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exposure to the topics then they would otherwise get from a traditional lecture format. This exercise is designed to be used in conjunction with the normal lecture, not to replace it.

To date there is no formal assessment of the effectiveness of this exercise. It is just starting to be implemented and assessed. Preliminary feedback from students is positive. Assessment instruments are currently being created. There will be a survey administered prior to running any exercises. The purpose of the survey is to determine the attitudes of the students relating to the use of lab exercises as tool for learning concepts, not just having them demonstrated. A similar survey will be conducted later to see if any attitudes have changed. Keep in mind that this is just one of a suite of exercises. The students may be exposed to several of the exercises before the final survey is administered. Additionally, the worksheets will be reviewed to see if there is any change in the students understanding of the material between the first demonstration and the final exercise. Other plans are being made to compare the results of answers to exam problems targeting the concepts involved in the exercises between students who did the exercises and those who did not. Results of these assessments will be published at a later date.

There is one hurdle that needs to be further addressed. It is very difficult to get students to commit to outside the classroom work. For courses that have a lab component the exercise could be done during a regularly scheduled lab session, but if there is no lab component then scheduling the exercises is an issue. Various incentives are being considered to entice the students to participate outside of class, but nothing has been tried to date.

The author and Dr. Gerald Recktenwald from Portland State University are working jointly on the development of the suite of exercises and the assessment instruments. A website has been set up to provide more details (http://pfeffer.cat.pdx.edu:81/). Some information is available now, but much more will be available in the near future. We would like to acknowledge and thank the National Science Foundation for funding this research.

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Edwards, R., & Recktenwald, G. (2008, June), Guided Inquiry In An Engineering Technology Classroom Paper presented at 2008 Annual Conference & Exposition, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 10.18260/1-2--3223