is maintained through all studentpages allowing someone to quickly move about a portfolio to gather the essence of astudent’s capabilities. While the layout is constant through Polaris, students are free tochoose from numerous color schemes

Conference Session

Multidisciplinary Courses and Issues

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Jean-Pierre Delplanque; Marcelo Simoes; Joan Gosink; Catherine Skokan

tedious algebraiccalculations for resistive networks, usually taught in standard Electric Circuits courses fromthe combined course.Our original plan involved the development of several mandatory two-credit fundamentalscourses, covering lumped parameters, distributed parameters, and statistical parameters,followed by an array of one-credit applications courses. Applications courses would build onthe unifying themes presented in the fundamentals courses and would include introduction toemerging engineering topics. Thus, for example, we would offer one-credit fluidsapplications courses in biofluidics, computational fluid dynamics, and small-scale pumps andturbines. (The latter course would be appropriate for our new minor program in

Conference Session

Instructional Technology

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Stephen Marionneaux; Michael Edmondson; Matthew McDaniel; Jay Daly; Eugene Ressler; Stephen Ressler

, only Future City requires competitors to employ the computer as a problem- solving tool. In the WPBDC, we sought to expand the use of information technology to all aspects of the contest—problem-solving, registration, design submission, judging, and feedback—thus reinforcing the importance of the computer in modern engineering.About Model Bridge-BuildingIn 1995, the planning committee that conceived the WPBDC recommended that the contestinvolve the construction of physical model bridges. This recommendation made sense, in that abridge-building activity would fit well with existing elementary and secondary school curricula.For example, Carroll has developed a bridge-building project for the elementary grades,15 andsuch

Conference Session

Recruiting, Retention & Advising

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Taryn Bayles

high schools that are interested in partnering with UMBC, as wellas calls from prospective students and parents.The first homework assignment consists of a team application form for each student to complete.Information regarding the students’ major, high school attended, GPA, SAT scores, and access toa car are requested. The students are also required to identify their skills in writing, graphics,leadership, teamwork, analysis, drafting, planning and research/library, as well as their strengthsand weaknesses. This information is then used to assign the teams14, which consist of 4-6 teammembers. Teams are balanced using the following criteria: major15, background, academicperformance, gender and ethnicity16, and access to transportation off

Conference Session

Innovative Graduate Programs & Methods

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Linda Katehi; Kamyar Haghighi; Heidi Diefes-Dux; Katherine Banks; John Gaunt; Robert Montgomery; William Oakes; P.K. Imbrie; Deborah Follman; Phillip Wankat

of studentswith a broad range of backgrounds and interests. Engineering education faculty will work withstudents to develop a plan of study that best meets their individual academic needs and careergoals. Possible graduate degree paths for students having earned Bachelors of Science degreesin engineering and in other technical fieldsb are illustrated in Figure 1. B.S. B.S. Engineering other technical fields M.S. M.S

Conference Session

IS and IT Education

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Fanyu Zeng

certification testing should beexamined, evaluated, and determined by those in charge of implementing the program.ACM also suggests that every institution should be keeping the curriculum up to date.Once institutions implement programs of this nature, they must keep them current to be a Page 9.75.3meaningful source of employees for IT-related jobs. Colleges should keep plans current Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2004, American Society for Engineering Educationthrough a comprehensive plan that includes ongoing professional growth anddevelopment for

Conference Session

Writing and Communication II

Collection

2004 Annual Conference

Authors

Elisa Linsky; Gunter Georgi

. Purpose of a report Placed “show Placed “show teacher experiment teacher was correct” and “describe ways experiment to complete” close to bottom, was correct” preferring “present learning” and and “describe “plan for future work” higher. ways to complete” close to top Page 9.1431.6 Proceedings of

Conference Session

Mechanical ET Design & Capstone

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Francis Di Bella

to be carried to the awaiting customers, one expressed hisdesperation in the following manner: “water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink!”3. The Company President had planned for the anticipated announcement of the Company’s most recent engineering trump. Someticulously was the planning that the President even chooses the music that would precipitate, at just the correct moment, the unveiling ofthe engineering marvel. As the curtains lifted to reveal the gleaming, culmination of two years of painstaking work, the orchestra wasinstructed to play the last 2 minutes of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony as a suitable tribute to the engineers who worked on the project.4. The United States Department of Defense needs to name the programming

Conference Session

Engineering Education; An International Perspective

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Nicolae Dragulanescu; Carmen Boje

InformationSociety and the important economic and social changes it implied23. That led the following year toa report on "Europe and the global information Society". This report stressed that InformationSociety is affecting every economic sector and could be compared to the industrial revolution. In1995, a high-level expert group (European Commission 1997) was formed to analyze the socialaspect of the Information Society. It took time to get a concrete plan from the Commission on theInformation Society and not until December 1999 was an initiative presented by M. Prodi called"eEurope - An Information Society for All" (European Union, 1999). The impact of the IS oneconomy and employment had forced the Commission by June 2002 to consider "eEurope 2002an

Conference Session

K-20 Activities in Materials Science

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

William Jordan; Bill Elmore

detail in thelaboratory section of this paper.During the development of the course considerable care was used in the planning of instruction,use of instructional materials, and evaluation of practices suitable for teaching elementary andsecondary school students. Methods for teaching science, mathematics and engineering contentto elementary and secondary students were evaluated for appropriateness. Strengths andlimitations of a variety of teaching methods were considered. These methods and practices werethen modeled and assessed through the conduct of the course in classroom, laboratory, and in-service experiences. Methodologies included lecture, small group activities, whole group

Conference Session

What Makes Them Continue?

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Staci Provezis; Mary Besterfield-Sacre; Larry Shuman; Siripen Larpkiattaworn; Obinna Muogboh; Dan Budny; Harvey Wolfe

department 95.9 2.5 1.6Advice of Private Counselor 94.6 4.9 0.5As a class, half have ambitions of obtaining advanced degrees - 45.6% plan on getting a MS and24.3% plan on getting a doctorate; 3.6% are interested in medical school and 1.2% are interestedin law. However, not all are completely committed to engineering - 4.6% entered with a verygood chance of changing major field and 34.3 % with some chance of switching, suggesting thatretention may remain a problem. Likewise, 7.9% indicated there was a very good chance ofchanging their career choice and 39.5% felt there was some chance of a career change.Almost a fourth (22.4%) indicated there was a very good chance that

Conference Session

Teaching Design Through Projects

Collection

2003 Annual Conference

Authors

Theodore Pavlic; Prabal Dutta; Michael Hoffmann; Jeffrey Radigan; James Beams; Erik Justen; John Demel; Richard Freuler

American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright  2003, American Society for Engineering EducationThe last course in the FEH sequence is the Engineering Fundamentals and Laboratory 3, nowcalled Engineering H193 (or ENG H193). Prior to taking this course, the students will also havecompleted as a part of the FEH program two math courses and two physics courses, all of whichare coordinated with the engineering courses. The physics courses cover particle motion andelectricity and magnetism. As a culminating course for first-year engineering honors students,the ENG H193 course focuses primarily on the planning, execution, management,documentation, and presentation of an engineering design

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

James Ladesic

lesson plans or by web-based documentation, where and how they intend to use the software in one oftheir courses to be taught during the fall semester. They were also to produce asample problem or project that could be used by students. The second part of thestipend ($500 each) was paid at the end of this work session.Finally participants were contacted in December-January to discuss lessons learned,outcomes and to provide a measure of assessment for proposed continuation of the CTEPactivities. Comments focused on insights that may have developed as to where within thecurriculum other applications of software may be of benefit. All CTEP participants wereencouraged to assist fellow faculty members in the implementation of software and

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Alan Gomez

know I wouldn't be headed in the professional direction I am today. The fun thatI had, the things that I learned and the hours that I put in made me realize what I wanted to do withmy career. Not only did it help me realize what it is that I wanted to do, but it also gave me a headstart with my personal as well as engineering skills. It taught me leadership, teamwork anddiplomacy as well as rewarded me for my efforts. From the moment I began college up to today Ihave felt like I have had the advantage over most everyone else coming out of high school. It is agreat program and I plan to support it myself any way that I can.”Emery Sanford, Freshman at the University of California at Berkley in Mechanical Engineering."The Principles of

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

William C. Beston; Sharon B. Fellows; Richard Culver

specialists are formed to analyze complex problems, allocate resources, plan actions, allocatetasks, and reach decisions. The work of the freshmen students is based on this model whichnicely adapts to solving open-ended problems. For students not accustomed to working in teams,early team experiences often seem very awkward, vague, and confusing. In fact, some activitieshave made students so uncomfortable that, at first, they try to avoid team experiences. Duringthe second design project - creation of a multimedia program to describe a scientific concept tofourth graders 11- students are put in new teams and experience the teaming process with thestudent maintaining responsibility for learning while sharing control with the teacher.Once students learn

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Nancy L. Johnson; Edward S. Pierson

GROUP B 8:30 am Plans for day 8:40 am Math Science 10:00 am Science Math 11:10 am Lunch (staggered) & group activity 12:40 pm Laboratory Computers 2:00 pm Computers Laboratory 3:10 pm Daily journals Page 5.49.3 3:30 pm Depart for home Visits to local industrial firms where participants observe engineers/ scientists at work, and see the application of the ideas learned, will replace some sessions. Some sessions are double length to allow the time needed for

Collection

2000 Annual Conference

Authors

Robert Engelken

and, indirectly, for theuniversity, community, and profession. It builds a contact network that can be invaluable forother purposes, such as research, public relations, fund raising, and outside expertise. It providesthe new faculty member a “real world” vs. “ivory tower” perspective of the profession. Itprovides ongoing continuing education through having to learn, often quickly, new knowledgeand skills for nearly every new and often unique consulting opportunity; this can be valuable inthe pursuit or maintaining of professional engineering (PE) registration. It provides experiencein planning, budgeting, record keeping, billing, collection, human relations, and communicationsthat often is quite different from that provided through standard

Conference Session

Improving Mechanics of Materials Classes

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

John Wood; Jason Bartolomei; Dave Winebrener; Don Rhymer; Brian Self; Daniel Jensen

visualization modules and further isolate the modules’ pedagogical effect. To doso, follow-on research was conducted using the same process, visually reinforcing the sameengineering concepts but altering the visualization modules and assessment plan. It washypothesized that the students’ negative response to the multi-media presentations in 1999 wasdue to three main factors: 1) the students were not aware that concepts presented were testable,2) the visualizations involved too much detail on the finite element method (FEM) and 3) thestudents mimicked the negative perception from one professor. Therefore, the fall 2000 workreflects data resulting from three changes to the fall 1999 experiment: 1) the professor who had anegative perception of the

Conference Session

Knowing Students:Diversity and Retention

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Eric Soulsby

rather than just find an empty classroom to read or do homework problems between classes. Students need to unravel the myth that they need to study to 3am in order to be successful in engineering by instead learning how to use their time throughout the day efficiently and to plan for upcoming events. Creating a ‘master schedule’ and from it each week a ‘weekly schedule’ helps students begin to manage their free time and to plan appropriately when projects and exams get assigned. [Comment: in recent years successful students seem to be using a monthly planner to keep track of their commitments.]· SQ3R Textbook Reading Method: A method that forces the student to actively engage the material being read

Conference Session

New Programs and Textbooks in BME

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Robin Adams; Mary Lidstrom; Kjell Nelson; Jeffrey Bonadio; David Stahl; Cynthia Atman

forensics scenario about Alexi Romanov: Your task today is to generate a plan for how to determine whether these remains are those of Alexi Romanov. Students were asked to respond to the following questions: (1) What can you test? (2) What samples would you hope to obtain and from whom? (3) What kinds of target genes would you use? (4) What kinds of results would be definitive or inconclusive, and (5) Analyze your plan for feasibility and reliability.Using Course Evaluation to Inform Course ImprovementFive students enrolled in the Spring 2001 pilot, four senior Chemical Engineering students andone junior Civil and Environmental Engineering student. Results from the pre-test surveyindicate

Conference Session

Multi-disciplinary Design

Collection

2002 Annual Conference

Authors

Robert B. Stone; Nancy Hubing

acceptable for a problem to have more than one answer and to explore creative solutions. Weaddress these issues through team activities and hands-on creativity exercises, which arediscussed in later sections. The six topic areas we cover are listed below in Fig. 1 and a samplesyllabus is included in Fig. 2. Topic 1: Engineering design as a process: Types of design: original, parametric, redesign, reverse engineering; Team work, creativity; Simple design examples. Topic 2: Problem/project clarification and specification: Project timeline planning; Gathering customer needs; Transforming needs to engineering specifications; Benchmarking. Topic 3: Functional