Online and Distance Education Commons^™

Remote Laboratory For Nuclear Security Education, Anthony R. Galindo, Craig Marianno

International Journal of Nuclear Security

Laboratory experiences for online students are very limited. To fill this gap, educators in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at Texas A&M University developed a series of radiation detection experiments for their remote students. Radiation detection is only one piece of nuclear security. The objective of the current research is to describe the development and execution of three online laboratories that investigate the basic application of physical security sensors that use light, ultrasonics, and heat to detect adversaries. This laboratory complements lecture material from the department’s Nuclear Security System and Design course. Using the Remote Desktop Application, students connect to …

Exploring The Relationship Between Teamwork Skills And Team Members' Centrality, Francisco Cima, Pilar Pazos, Ana Maria Canto

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

The present paper describes an exploratory study of small teams working on a four-month project as part of a graduate engineering program. The research had two primary goals. The first was to utilize the log files from shared repositories used for team collaboration to describe the network structure of the teams. The second was to determine whether the network centrality of any individual team member is associated with their teamwork skills and attitudes towards the collaboration platform. The relationship between teamwork skills, attitudes towards the collaboration technology, and the centrality index was explored using Pearson correlations. A total of 35 …

Scaffolding Project-Based Learning In An Engineering And Education Partnership Using Open-Access Technology, Pilar Pazos, Stacie I. Ringleb, Jennifer Kidd, Rachel Jones

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper describes the use of a freely-accessible open-source platform based on Google Apps for Education that combines Google Sites, Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Hangouts and script language in a custom-based interface that supports collaborative service-learning projects for teams of Engineering and Education students. The approach discussed in this paper was successful in promoting collaboration among students from two different disciplines working remotely. The analysis suggests that balanced participation in the team, presence of shared goals and clear roles that emphasized individual and collective responsibilities were key to a successful interdisciplinary project experience. While many students still reported struggling …

Teaching Laboratory Courses Using Distance Learning Technologies, Steve C. Hsiung, John Ritz

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Conducting laboratory activities is essential for teaching and learning in engineering and technology subjects. This article discusses explorations made by a research team to find solutions to enable the distance-learning delivery of laboratory courses on embedded microcontroller technology topics. In addition, this article includes a review of videoconferencing and course management tools, uniquely designed laboratory equipment and supporting curriculum materials, and statistical evidence showing students can learn technical laboratory content in distance-learning environments.

Asynchronous Use Of Engineering (Materials) Education Videos, Craig Johnson, Arthur D. Morken

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

Engineering education delivery is dynamic and increasingly asynchronous. An observation that students had very different levels of knowledge and skills as they progressed through our programs, led the authors to use audio/visual media as a leveling intervention. In this effort the authors collected data to determine if audio/visual media can be used to increase performance in the development of a program related task and guide students to higher levels of learning on Blooms Taxonomy through the development of student created learning aids.

One specific need was reflected in the disparate skills of our majority component of ‘transfer’ students in our …