Alexander, M., & Preuss, M., & Bailey, B., & Hicks, D., & Mogiligidda, R., & Hiremath, N., & Liu, J., & Zuo, L., & Hosur, M. (2022, August), Work-in-Progress: Project-based Learning in a Summer Engineering Program Implemented Virtually  Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--40934

\bibitem{asee_peer_40934}
  Alexander, M., \& Preuss, M., \& Bailey, B., \& Hicks, D., \& Mogiligidda, R., \& Hiremath, N., \& Liu, J., \& Zuo, L., \& Hosur, M. (2022, August), \emph{Work-in-Progress: Project-based Learning in a Summer Engineering Program Implemented Virtually}
  Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Minneapolis, MN.
  10.18260/1-2--40934

Matthew Alexander, Michael Preuss, Breanna Bailey, David Hicks, Rajashekar Mogiligidda, Nitilaksha Hiremath, Jingbo Liu, Lihua Zuo, and Mahesh Hosur.  "Work-in-Progress: Project-based Learning in a Summer Engineering Program Implemented Virtually".  2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN, 2022, August.  ASEE Conferences, 2022.  https://peer.asee.org/40934 Internet.  14 Dec, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_40934}
  Matthew Alexander, Michael Preuss, Breanna Bailey, David Hicks, Rajashekar Mogiligidda, Nitilaksha Hiremath, Jingbo Liu, Lihua Zuo, and Mahesh Hosur.
  "Work-in-Progress: Project-based Learning in a Summer Engineering Program Implemented Virtually".
  \emph{2022 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Minneapolis, MN, 2022, August}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2022.
  https://peer.asee.org/40934 Internet.  14 Dec, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_40934
author = "Matthew Alexander, Michael Preuss, Breanna Bailey, David Hicks, Rajashekar Mogiligidda, Nitilaksha Hiremath, Jingbo Liu, Lihua Zuo, and Mahesh Hosur"
title = "Work-in-Progress: Project-based Learning in a Summer Engineering Program Implemented Virtually"
booktitle = "2022 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2022"
month = "August"
address = "Minneapolis, MN"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/40934}
number = {10.18260/1-2--40934}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - This Work-in-Progress paper will present insights into teamwork and project-based learning from the second annual virtual offering of an engineering-focused summer program.  The faculty at the Frank H. Dotterweich College of Engineering on the campus of Texas A&M University-Kingsville presented a 3-week long Summer Bridge Program (SBP) virtually in the summer of 2021. This was the second online offering of the SBP at the Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) as part of a 5-year NSF grant. Improving student motivation and retention for underclassmen students was a primary motivation of the work reported herein, since challenges to persistence for Hispanic students at community college, university, and graduate levels have been noted in higher education research.  Participants were recruited from amongst current freshmen and sophomore engineering students at Texas A&M University-Kingsville, as well as from first and second-year engineering students at community colleges that are likely to transfer to Texas A&M University-Kingsville. Sixty-four percent of student participants were Hispanic/Latinx, which is very similar to the percent in the university’s general population.  Roughly 41 percent of the 2021 participants were female, which is higher than the percentage in the College of Engineering.  Team-based activities included a one-day engineering challenge conducted in the first week of the program, as well as a design project conducted over the last 2-½ weeks of the program.
The one-day engineering challenge activity, implemented with twelve groups of 3 to 6 participants in the first week of the program, was conducted using materials mailed to participants before the program began.  The challenges posed to student groups included toxic popcorn, earthquake, cartographer, tall tower, and marshmallow challenges, most of which were drawn from the www.tryengineering.org website sponsored by IEEE.  Team-based design projects were assigned to the same groups for the latter 2-½ weeks of the program, and these projects were discipline specific.  The design projects included mobile app programming (two groups of electrical engineering and computer science participants), 3D modeling and printing (two groups of mechanical and industrial engineering participants), diamond crystal structure (two groups of mechanical  and manufacturing engineering participants), municipal water distribution system design (two groups of chemical  and environmental engineering participants), steel bridge design (two groups of civil engineering participants), hydrogen fuel cell car design (one group of mechanical engineering participants), and engineering optimization programming (one group of electrical engineering participants).  All participants were provided time during the daily program meetings to work with their group members, principally through use of the breakout room function in the Zoom platform.  Participants were offered a chance to meet their teammates at the conclusion of the program, as the final day meeting with group presentations of work was held as a mixed virtual and face-to-face event.
Online pre- and post-participation surveys were administered to assess program outcomes. Survey queries completed by 37 participants in 2020 and 49 in 2021 addressed learning achieved and involvement in group work. Analysis of ratings for each question asked, 21 in 2020 and 25 in 2021, showed statistically significant increases in the mean responses for all topics addressed in both years. Questions occurred at every level of Bloom’s taxonomy except evaluation. In addition, all but two of the informants felt the programming was good, very good, or excellent with excellent as the most frequent selection (63.8%). The participants submitted high ratings for an increased awareness of engineering opportunities, increased interest in engineering, and receiving information relevant to career decisions.  A common response from participants regarding most valuable program element was the group activity. Informants were 50 males and 34 females (2 no response), 64.0% and 79.1% of whom were identified as Hispanic/Latinx and with underrepresented groups (URM) respectively, 58.1% of whom were first-generation college students, 61.6% of whom had dual enrollment and/or Advanced Placement course credit with all but two rating their math skill as average or above. The results, from two distinct groups in separate years, demonstrate the efficacy of the approach taken for increasing learning and providing practical experience in teamwork settings for pre- or early-career engineering students including those who are URMs and first-generation college students. The SBP will continue as part of the NSF grant for another three years, thus feedback from the engineering education community is desired.   
This work was funded by National Science Foundation grant #1928611

AU  - Matthew Alexander
AU  - Michael Preuss
AU  - Breanna Bailey
AU  - David Hicks
AU  - Rajashekar Mogiligidda
AU  - Nitilaksha Hiremath
AU  - Jingbo Liu
AU  - Lihua Zuo
AU  - Mahesh Hosur
CY  - Minneapolis, MN
DA  - 2022/08/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Work-in-Progress: Project-based Learning in a Summer Engineering Program Implemented Virtually
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/40934
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--40934
ER  -