Engineering Education Commons^™

A New Computational Intelligence Approach To Predicting The Machined Surface Roughness In Metal Machining, Ning Fang, P. Srinivasa Pai

Engineering Education Faculty Publications

Machined surface roughness is an important parameter used in the evaluation of the surface integrity of machined parts and components. This paper proposes a new computational intelligence approach to predicting the machined surface roughness in metal machining. In this approach, wavelet packet transform (WPT) is incorporated into artificial neural networks (ANN) to develop two ANN models for predicting average roughness Ra and root-mean-square roughness Rq, respectively. Each model has eight inputs, including the cutting speed, the feed rate, energy of wavelet packets for three cutting force components, and energy of wavelet packets for three cutting vibration components. Forty-five machining experiments …

Hidden Curriculum Awareness: A Comparison Of Engineering Faculty, Graduate Students, And Undergraduates, Idalis Villanueva, Marialuisa Di Stefano, Laura Gelles, Katherine Youmans

Engineering Education Faculty Publications

In order for an engineering academic body (e.g., facultyand students) to navigate their surroundings, they must first become aware of the hidden curriculum around them. Hidden curriculum represents how particular assumptions, values, attitudes, and beliefs about schooling manifests in practice. When understood, these types of lessons or messages allow students, faculty, and staff to more easily navigate the academic and socio-political customs needed for success.

As part of a larger study, a total of 224 participants across 57 engineering programs in the United States and Latin America were asked to comment on a survey that asked respondents about the expectations …

Toward Building Resilient, Sustainable, And Smart Infrastructure In The 21st Century, Aly Mousaad Aly

Faculty Publications

In recent years, as a result of significant climate change, stringent windstorms are becoming more frequent than before. Given the threat that windstorms bring to people and property, wind/structural engineering research is imperative to improve the resilience of existing and new infrastructure, for community safety and assets protection. The Windstorm Impact, Science and Engineering (WISE) research program at Louisiana State University (LSU) focuses on creating new knowledge applicable to the mitigation of existing and new infrastructure, to survive and perform optimally under natural hazards. To achieve our research goals, we address two imperious challenges: (i) characterization of realistic wind forces …

An Overview Of Smartwater Management System: Strategic Potential In Bangladesh, Muhammad Qumrul Hassan, Mir F. Karim, Nazrul I. Khandaker, Jowaher Raza

Publications and Research

Water loss management is becoming an increasingly important as supplies are stressed by population growth or water scarcity. A SmartWater system ensures optimum consumption and prediction of future water use. Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries due to global climate change considering its rapid urbanization, inequitable land use, low income and greater reliance on climate sensitive sectors, particularly agriculture. Agricultural lands used for cropping and livestock rearing are more susceptible to degradation than non-agricultural lands. Most farmers irrigate through flooding, losing up to 75% of water to evaporation and creating a substantial drawdown of much needed water for …

The Status Of Engineering Geology: Constraints On Infrastructure Development In Bangladesh, Mir Fazlul Karim, Muhammad Qumrul Hassan, Nazrul I. Khandaker, Masud Ahmed, Belal Ahmed Sayeed

Publications and Research

In recent years, megacity Dhaka is known to have one of the fastest urban population growths in Bangladesh. The population in Dhaka and other megacities has increased from 7 to 50 million during the last four decades. The rapid rate of urban population growth, along with the extreme paucity of real-estate for new infrastructure development or upgrading existing facilities, is already exacerbating the situation for the city planners and exerting tremendous pressure to come-up with viable solutions. Although practice of engineering geology, geotechnical exploration, and testing exists in Bangladesh; the system has still yet to adopt controlled quality standards with …

An Investigation Of Engineering Design Cognition And Achievement In Primary School, Greg J. Strimel, Scott R. Bartholomew, Eunhye Kim, Liwei Zhang

Faculty Publications

This study examined the design cognition and achievement results of both kindergarten and fourth grade students engaged in engineering design-based instructional activities. Relationships between design cognition and student grade level, as well as quality of student work, were investigated. 30 concurrent think-aloud protocols were collected from individual primary students as they worked in groups to design and make a solution to a design task. The concurrent think-aloud protocols were examined and coded to determine the duration of time the participants devoted to a pre-established set of mental processes for technological problem solving. Significant differences between kindergarten and fourth grade participants …

Metacognition As A Tool For Engineering Technology Students, Melanie L. Villatoro, Claudia E. Hernandez Feiks, Chen Xu, Navid Allahverdi, Serdar Ozlek

Publications and Research

New York City College of Technology, “City Tech,” is the designated senior college of technology within the 24-unit City University of New York (CUNY). The college plays an important role nationally in the education of future scientists, engineers, technologists and mathematicians by offering a broad range of engineering technology majors. These majors have high enrollment annually; However, the one–year retention rates of freshman in the engineering technology associates degrees are typically 10-20% lower as compared to college wide one-year retention rates. One common reason for students changing majors or discontinuing their education after their first year is poor performance in …

Uncovering The Hidden Factors That Could Compromise Equitable And Effective Engineering Education, Idalis Villanueva, Janice Mejia, Renata A. Revelo

Engineering Education Faculty Publications

Literacies are central to the social and cultural practices that are intertwined with identities, who gets to participate in engineering, and the knowledge that is valued in the discipline. However, identifying these literacies is not a straightforward process for engineering faculty. The purpose of this workshop is to help engineering faculty identify equity- oriented literacies that challenge hidden curriculum frameworks in engineering and influence engineering identity formation.

Applying Design Based Research To New Work-Integrated Pbl Model (The Iron Range Engineering Bell Program), Bart Johnson, Ron Ulseth, Yuezhou Wang

Integrated Engineering Department Publications

A new project-based model of engineering education is being developed to deliver an upper-division (final two years of four-year bachelor degree) experience. The experience is centred on students working directly in industry through engineering apprentice (cooperative education/internship) employment. Students will work in industry, completing projects, for the last two years of their education while being supported in their technical and professional development by professors, facilitators, and their peers through use of digital communication. This new model focuses on learning being more imbedded in professional practice, in contrast to the more traditional model of engineering, where the learning about the profession …

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

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. …

Quality Function Deployment: More Than A Design Tool, Nadiye O. Erdil, Omid M. Arani

Engineering and Applied Science Education Faculty Publications

Purpose – This study investigates to what extent QFD can be used in quality improvement rather than design activities.

Design/methodology/approach – A framework was developed for implementation of QFD as a quality improvement tool. A case study approach is used to test this framework, and quality issues were analyzed using the framework in a ceramic tile manufacturing company.

Findings – The results showed considerable improvements in the critical quality characteristics identified and sales rates, demonstrating the potential of QFD to be used in assessing and prioritizing areas of improvement, and converting them into measurable process or product requirements. Research limitations/implications …

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.

Girls Who Code 3rd-5th, Khristina Polivanov

Honors Expanded Learning Clubs

The goal of the club is to encourage girls to be confident in themselves and their abilities while teaching them basic concepts used in computer science.

Critical Theoretical Frameworks In Engineering Education: An Anti-Deficit And Liberative Approach, Joel A. Mejia, Renata A. Revelo, Idalis Villanueva, Janice Mejia

Engineering Education Faculty Publications

The field of engineering education has adapted different theoretical frameworks from a wide range of disciplines to explore issues of education, diversity, and inclusion among others. The number of theoretical frameworks that explore these issues using a critical perspective has been increasing in the past few years. In this review of the literature, we present an analysis that draws from Freire’s principles of critical andragogy and pedagogy. Using a set of inclusion criteria, we selected 33 research articles that used critical theoretical frameworks as part of our systematic review of the literature. We argue that critical theoretical frameworks are necessary …

“There Is Never A Break”: The Hidden Curriculum Of Professionalization For Engineering Faculty, Idalis Villanueva, Taya Carothers, Marialuisa Di Stefano, Md. Tarique Hasan Kahan

Engineering Education Faculty Publications

The purpose of this exploratory special issue study was to understand the hidden curriculum (HC), or the unwritten, unofficial, or unintended lessons, around the professionalization of engineering faculty across institutions of higher education. Additionally, how engineering faculty connected the role of HC awareness, emotions, self-efficacy, and self-advocacy concepts was studied. A mixed-method survey was disseminated to 55 engineering faculties across 54 institutions of higher education in the United States. Quantitative questions, which centered around the influences that gender, race, faculty rank, and institutional type played in participants’ responses was analyzed using a combination of decision tree analysis with chi-square and …

Misconceptions And The Notional Machine In Very Young Programming Learners, Tony A. Lowe

School of Engineering Education Graduate Student Series

This study looks at very young learners make mistakes and possibly form misunderstanding when learning to programming. A variety of national efforts are extending programming education to younger learners who are materials many adults struggle to learn. For decades literature has captured common misconceptions in using programming constructs (e.g. conditionals, loops, and recursion) in older learners, but early learners may wait years before they tackle these complex concepts. Many model misconceptions as a missing or inaccurate notional machine. The notional machine is an individual’s mental model, representing how a programming language executes on a real device. The notional machine aligns …

Pathfinder: Affordable And Effective Web-Books For First Year Engineering Courses, Jess Everett, Scott Steiner

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

This paper describes the implementation of PathFinder (https://pathfinder.rowan.edu/), a website that facilitates the creation and dissemination of affordable web-books for college students. The purpose of this paper is to describe its implementation in an introduction-to-engineering curriculum at a public university in the north east, and to discuss the use of Pathfinder (or similar websites) in first and second year engineering courses in general.

The PathFinder website allows professors to create, maintain, and access an electronic database of engineering topic folders. Each folder contains information on a single topic and may contain an article and other content, e.g., variables, equations, images, …

What Does Hidden Curriculum In Engineering Look Like And How Can It Be Explored?, Idalis Villanueva, Laura Gelles, Marialuisa Di Stefano, Buffy Smith, Renetta G. Tull, Susan M. Lord, Lisa Benson, Anne Therese Hunt, Donna M. Riley, Gery W. Ryan

Engineering Education Faculty Publications

This work in progress paper describes the initial stages of a project which aims to characterize the mechanisms of hidden curriculum (HC) in engineering and identify methods for exploring this phenomenon. To effectively study the complex nature of HC, this work brings together researchers with a range of expertise (sociology, engineering education, engineering, statistics, policy analysis, curriculum and instruction) to develop a holistic approach to explore HC in engineering. This work describes the process of gathering input from this multidisciplinary team as well as the literature to develop a mixed-method instrument and model to explore the mechanisms behind HC in …

Growing Entrepreneurial Mindset In Interdisciplinary Student Engineers: Experiences Of A Project-Based Engineering Program, Elizabeth Pluskwik, Eleanor Leung, Andrew Lillesve

Integrated Engineering Department Publications

Engineering education models have recently embraced the entrepreneurial mindset as a desired outcome of undergraduate engineering education. Interdisciplinary active learning strategies have been suggested as an effective pedagogy for engaging student engineers in undergraduate engineering education. Recent research suggests that active, social learning in context can lead to improvements in learner innovation, problem-solving, curiosity, retention and accessibility of knowledge, value-creation, and other desired learning outcomes. Much of the recent adoption of active and collaborative learning, self-directed learning, problem-based and project-based learning (PBL), peer to peer learning, and other similar learning strategies are aimed at developing innovative and entrepreneurial mindset skills, …

Effectiveness Of Gamification Activities In A Project-Based Learning Classroom, Eleanor Leung, Elizabeth Pluskwik

Integrated Engineering Department Publications

The purpose of this research is to analyze the effectiveness, and student's self-reported engagement with gamification tools on a student's learning of technical concepts when used in a project-based learning (PBL) engineering classroom environment. Gamification, as defined in this study, is the use of game-based elements such as online audience response systems with automated feedback in non-game situations. By adding gamification to the classroom, we hope to further build on the active and collaborative learning environment that our PBL program already provides. Five gamification activities were implemented during the Fall 2017 semester with junior and senior student engineers enrolled in …

A Project-Based Learning Approach In Teaching Simulation To Undergraduate And Graduate Students, Gokhan Egilmez, Dusan Sormaz, Ridvan Gedik

Engineering and Applied Science Education Faculty Publications

In this study, application of experiential learning into graduate and undergraduate curricula of a industrial system simulation course is presented. Simulation has been among the courses against which students feel uncomfortable or frightened due to heavy software use, prerequisite of probability, and statistics knowledge, and its application requirements. To minimize this fear and improve student’s understanding about the subject matters and have them develop ample skills to build complex models, a project-based learning approach is proposed and used in undergraduate and graduate teaching settings. To achieve the project-based learning goals, a 15-week curriculum is designed to have a balanced lecture …

Second Year Of Using The Sidekick Basic Kit For Ti Launchpad With Elementary School Students, Tara N. Kimmey, Cameron H.G. Wright, Thad B. Welch

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper describes a second year, follow-on study in which 4^th and 5^th grade students were exposed to engineering-related topics using a microcontroller, input/output circuitry, sensors, and the associated software coding needed to achieve a desired functionality of the hardware. The first year study was described in a paper presented at the 2017 ASEE Annual Conference. This second year study took students to the “next level,” and showed very promising results.

Work In Progress: Institutional Context And The Implementation Of The Redshirt In Engineering Model At Six Universities, Ann Delaney, Donna C. Llewellyn, Janet Callahan

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Low-income students are underrepresented in engineering and are more likely to struggle in engineering programs. Such students may be academically talented and perform well in high school, but may have relatively weak academic preparation for college compared to students who attended better-resourced schools. Four-year engineering and computer science curricula are designed for students who are calculus-ready, but many students who are eager to become engineers or computer scientists need additional time and support to succeed. The NSF-funded Redshirt in Engineering Consortium was formed in 2016 as a collaborative effort to build on the success of three existing “academic Redshirt” programs …

The Redshirt In Engineering Consortium: Progress And Early Insights, Janet Callahan, Donna C. Llewellyn, Ann E. Delaney

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The NSF-funded Redshirt in Engineering Consortium was formed in 2016 with the goal of enhancing the ability of academically talented but underprepared students coming from lowincome backgrounds to successfully graduate with engineering degrees. The Consortium takes its name from the practice of redshirting in college athletics, with the idea of providing an extra year and support to help promising engineering students complete a bachelor’s degree. The Consortium builds on the success of three existing “academic redshirt” programs and expands the model to three new schools. The Existing Redshirt Institutions (ERIs) help mentor and train the new Student Success Partners (SSPs), …

Encouraging A Growth Mindset In Engineering Students, Megan Frary

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

A person’s “mindset” guides a great deal of how one approaches life -- and especially how students approach education. While someone with a fixed mindset believes that their intelligence is fixed and unchangeable, someone with a growth mindset believes that their intelligence is changeable and can grow as they learn more. Most people’s mindset lies along a spectrum with these two extremes at either end. In addition to other outcomes, the mindset that a person has determines how they interpret mistakes they make; whereas someone with a fixed mindset thinks mistakes result from their innate lack of ability, someone with …

Board 30: Enhancing Core Chemical Engineering Courses With Computationally-Intense Course Modules, Kevin Dahm, Ravi P. Ramachandran, Nidhal Carla Bouaynaya

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

This paper will present two new course modules that have been developed for junior-level Chemical Engineering core courses: Chemical Reaction Engineering and Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics II. As currently offered, both of these courses integrate simulation and computer lab activities in which students devise models of key physical systems, and then interrogate the model to study cause-and-effect in these physical systems. These activities are designed to be completed in one 165 minute lab period. While these labs are an integral part of the courses, the single-period scope limits the complexity of the models that can be used.

The course modules described …

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 …

Integrated E-Learning Modules For Developing An Entrepreneurial Mindset: Direct Assessment Of Student Learning, Maria-Isabel Carnasciali, Ronald S. Harichandran, Nadiye O. Erdil, Jean Nocito-Gobel, Cheryl Q. Li

Engineering and Applied Science Education Faculty Publications

In an effort to develop an entrepreneurial mindset in all our engineering and computer science students, the University of New Haven is embedding entrepreneurial concepts throughout the 4-year curricula in their majors. This is done with the use of several short e-learning modules developed by content experts. The modules are integrated into engineering and computer science courses by faculty who reinforce concepts through a related activity, project, or assignment. The e-learning modules, available online through course management systems, are self-paced and targeted at conceptual learning of 18 specific entrepreneurial topics. Using a flipped-classroom instructional model, students complete the modules outside …

A Pilot Program In Internet-Of-Things With University And Industry Collaboration: Introduction And Lessons Learned, Mohsen Sarraf, Bijan Karimi, Ali Golbazi

Engineering and Applied Science Education Faculty Publications

Internet-of-Things (IoT) is one of the most prominent technological eco-systems and an engine of growth with an estimated market size of $14 Trillion to $33 Trillion by 2025 (McKinsey Global Institute). The IoT eco-system uses well-established technologies in many fields; and it adds new and often challenging requirements on extant techniques. For example, many wireless schemes are or being redesigned to address battery life and cost of solution issues. At the same time, the industry needs to hire and retrain many technical personnel to address these issues and support this newly evolving eco-system in many different markets. These facts culminate …