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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

On The Road To Flipping, Raji Lukkoor Apr 2019

On The Road To Flipping, Raji Lukkoor

Faculty Publications

The poster presentation will address the following topics: experience taking the Flip Workshop, How the instructor went from a “no” to a “yes” on considering implementing the flip, the frenzied list of activities that helped set up the framework for a mini-flip in approximately a week’s time, the actual development of content in under 4 weeks, and the role played by my support network.


Development Of A Placement Exam To Increase Student Success In A Junior Level Circuits And Systems Class, David Parent Oct 2018

Development Of A Placement Exam To Increase Student Success In A Junior Level Circuits And Systems Class, David Parent

Faculty Publications

In this work, which is intended to be a Full Paper in the Innovative Practice Category, the implementation of an improved placement exam that increased the pass rate in a junior level systems course in the author’s electrical engineering department by 15% is presented. For almost 30 years the author’s EE department has used a face to face exam to place students in a junior level circuits and systems course or into a review workshop. The details of the exam and suggestions about future use in conjunction MyOpenMath analytics to increase student success are also given.


Examination The Impact Of Various Factors On Student Success In An Introduction To Circuit Analysis Course, David Parent Oct 2018

Examination The Impact Of Various Factors On Student Success In An Introduction To Circuit Analysis Course, David Parent

Faculty Publications

In this work in progress, several models to predict student success in a sophomore introduction to circuit analysis class were created based on prior grade point average, grade in a pre-requisite physics class, the semester the pre-requisite physics class was taken, the number of units a student was taking, the number of times a student repeated the circuits class, and the number of times a student repeated any class prior to enrollment. While all models were statistically significant, the model that included prior GPA and the grade in a pre-requisite physics was the most significant for the data collection effort. …


Integration Of An Electrical Engineering Capstone Course With Social Justice And Global Studies, David Parent, Patricia Backer Oct 2018

Integration Of An Electrical Engineering Capstone Course With Social Justice And Global Studies, David Parent, Patricia Backer

Faculty Publications

A four course package (six units total) consisting of two general education (GE) classes and two electrical engineering capstone classes that are taught in a highly integrated manner, that not only meets university GE requirements, but also meets the new ABET criteria in which the need to address a societal need is embedded with design criteria. The prompts for the new integrated GE/capstone Assessment results are also presented, along with methods to increase student motivation for studying GE.


Developing An Evaluation Tool To Examine Motivational Factors Of Non-Student Community Partnership Participants, Julia Thompson, Jinny Rhee Jun 2018

Developing An Evaluation Tool To Examine Motivational Factors Of Non-Student Community Partnership Participants, Julia Thompson, Jinny Rhee

Faculty Publications, Mechanical Engineering

Research of engineering community engagement has primarily focused on the experiences and outcomes of students, yet it is often the faculty, administrators, and community partners who have a long-term commitment to the program’s success. In this study, we are developing and validating an assessment instrument that combines two previously identified aspects of community engagement programs: participant motivation and the nature of engagement relationships. Participant motivation refers to the reasons people stay engaged in the community engagement experience and can be categorized into: student learning and growth, personal and professional development, and benefits to the community organization. The nature of an …


A Study On The Student Success In A Blended-Model Engineering Classroom, Vimal Viswanathan, John Solomon Jun 2018

A Study On The Student Success In A Blended-Model Engineering Classroom, Vimal Viswanathan, John Solomon

Faculty Publications, Mechanical Engineering

One of the primary concern that many engineering educators face is the lack of engagement of students in their classroom. While literature suggests a variety of factors that might negatively influence student engagement, the theory of “Tailored Instructions and Engineered Delivery Using Protocols” (TIED UP) specifically addresses the lack of engagement arising from a weak pre-requisite base. TIED UP is a blended teaching model where the content delivery follows a set of protocols inspired by the brain-based learning approach. In a typical TIED UP classroom, content delivery is performed using short, animated and scripted concept videos that are generated before …


Application Of Brain-Based Learning Principles To Engineering Mechanics Education: Implementation And Preliminary Analysis Of Connections Between Employed Strategies And Improved Student Engagement, Firas Akasheh, John Solomon, Eric Hamilton, Chitra Nayak, Vimal Viswanathan Jun 2018

Application Of Brain-Based Learning Principles To Engineering Mechanics Education: Implementation And Preliminary Analysis Of Connections Between Employed Strategies And Improved Student Engagement, Firas Akasheh, John Solomon, Eric Hamilton, Chitra Nayak, Vimal Viswanathan

Faculty Publications, Mechanical Engineering

In a pilot study supported by NSF, an instructional model that uses brain based learning principles as instructional protocols has been developed and successfully implemented in the course Introduction to Fluid Mechanics at a HBCU. Motivated by that success, we extended a similar intervention to another course, Dynamics, in the same school. In this paper, we report preliminary data from this intervention. The main strategies implemented in this intervention include: organization of the course into specific concepts and sub-concepts, which are concisely presented by short (limited to 2-6 minutes) content-rich lectures (diagrams, animations, narrations), active learning through in-class worksheets, and …


A Protocol-Based Blended Model For Fluid Mechanics Instruction, John Solomon, Eric Hamilton, Vimal Viswanathan, Chitra Nayak, Firas Akasheh Jun 2018

A Protocol-Based Blended Model For Fluid Mechanics Instruction, John Solomon, Eric Hamilton, Vimal Viswanathan, Chitra Nayak, Firas Akasheh

Faculty Publications, Mechanical Engineering

A personalized and media-rich learning framework called “Knowledge and Curriculum Integration Ecosystem” (KACIE) has been developed and implemented in a junior level fluid mechanics course in Fall 2016 and Spring 2017. This model shares characteristics of blended instruction as well as a flipped classroom, with an overall structure that includes the application of established principles emerging from the learning sciences and from cognitive neuroscience. These principles have taken form in the KACIE model as classroom protocols or written instructions to scaffold and guide teaching and learning by faculty and students respectively. In KACIE, the course has been presented as a …


Impact Of First-Year Initiatives On Retention Of Students: Are There Differences In Retention Of Students By Ethnicity And Gender?, Patricia Backer, Joseph Green, Bryan Matlen, Cindy Kato Apr 2018

Impact Of First-Year Initiatives On Retention Of Students: Are There Differences In Retention Of Students By Ethnicity And Gender?, Patricia Backer, Joseph Green, Bryan Matlen, Cindy Kato

Faculty Publications

Project Succeed is a campus-wide initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Education. Its focus is to improve the 5-year graduation and retention rates and close the achievement gap for Under-Represented Minorities (URMs) across all majors at San José State University (SJSU). In addition, SJSU has a high percent of first generation students. We have several thrusts under this project: block scheduling, Faculty/Staff Mentor program, expanding Peer Educators, developing a First Year Experience Program, and developing more student living learning communities. This project is in its fourth year and we have analyzed each project effort with respect to its impact …


Flipping Stem Classrooms Collaboratively Across Campuses In California, Laura Sullivan-Green, Ravisha Mathur, Andrew Feinstein Jun 2017

Flipping Stem Classrooms Collaboratively Across Campuses In California, Laura Sullivan-Green, Ravisha Mathur, Andrew Feinstein

Office of the Provost Scholarship

San José State University, in partnership with California State University-Los Angeles and Cal Poly Pomona, was awarded a prestigious 2015 First in the World grant, sponsored by the Department of Education. The multi-campus effort is focused on bringing the flipped classroom model to seven STEM gateway courses over three years that have high failure rates through collaborative efforts from faculty on the three partner campuses. SJSU, CSULA, and CPP are all designated Hispanic-Serving Institutions and Minority-Serving Institutions, though their demographics are very different. High impact practices like the flipped classroom approach have been shown to increase URM student success and …


Preliminary Findings Using Growth Mindset And Belonging Interventions In A Freshman Engineering Class, Jinny Rhee, Camille Johnson, Clifton Oyamot Jun 2017

Preliminary Findings Using Growth Mindset And Belonging Interventions In A Freshman Engineering Class, Jinny Rhee, Camille Johnson, Clifton Oyamot

Faculty Publications, Mechanical Engineering

Engineering is typically plagued with lower graduation rates and larger achievement gaps compared to other majors; the projected demand for its future graduates lends to the urgency in reversing these trends. Holding a growth mindset, or a belief that intelligence is mutable, and a feeling of belongingness are keys to persisting in and graduating from college. In prior research, improvements in retention and graduation rates have been found following minor interventions, particularly among some underrepresented populations of students. The current study explored whether similar interventions could be effective in increasing retention and graduation rates among underrepresented populations of engineering and …


Effect Of Cohorts On Student Retention In Engineering, Patricia Backer, Cindy Kato Jun 2017

Effect Of Cohorts On Student Retention In Engineering, Patricia Backer, Cindy Kato

Faculty Publications

Project Succeed is a campus-wide initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Education. Its focus is to improve the 5-year graduation and retention rates and close the achievement gap for Under-Represented Minorities (URMs) across all majors at San José State University (SJSU). There are three major goals: strengthen SJSU’s core academic performance in retention and graduation; provide an improved supportive environment for URM students; and enhance the delivery and integration of academic and co-curricular support services. For Fall 2015, newly matriculated students in the College of Business, College of Engineering, and Child and Adolescent Development Department (CHAD) were assigned schedules …


Improving Student Engagement In Engineering Using Brain-Based Learning Principles As Instructional Delivery Protocols, John Solomon, Vimal Viswanathan, Eric Hamilton, Chitra Nayak Jun 2017

Improving Student Engagement In Engineering Using Brain-Based Learning Principles As Instructional Delivery Protocols, John Solomon, Vimal Viswanathan, Eric Hamilton, Chitra Nayak

Faculty Publications, Mechanical Engineering

This paper presents a study on the academic engagement issues of the upper level engineering students in an HBCU (name of the university will be added later) and strategies implemented to overcome these issues using brain based learning principles as instructional delivery protocols. Although student engagement issues inside engineering classrooms have several components, we focus our attention in this paper mainly on two issues: the dis-engagement arising due to the lack of understanding of pre-requisites and insufficient mathematical skills of students reaching junior and senior engineering classes. A previous pilot study confirmed that a large fraction of students who reach …


Promoting School Earthquake Safety Through A Classroom Education Grassroots Approach, Lelli Van Den Einde, Heidi Tremayne, Thalia Anagnos, James Mallard Jun 2016

Promoting School Earthquake Safety Through A Classroom Education Grassroots Approach, Lelli Van Den Einde, Heidi Tremayne, Thalia Anagnos, James Mallard

Faculty Publications

The earthquake engineering community has recognized that in seismically active regions throughout the United States, hundreds of thousands of students and staff unknowingly study and work in structurally vulnerable school and university buildings. The School Earthquake Safety Initiative (SESI), spearheaded by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI), is a collaborative network of diverse, expert, and impassioned professionals who are committed to creating and sharing knowledge and tools that enable broadminded, informed decision making around school earthquake safety. The Classroom Education and Outreach Subcommittee of SESI is tackling the problem of school safety from a grassroots approach, with the goal of …


Integration Of General Education Into The Senior Capstone Class In Engineering, Patricia Backer, Laura Sullivan-Green Jun 2016

Integration Of General Education Into The Senior Capstone Class In Engineering, Patricia Backer, Laura Sullivan-Green

Faculty Publications

Over the past few years, San Jose State University (SJSU) has mandated that all of the undergraduate degree programs including engineering degrees be set at 120 units. With the existing number of units for the BS engineering degrees, this mandatory requirement has led to new innovations in General Education (GE) at SJSU. We have created a two-course sequence to support the integration of upper division General Education into the engineering major. Advanced GE at SJSU is designed to help students become integrated thinkers who can see connections between and among a variety of concepts and ideas. In the College of …


Assessment Of A Writing Workshop Model For First-Year Engineering Students, Patricia Backer Jun 2016

Assessment Of A Writing Workshop Model For First-Year Engineering Students, Patricia Backer

Faculty Publications

This paper will report on a multi-year project to improve the writing skills of engineering freshmen at XXX University. For the last ten years, the college has offered an optional class to students who are not proficient in writing. Students can enroll in a one-unit lab class as many semesters as they wish to get practice in writing. The goal is to provide students with weekly writing activities that include: instruction in basic grammar, proofreading, and editing. In addition to study and practice exercises, students in this writing workshop have writing assignments, which provide practice in using correct grammar, spelling, …


Virtual Peer Teams: Connecting Students With The Online Work Environment, Thalia Anagnos, Alicia Lyman-Holt, Sean Brophy Jun 2015

Virtual Peer Teams: Connecting Students With The Online Work Environment, Thalia Anagnos, Alicia Lyman-Holt, Sean Brophy

Faculty Publications

This study examined the potential of online collaboration tools to develop team cohesiveness and research skills of undergraduates participating in Virtual Peer Teams (VPTs) in a geographically distributed research experience for undergraduates (REU). The VPTs mimic geographically dispersed virtual teams that are now common in industry. VPTs consisted of four to six students from multiple REU sites around the United States who were asked to experiment with various collaboration and social network technologies to complete specified research-based and social tasks. Surveys were used to collect formative and summative feedback. Students agreed their VPT experiences were significant in their professional development …


Global Technology Experiences For Upper-Division Engineering Students: An Assessment, Patricia Backer, Wenchiang Chung Jun 2015

Global Technology Experiences For Upper-Division Engineering Students: An Assessment, Patricia Backer, Wenchiang Chung

Faculty Publications

In order for students to thrive in the highly competitive global economy, it is critical for them to develop international perspectives and appreciation. As a result, in 2004, the San Jose State University’s Charles W. Davidson College of Engineering established a one-million-dollar Global Technology Initiative (GTI) program. The mission of the GTI program is to expand students’ horizons about the opportunities and challenges of a global economy, to expose them to global, environmental, and energy problems in which technology plays a central role, to motivate their learning of global issues and different cultures, and to introduce them to a more …


Large Research Center Education And Outreach: Lessons From 5 Years Of Distributed Collaborative Design, Development And Implementation, Sean Brophy, Thalia Anagnos Jun 2014

Large Research Center Education And Outreach: Lessons From 5 Years Of Distributed Collaborative Design, Development And Implementation, Sean Brophy, Thalia Anagnos

Faculty Publications

Paper from the 121st ASEE Annual Conference, Indianapolis. The George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Summation (NEES) completes its tenth year of operation in September 2014. The NEES Center consists of a network of 14 large-scale experimental laboratories that collaborate and share resources in support of research to inform civil engineering practice and reduce losses from future earthquakes. Since the development of the center in 2003, the education, outreach and training (EOT) program has grown from a federation of local outreach activities to an integrated network of “specialists” working together to obtain significant impact towards defined education goals. …


Public Works For Public Learning: A Case Study, Thalia Anagnos, Beckey Carroll, Shannon Weiss, David Heil Jun 2013

Public Works For Public Learning: A Case Study, Thalia Anagnos, Beckey Carroll, Shannon Weiss, David Heil

Faculty Publications

Large scale and small scale public works projects are important in the smooth operation of every community, yet a majority of the population has little awareness of how these projects work and what their functions are. Few non-engineers understand the engineering challenges of delivering clean water, disposing of our sewage, or changing a traditional intersection into a round-about, a project that seems quite simple on the surface. A consortium of public works engineers, science museums, faculty, and exhibit evaluators were awarded a grant by the National Science Foundation to build an outdoor museum next to a large suspension bridge. The …


Curriculum Exchange: “Make Your Own Earthquake”, Sandra Seale, Thalia Anagnos, Lelli Van Den Einde Jun 2013

Curriculum Exchange: “Make Your Own Earthquake”, Sandra Seale, Thalia Anagnos, Lelli Van Den Einde

Faculty Publications

A consortium of American universities is involved in earthquake engineering practice and research. Each campus of the consortium participates in outreach and education activities for the local schools and the public. One campus of the consortium, which operates earthquake field sites, designed a K-12 activity called “Make Your Own Earthquake” (MYOE). MYOE involves setting up earthquake field equipment (seismic instruments, data loggers, and computers) in a classroom. Children jump for 10 seconds, see their earthquake trace live on a computer screen and then take home a printed copy of their personal earthquake. Software was developed specifically for this activity. MYOE …


Public Works Projects As Vehicles For Engineering Education And Outreach, Shannon Weiss, David Heil, Thalia Anagnos Jun 2013

Public Works Projects As Vehicles For Engineering Education And Outreach, Shannon Weiss, David Heil, Thalia Anagnos

Faculty Publications

America is built on small and large feats of public works engineering that, although often taken for granted, affect almost every aspect of our daily lives. So how can we celebrate these marvels of utilitarian infrastructure and use them to teach public audiences about the engineering principles, materials, and human innovations that make them possible? This case study will share how one project addressed these questions by leveraging informal learning strategies, multi-agency collaborations, and new media technologies to explain the history and engineering of one of the world’s most recognizable public work sites: the Golden Gate Bridge. This paper will …


Curriculum Exchange: Visualization Tools And Online Courses For Teaching About Earthquakes, Sandra Seale, Thalia Anagnos Jun 2013

Curriculum Exchange: Visualization Tools And Online Courses For Teaching About Earthquakes, Sandra Seale, Thalia Anagnos

Faculty Publications

As part of a national consortium of universities practicing and doing research in earthquake engineering, our site has developed several videos for use in outreach and education. Visualization tools are extremely useful when teaching about how earthquakes shake the ground and the response of buildings to that shaking. Here we present videos that are targeted to specific audiences: (1) Animations of the response of two model buildings to two earthquakes are targeted at grade 6-16 students. The videos were created with data recorded on these test structures from the two earthquakes. The two events were both located directly below the …


Exceed: Excellence In Your Engineering Education Summer Transition Program, Stacy Gleixner, Katherine Casey, Jared Tuberty, S. Latic, Patricia Backer, Emily Allen Jun 2013

Exceed: Excellence In Your Engineering Education Summer Transition Program, Stacy Gleixner, Katherine Casey, Jared Tuberty, S. Latic, Patricia Backer, Emily Allen

Faculty Publications

EXCEED: Excellence in Your Engineering Education is a ten day, residential summer transition program that was designed to improve retention and graduation rates at San José State University (SJSU). SJSU is a large, public institution in the West with a very diverse student population. However, the university has lower graduation and retention rates for certain student populations in engineering including underrepresented groups and first generation college students. This transition program was designed to meet five outcomes: acculturate the students to the College of Engineering and the university, enhance math and writing preparation, build community amongst the cohort of students, enhance …


How Important Is The Wow Factor In First Year Engineering Courses?, Thalia Anagnos, Burford Furman, Ping Hsu, Patricia Backer Jun 2013

How Important Is The Wow Factor In First Year Engineering Courses?, Thalia Anagnos, Burford Furman, Ping Hsu, Patricia Backer

Faculty Publications

This paper discusses the effectiveness of using projects with a “wow factor,” that is, engaging and challenging hands-on projects, in a freshman engineering course to motivate studentretention and persistence in engineering. Our course enrolls approximately 700 students per year in a lecture/laboratory format. Our university, a large comprehensive public university in thewest, has offered a freshman introduction to engineering course since 1992. In its original form, the course was part of a lower division engineering core, required of all engineering majors, and focused on computational skills (spreadsheets and MATLAB).In 1997, based on faculty and student feedback, a task force was …


Work-In-Progress: Linking A Geographically Distributed Reu Program With Networking And Collaboration Tools, Thalia Anagnos, Alicia Lyman-Holt, Sean Brophy Jun 2012

Work-In-Progress: Linking A Geographically Distributed Reu Program With Networking And Collaboration Tools, Thalia Anagnos, Alicia Lyman-Holt, Sean Brophy

Faculty Publications

The George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation coordinates a geographically distributed REU program with up to 30 students at 5 to 7 research sites each summer. Creating a sense of cohort and providing opportunities for the students to interact is challenging. The program coordinators have leveraged the NEES hub cyberinfrastructure to engage students in professional development and peer-to-peer interaction. Some experimentation with Facebook to sustain engagement with alumni is underway. Resources include a course management system (Moodle embedded in NEES hub) and a virtual world called Quake Quest. Through the course management system students post a variety …


Global Technology Initiative At San Jose State University: Results Of Seven Years Of An International Experience For Students, Belle Wei, Patricia Backer, Wenchiang Chung, Andrew Wood Jun 2012

Global Technology Initiative At San Jose State University: Results Of Seven Years Of An International Experience For Students, Belle Wei, Patricia Backer, Wenchiang Chung, Andrew Wood

Faculty Publications

For XXX students to thrive in the highly competitive global economy, it is critical to develop international perspectives and knowledge. The $1 million Global Technology Initiative (GTI), established in 2004, provides SJSU students with an opportunity to gain a global perspective of the world by learning about technology and business developments in the Asia Pacific region. GTI donors are high-tech business leaders with strong business ties in Silicon Valley and the Asia Pacific region. Given the current trend of engineering globalization in the global economy, particularly the trend of outsourcing Silicon Valley manufacturing, development, and design work to foreign countries, …


Impact Of Self-Efficacy On Interest And Choice In Engineering Study And Careers For Undergraduate Women Engineering Students, Patricia Backer, Rona Halualani Jun 2012

Impact Of Self-Efficacy On Interest And Choice In Engineering Study And Careers For Undergraduate Women Engineering Students, Patricia Backer, Rona Halualani

Faculty Publications

Self-efficacy refers to the belief in a persons’ ability to perform a specific task. Starting in middle school, girls tend to underestimate their abilities in STEM. This confidence gap among girls persists through high school into college. This gap is presumed to be partially responsible for the gender gap in engineering and other STEM fields (e.g. computer science, physics). In 2006, women only earned 19.5% of the undergraduate BS engineering degrees in the U.S. This paper investigates the motivations of women students at XXX to pursue engineering careers, including their level of self-efficacy and sources of academic support, and the …


Assessment Of First Year Experiences At Sjsu, Patricia Backer, Emily Allen, Janet Sundrud Jun 2011

Assessment Of First Year Experiences At Sjsu, Patricia Backer, Emily Allen, Janet Sundrud

Faculty Publications

With nearly 5,000 students, the Charles W. Davidson College of Engineering (CoE) at San José State University (SJSU) is the largest provider of engineers to Silicon Valley companies and is ranked 12th among engineering programs for master’s-level institutions in the 2009 U.S. News &World Report's listing of "America’s Best Colleges. “Our overarching theoretical model for student retention is based on Tinto’s model. We adapted this model, based on additional research, to address the needs of students at SJSU. According to this model, effective and positive interactions in college should increase the student’s commitment and effort in college, and thereby, increase …


Service Learning In A Multi-Disciplinary Renewable Energy Engineering Course, Stacy Gleixner, Patricia Backer, Elena Klaw Jun 2011

Service Learning In A Multi-Disciplinary Renewable Energy Engineering Course, Stacy Gleixner, Patricia Backer, Elena Klaw

Faculty Publications

One of the most significant challenges facing this coming generation of engineers is how to fight the complex issue of climate change. One aspect of this that is playing an increasingly important role is alternative and renewable energy technologies. Emerging applications such as solar cells, wind energy conversion devices, and fuel cells involve significant contributions across a range of traditional engineering disciplines. Therefore, for companies to be successful in researching, designing, and manufacturing these products, they must operate in a truly multi-disciplinary environment. To prepare graduates to be successful in this, engineering education must provide students with multi-disciplinary learning environments. …