Work in Progress: Sustainable Collaborations Between Math and Engineering

Afroditi Vennie Filippas; Rebecca Segal; Alen Docef

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Conference: 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access
Location: Virtual On line
Publication Date: June 22, 2020
Start Date: June 22, 2020
End Date: June 26, 2021
Conference Session: Approaches to Curriculum and Policy
Tagged Division: Educational Research and Methods
Page Count: 19
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--35689
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/35689
Download Count: 436

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Paper Authors

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Afroditi Vennie Filippas Virginia Commonwealth University

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Dr. Filippas received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Patras, Greece. After earning her M. S. and Ph. D. from the University of Texas at Austin, she completed post-doctoral research with the Institute of Accelerating Systems and Applications in Athens, Greece. Post-academically, she worked for Ansoft Corporation as a research scientist spearheading the development of the next generation code for Ansoft DesignerTM. Dr. Filippas joined Virginia Commonwealth University as an Assistant Professor in the School of Engineering in 2004. She went on to achieve the position of Associate Professor and Associate Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2008. Dr. Filippas was appointed to the position of interim associate dean of Undergraduate Studies in 2010 and associate dean of Undergraduate Studies in 2015, and was promoted to Professor in August, 2016. As of August, 2019, Dr. Filippas is the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing Professor. In this role, Dr. Filippas provides leadership in the area of Data Science in Advanced Manufacturing and is responsible for developing collaborations in this area between faculty and CCAM scientists.

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Rebecca Segal Virginia Commonwealth University

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Dr. Rebecca Segal is an Associate Professor where she pursues research in the area of mathematical biology and is the Graduate Program Director in the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at Virginia Commonwealth University. Dr. Rebecca Segal received her A.B. in Mathematics from Bryn Mawr College. She went on to earn her Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from North Carolina State University. She completed a research post-doc at CIIT Centers for Health Research in Research Triangle Park, NC. She then was a Teaching Fellow at University of Bristol, England. Since 2006, Dr. Segal has been a faculty member in the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA.

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Alen Docef Virginia Commonwealth University

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Alen Docef received his PhD from Georgia Institute of Technology and pursued postdoctoral research at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Docef’s research interests are in medical image processing, including enhancement and coding of CT, MRI, and ultrasound images; multimedia signal coding using standard and unconventional methods; efficient and embedded implementations of signal processing and communications algorithms.

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Abstract

The work described in this paper is part of a larger, collaborative NSF grant. The focus of the grant is to study faculty attitudes, culture, and protocols needed to establish successful cross-campus connections between mathematics faculty and partner disciplines. The Math department at our institution teaches an average of 20 sections of Differential Equations per year. The majority of the students in the course are majors in Engineering or Sciences. Anecdotally, students do not do a good job of transferring knowledge content or acquired skills from the math course into courses within their majors. In order to improve knowledge and skill retention, we have worked to establish systematic collaborations between Mathematics and the partner disciplines, primarily Engineering. In addition, we communicate regularly with our cohorts at the other institutions on the collaborative grant to review different collaboration paradigms and determine a qualitative process or list of best practices for setting up similar collaborations in diverse settings. The purpose of the specific collaboration between Engineering and Mathematics at our institution is to: 1. Investigate pre-existing faculty biases on why students found it difficult to transfer knowledge between different fields; 2. Develop a systematic approach to collaboration between the two departments that will lead to a better understanding of the difficulties faced by our students and thus to continuous improvement of both the Engineering and the Differential Equations courses; 3. Provide a “roadmap” that will enable other universities to develop similar collaborations between their Math and Partner Disciplines. Using the “Curriculum Foundations Project: Voices of the Partner Disciplines” report as a source of discussion questions, a Fishbowl activity was held with faculty from Chemistry, Biology, Physics, and Engineering. This activity led to a better understanding of what the partner disciplines could and could not expect their students to know and be able to do once they completed the Differential Equations course. The Fishbowl discussions led to follow-up activities, such as prioritizing the course content and co-developing application problems and projects so students could understand how the differential equations course is applied in their field of study. An essential component of this project is its continuity and emphasis on the continued collaboration between Math and Engineering. The that end, the Math department hosted a general interest meeting for all interested faculty where their instructional paradigms and topic emphases were discussed and the partner discipline faculty had the option of observing a Math class. Feedback from the meeting was provided through conversations during the meeting and in follow-up surveys. In the larger collaboration effort, the PI and co-PI of the grant visit two partner institutions to observe their activities and how they have implemented their collaborations between Math and their partner disciplines. The partner institutions are diverse and include public, private, HBCU, large and small Universities and one Community College. The purpose of these meetings is to examine similarities and differences in the collaboration paradigms and educational improvements and to assess the applicability of these paradigms to other institutions. The goal is not to create a master list of best practices for every institution, but to create a flexible prototype for helping any university improve inter-disciplinary communication. The authors will present survey data results collected by the grant evaluators from mathematics students as well as through regular feedback through prompts to the math and engineering faculty. Preliminary results will be shared, along with details about the work going on at our institution, outlining successes, challenges and sustainability and applicability to math courses other than Differential Equations.

Citation
Format

Filippas, A. V., & Segal, R., & Docef, A. (2020, June), Work in Progress: Sustainable Collaborations Between Math and Engineering Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--35689

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - The work described in this paper is part of a larger, collaborative NSF grant.  The focus of the grant is to study faculty attitudes, culture, and protocols needed to establish successful cross-campus connections between mathematics faculty and partner disciplines.  
The Math department at our institution teaches an average of 20 sections of Differential Equations per year. The majority of the students in the course are majors in Engineering or Sciences. Anecdotally, students do not do a good job of transferring knowledge content or acquired skills from the math course into courses within their majors. In order to improve knowledge and skill retention, we have worked to establish systematic collaborations between Mathematics and the partner disciplines, primarily Engineering. In addition, we communicate regularly with our cohorts at the other institutions on the collaborative grant to review different collaboration paradigms and determine a qualitative process or list of best practices for setting up similar collaborations in diverse settings. The purpose of the specific collaboration between Engineering and Mathematics at our institution is to: 
1.	Investigate pre-existing faculty biases on why students found it difficult to transfer knowledge between different fields;
2.	Develop a systematic approach to collaboration between the two departments that will lead to a better understanding of the difficulties faced by our students and thus to continuous improvement of both the Engineering and the Differential Equations courses;
3.	Provide a “roadmap” that will enable other universities to develop similar collaborations between their Math and Partner Disciplines.
Using the “Curriculum Foundations Project: Voices of the Partner Disciplines” report as a source of discussion questions, a Fishbowl activity was held with faculty from Chemistry, Biology, Physics, and Engineering. This activity led to a better understanding of what the partner disciplines could and could not expect their students to know and be able to do once they completed the Differential Equations course. The Fishbowl discussions led to follow-up activities, such as prioritizing the course content and co-developing application problems and projects so students could understand how the differential equations course is applied in their field of study. 
An essential component of this project is its continuity and emphasis on the continued collaboration between Math and Engineering. The that end, the Math department hosted a general interest meeting for all interested faculty where their instructional paradigms and topic emphases were discussed and the partner discipline faculty had the option of observing a Math class. Feedback from the meeting was provided through conversations during the meeting and in follow-up surveys.
In the larger collaboration effort, the PI and co-PI of the grant visit two partner institutions to observe their activities and how they have implemented their collaborations between Math and their partner disciplines. The partner institutions are diverse and include public, private, HBCU, large and small Universities and one Community College. The purpose of these meetings is to examine similarities and differences in the collaboration paradigms and educational improvements and to assess the applicability of these paradigms to other institutions. The goal is not to create a master list of best practices for every institution, but to create a flexible prototype for helping any university improve inter-disciplinary communication.   
The authors will present survey data results collected by the grant evaluators from mathematics students as well as through regular feedback through prompts to the math and engineering faculty. Preliminary results will be shared, along with details about the work going on at our institution, outlining successes, challenges and sustainability and applicability to math courses other than Differential Equations.

AU  - Afroditi Vennie Filippas
AU  - Rebecca Segal
AU  - Alen Docef
CY  - Virtual On line 
DA  - 2020/06/22
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Work in Progress: Sustainable Collaborations Between Math and Engineering
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/35689
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--35689
ER  -