Conference Session

Best Zone Paper Competition

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Amelito G. Enriquez, Canada College

Tagged Topics

Council of Sections

students enter college with high levels of interestin science and engineering, their levels of preparation for college-level work, especially in mathand engineering, are so low that the majority of them drop out or change majors even beforetaking transfer-level courses. In 2008, Cañada College, a Hispanic-Serving community collegein Redwood City, CA, was awarded a Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program(MSEIP) grant by the US Department of Education to develop and implement a project that aimsto maximize the likelihood of success among underrepresented and educationally disadvantagedstudents interested in pursuing careers in STEM fields. The project, entitled Student On-rampLeading to Engineering and Sciences (SOLES), incorporates

Conference Session

Best Zone Paper Competition

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Donna M. Rizzo, University of Vermont

Tagged Topics

Council of Sections

of Vermont (UVM) incorporated systems thinking and asystems approach to engineering problem solving within their programs. A systems thinkingapproach regards social, environmental and economic factors as necessary components of theproblem solution. Because it is a whole systems approach it also encompasses sustainability. Wehave integrated systems thinking in the following ways; 1) new material has been included intokey courses (e.g. the first-year introductory and senior design courses), 2) a sequence of threerelated environmental and transportation systems courses have been included within the curricula(i.e., Introduction to Systems, Decision Making, and Modeling), and 3) service-learning (S-L)projects have been integrated into key

Conference Session

Best Zone Paper Competition

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Dan Budny P.E., University of Pittsburgh

Tagged Topics

Council of Sections

an engineering curriculum already crowded with necessaryscience, math, and disciplinary courses?For engineering schools to educate “whole engineers,” they must embrace their ownuniversity’s whole range of resources. Schools of engineering are parts of larger educationalinstitutions, and, as such, have the opportunity and obligation to make the best use of theresources a whole university has to offer. Here at the University of Pittsburgh, the SwansonSchool of Engineering faculty and administration have worked in tandem with librarians andwith faculty from the English Composition program, to develop tools and projects to educatestudents in process and awareness-oriented skills. To do so effectively, the Swanson Schoolof Engineering has

Conference Session

The 2017 Zone Best Paper Session

Collection

2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Todd Easton, Kansas State University

Tagged Topics

Council of Sections

issues. A leader is frequentlyselected for each group. The leader’s primary responsibility is to report the group’s findings tothe class. In project based learning, students are given a fairly complex problem and told to solve ittypically in groups. The groups work to solve the problem and the instructor oversees theprogress that the groups make. The instructor may also provide ideas to assure that the group ispursuing the project in the correct manner. There are strengths and weaknesses in every teaching method. The primary strength ofthese active learning techniques is the students participation in the class. In this fashion thestudents feel an ownership in the material and are more likely to learn and retain knowledge. A