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From BEEVT to DLR – NSF Supported Engineering Education Projects at Virginia Tech

Vinod K. Lohani1, Mark Sanders2, Terry Wildman3, Jeff Connor1, Kumar Mallikarjunan4, Theo Dillaha4, John Muffo5, Tamara W. Knott1, Jenny Lo1, G. V. Loganathan6, Greg Adel7, M. L. Wolfe4, Richard Goff1, Mike Gregg1, Mike Chang4, Foster Agblevor4,David Vaughan4, John Cundiff4, Ed Fox8, Hayden Griffin1, Sue Magliaro9 1 Department of Engineering Education/ 2Professor and Program Leader, Technology Education/ 3Center for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching/4Biological Systems Engineering/5Academic Assessment Unit/6Civil and Environmental Engineering/7Mining and Minerals Engineering/8Computer Science/9Director, School of Education/ Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg

Abstract This paper briefly discusses the motivating factors that led to formation of an active collaborative group of engineering and education faculty at Virginia Tech. This group is actively pursuing a number of engineering education research activities and has been successful in winning two grants from the NSF in first 12 months of their collaborative efforts. These collaborative activities are targeted at improving engineering pedagogy at Virginia Tech and began with a planning grant from the NSF in September 2003. A 15-month Masters/Licensure program has been developed specifically for licensing engineering graduates in Technology Education. A number of assessment activities have been initiated for analyzing curricular changes beginning with the freshman-engineering program. Use of electronic portfolio in engineering instruction is being explored. The curricula of freshman engineering and bioprocess engineering are being reformulated using a theme based spiral curriculum approach, which is part of a major research grant, under the Department-level reform program of the NSF, that began in September ’04. The interdisciplinary group has developed/ is working on a number of research proposals for expanding the scope of ongoing studies. The information presented should be very useful for new engineering educators who are exploring similar collaborative ventures elsewhere.

Background

On May 17, 2004 the Division of Engineering Fundamentals, responsible for teaching freshman engineering courses within the College of Engineering (COE) at Virginia Tech, officially was renamed the Department of Engineering Education (EngE). The EngE department is one of two such departments in the country and continues to offer the freshman (first-year) engineering program, which is also called the General Engineering (GE) program. Students transfer to eleven degree-granting departments after successful completion of the GE program. Although the formal announcement of the creation of EngE department was made in May 2004, engineering education efforts began when Hassan Aref joined the COE as dean in April 2003. His leadership

“Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition Copyright @ 2005, American Society for Engineering Education”

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Wildman, T., & Mallikarjunan, K., & Sanders, M., & Connor, J., & Lohani, V. (2005, June), From Beevt To Dlr – Nsf Supported Engineering Education Projects At Virginia Tech Paper presented at 2005 Annual Conference, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--14470