Engineering Education Commons^™

A Tessellation Of Engineers, Grace Jenkins Welsh

University Honors Theses

A capstone project is the culmination of what a student has learned while pursuing an undergraduate degree. A project of this magnitude requires a lot of time and dedication from every member of the team. This essay looks back at the experience of an electrical engineering student participating in the design of an auxiliary power and protection of a planned substation. The author describes the team's work, how they performed as a team, and their involvement with the professional sponsor and advisor. The author examines the experience with the goal of informing and encouraging prospective engineering students who may be …

Teamwork Skills Development In Engineering Education: A Holistic Approach, Callum Kimpton, Nicoleta Maynard

Research Papers

Engineering is a profession grounded in teamwork with the need for engineering students and professionals to possess the ability to integrate their work efforts seamlessly and effectively towards a common goal. This in turn necessitates the need for a comprehensive, tailored, and relevant overarching conceptual framework to be constructed to ensure that our subsequent generations of engineers are equipped to efficiently tackle existential societal problems including anthropogenic climate change and the multi-faceted nature of sustainable development. This paper motivates, details, and presents a conceptual framework for implementing successful engineering teams in tertiary engineering projects. The emergent conceptual framework presented is …

Exploring Women’S Teamwork Experiences In Engineering Education: A Phenomenological Analysis, Sandra Ireri Cruz Moreno, Shannon Chance, Brian Bowe

Research Papers

Teamwork, project or problem based learning, and other collaborative learning strategies are often presented as approaches that benefit women and other minorities during their studies in Science and Engineering fields of education. This is based on the assumption that underrepresented groups will respond positively to the social integration and cooperation encouraged by these learning methods. However, research also shows that gendered stereotypical presuppositions about attributes and interests can influence the performance of team members and the tasks developed, potentially providing opportunities to sexism, racism, and other exclusionary social behaviours.

From Group Work To Team Work: Comparative Analysis In Three European Institutions, Isabelle Lermigeaux-Sarrade, Jean-Luc Sarrade, Stephane Perrin, Sorana Cimpan

Research Papers

Addressing the complex challenges of sustainability demands for good teamwork abilities for future technicians and engineers. In our three institutions we adopted project-based learning to facilitate the development of these skills – but is this enough? Since group project-based learning involves dealing with complex technical tasks and at the same time learning to work as a team, we wondered how students handle this double challenge. By analysing their perceptions, we attempt to identify what teaching practices could be helpful to shift their experience from groupwork to effective teamwork.

Developing Teamwork Skills Through Simultaneous Group Project Courses, Tuomo Eloranta

Research Papers

The popularity of project-based learning (PBL) has led to a situation where engineering students take several group project courses at the same time. From a student perspective, this can generate considerable issues. Previous research has indicated that already single PBL courses can be challenging, especially time and task management-wise and intuitively overlapping PBL courses compound this complexity. As existing literature on this topic is relatively sparse, the goal of the present study is to examine what kind of student challenges simultaneous PBL courses generate, how students navigate those and what kind of additional learning can it foster. The results should …

Enhancing Professional Skills Among Engineering Students By Interdisciplinary International Collaboration, Thomas Mejtoft, Helen Cripps, Melissa Fong-Emmerson, Christoper Blöcker

Practice Papers

Providing necessary knowledge and skills for engineering students to become successful professionals is a tricky task. Besides disciplinary knowledge, e.g., communication skills, ability to work in teams, and international experience are often mentioned as important. Regarding internationalization, most engineering programs in Sweden rely on either student exchange or low-level internationalization-at-home, such as international literature and lecturers. This paper explores sustainable international experiences for students on their home turf provided through an international interdisciplinary collaboration where engineering students in Sweden and marketing students in Australia work together on a project. The setup simulates a consultancy firm with development and marketing offices …

Engineering Student Belonging To Prevent Early Leavers Through Curriculum Decolonization, Academic Self-Concept, And Psychologically Safe Teamwork, Neil Cooke, Jacqueline Chetty, Claudia Favero, Zena Green, Neil Drury, Pieter Joubert

Practice Papers

The proportion of early leavers from engineering degrees closely follows the higher education sector throughout Europe; around 10% leave before graduation. Students are more likely to drop-out if they do not feel that they belong in the learning community. While research shows that academic achievement is a primary factor contributing to student drop-out, other student-centric social factors, such as belonging are equally important to student drop-out rates within higher education. The aim of this paper is to present a model constructed on student belonging. The model consists of 3 pillars, namely academic self-concept & professional identity, psychologically safe teamwork, and …

Enablers And Barriers Of Communication In Virtual Engineering Teams: The Role Of Teamwork Skills And Emergent Conflict, Pilar Pazos, Francisco Cima

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Communication is a critical process that facilitates team members' coordination, expertise exchange, decision-making, and, consequently, team elfectiveness. A focus on effective communication is critical in virtual teams due to their lack of face-to-face interactions and social presence. Communication becomes challenging in remote settings, and specific skills emerge as more essential to success. It is known that effective teams rely on planning, execution, and interpersonal skills to be successful. Still, the specific impact of these skills on virtual team effectiveness is not well understood. Additionally, conflict can emerge as a significant barrier to collaboration for remote teams that can hinder their …

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 …

Use Of Demographic Faultlines To Predict Teams’ Conflict, Satisfaction And Performance, Marina Pazeti, Isabel Jimenez-Useche

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

During the past decade, industries and businesses have experienced the formation of a global market place. Current tasks require professionals from different fields and with different backgrounds to work together as a team. The goal of this study is to investigate how diversity in teams may impact perception of conflict, satisfaction and performance, in first-year engineering students. Team diversity is associated with faultlines: the potential to form subgroups based on certain characteristics. The strength and width of faultlines in a team is likely to impact the team’s outcomes. In this research, we used demographic characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, language …

Teaching Higher On Bloom's Taxonomy: Experience In Introduction To Graphical Communications Course, Lulu Sun, Christopher Grant

Lulu Sun

Introduction to Graphical Communications is designed to familiarize the student with the basic principles of engineering drawing, to improve three dimensional visualization skills, and to teach the fundamentals of a computer aided design program. Much of the instruction is focused on knowledge and comprehension, low levels of Bloom's taxonomy. However, the students' ability to use this knowledge and comprehension to explore real engineering design is unknown. This paper includes the implementation of Bloom's taxonomy in the Introduction to Graphical Communications course, and shows how students are moved up Bloom's taxonomy by including a group final project into the course. Students …

Influence Of Collaborative Learning On Women’S Experiences Of Engineering Education, Shannon M. Chance, Brian Bowe

Shannon M. Chance

In a study of 55 electrical engineering students, Yadav, et al., found learning gains among students in Project-Based Learning (PBL) to be twice the gains of those taking traditional lecture courses. Du and Kolmos indicate group based PBL is more supportive and appealing to women than traditional lecture formats. Savin-Baden posits that female and minority students are more likely to ask questions in non-competitive PBL environments. This study interrogates the claim that PBL is particularly supportive to female and minority students. This work-in-progress uses a phenomenological research methodology to investigate how collaborative learning (in formal as well as non-formal settings) …

Olin College: Re-Visioning Undergraduate Engineering Education, Lynn Stein, Mark Somerville, Jessica Townsend, Vincent Manno

Jessica Townsend

The Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering was created to address several perceived needs for engineering graduates of the future and to be an experimental laboratory for engineering education. As such, Olin College is not only dedicated to innovation within its boundaries but also to catalyzing change throughout the engineering enterprise. The curriculum aims to support life-long learning, teamwork, communication, and contextual understanding, along with rigorous quantitative and qualitative skills.

Olin College: Re-Visioning Undergraduate Engineering Education, Lynn Stein, Mark Somerville, Jessica Townsend, Vincent Manno

Vincent P. Manno

The Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering was created to address several perceived needs for engineering graduates of the future and to be an experimental laboratory for engineering education. As such, Olin College is not only dedicated to innovation within its boundaries but also to catalyzing change throughout the engineering enterprise. The curriculum aims to support life-long learning, teamwork, communication, and contextual understanding, along with rigorous quantitative and qualitative skills.

Olin College: Re-Visioning Undergraduate Engineering Education, Lynn Stein, Mark Somerville, Jessica Townsend, Vincent Manno

Lynn Andrea Stein

The Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering was created to address several perceived needs for engineering graduates of the future and to be an experimental laboratory for engineering education. As such, Olin College is not only dedicated to innovation within its boundaries but also to catalyzing change throughout the engineering enterprise. The curriculum aims to support life-long learning, teamwork, communication, and contextual understanding, along with rigorous quantitative and qualitative skills.

Olin College: Re-Visioning Undergraduate Engineering Education, Lynn Stein, Mark Somerville, Jessica Townsend, Vincent Manno

Mark Somerville

The Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering was created to address several perceived needs for engineering graduates of the future and to be an experimental laboratory for engineering education. As such, Olin College is not only dedicated to innovation within its boundaries but also to catalyzing change throughout the engineering enterprise. The curriculum aims to support life-long learning, teamwork, communication, and contextual understanding, along with rigorous quantitative and qualitative skills.

Structured Pairing In A First-Year Electrical And Computer Engineering Laboratory: The Effects On Student Retention, Attitudes, And Teamwork, Nicholas D. Fila, Michael C. Loui

School of Engineering Education Graduate Student Series

This paper describes a simple technique, structured pairing, for organizing student teams in engineering instructional laboratories. This technique was adapted from pair programming, which was previously found to improve student confidence, satisfaction, and retention in computer science. A study of structured pairing was implemented in a large required course for first-year students in electrical and computer engineering. Six laboratory sections implemented structured pairing, and the other seven laboratory sections operated in a traditional way (i.e., unstructured team interactions). Data were collected from a student survey, two focus groups, and course enrollment records. Structured pairing students reported significantly higher confidence in …

Work In Progress - Using Video And Self-Reflection To Enhance Undergraduate Teams, Nick Tatar, Debbie Chachra, Yevgeniya Zastavker, Jonathan Stolk

Yevgeniya V. Zastavker

Engineers today must be able to communicate and collaborate in teams. They also must be comfortable making adjustments within the team to maintain flow and progress toward project goals. With these goals in mind, students in a first-semester engineering seminar course were asked to videotape a team meeting in their design course and to write a self-reflection paper after viewing their video. After analyzing the video, students were asked to provide clear suggestions in their self-reflection paper for improving their own and their team's performance. Our preliminary analysis showed that video-supported reflections: 1) may be more effective than memory for …

Work In Progress - Using Video And Self-Reflection To Enhance Undergraduate Teams, Nick Tatar, Debbie Chachra, Yevgeniya Zastavker, Jonathan Stolk

Jonathan Stolk

Engineers today must be able to communicate and collaborate in teams. They also must be comfortable making adjustments within the team to maintain flow and progress toward project goals. With these goals in mind, students in a first-semester engineering seminar course were asked to videotape a team meeting in their design course and to write a self-reflection paper after viewing their video. After analyzing the video, students were asked to provide clear suggestions in their self-reflection paper for improving their own and their team's performance. Our preliminary analysis showed that video-supported reflections: 1) may be more effective than memory for …

Work In Progress - Using Video And Self-Reflection To Enhance Undergraduate Teams, Nick Tatar, Debbie Chachra, Yevgeniya Zastavker, Jonathan Stolk

Debbie Chachra

Engineers today must be able to communicate and collaborate in teams. They also must be comfortable making adjustments within the team to maintain flow and progress toward project goals. With these goals in mind, students in a first-semester engineering seminar course were asked to videotape a team meeting in their design course and to write a self-reflection paper after viewing their video. After analyzing the video, students were asked to provide clear suggestions in their self-reflection paper for improving their own and their team's performance. Our preliminary analysis showed that video-supported reflections: 1) may be more effective than memory for …

A Semi-Automatic Approach For Project Assignment In A Capstone Course, Mark Chang, Allen Downey

Mark L. Chang

This paper presents a semi-automatic approach to assigning students to project teams for a year-long, industry-sponsored senior capstone course. Successful assignment requires knowl- edge of at least individual project requirements, student skills, student personalities, and student project preferences. This mix of hard skills, soft skills, and interpersonal impres- sions requires human involvement to produce a high-quality assignment. The importance of faculty input often requires that the assignment process be labor- and time-intensive.

Our approach attempts to reduce the time required to perform this assignment by selectively automating parts of the task flow. An automated search uses a randomized greedy algorithm …

Teaching Higher On Bloom's Taxonomy: Experience In Introduction To Graphical Communications Course, Lulu Sun, Christopher Grant

Publications

Introduction to Graphical Communications is designed to familiarize the student with the basic principles of engineering drawing, to improve three dimensional visualization skills, and to teach the fundamentals of a computer aided design program. Much of the instruction is focused on knowledge and comprehension, low levels of Bloom's taxonomy. However, the students' ability to use this knowledge and comprehension to explore real engineering design is unknown. This paper includes the implementation of Bloom's taxonomy in the Introduction to Graphical Communications course, and shows how students are moved up Bloom's taxonomy by including a group final project into the course. Students …

Work In Progress -- Balancing Prescribed And Project-Based Experiences In Microfabrication Laboratories, Chang-Soo Kim, Steve Eugene Watkins

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Student education for microfabrication processes needs to integrate theoretical understanding with process understanding. Instructional challenges exist in designing effective laboratory experiences. The pedagogical issues include linking theoretical lecture concepts to cost-effective laboratories, tailoring the relative time between lectures and laboratories, and balancing the laboratory assignments between prescribed and project-based experiences. We describe the progressive implementations of microfabrication laboratory experiences in graduate courses. The first offering has no laboratory activity. The prescribed laboratory and project-based laboratory components were gradually incorporated. All laboratory experiences were team-based and utilized cost-effective facilities. The assessments indicate that students prefer significant laboratory experience and that learning …