Engineering Education Commons^™

Student Launch Initiative: Boosted Dart Rocket, Charger Rocket Works

Von Braun Symposium Student Posters

No abstract provided.

Student Designed Solutions For In-Orbit Detection And Tracking Of Small Orbital Debris, Lisa Tunstill

Von Braun Symposium Student Posters

No abstract provided.

Analysis Of Engineering Content With Technology Education Programs, Todd D. Fantz, Petros J. Katsioloudis

STEMPS Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Successful Engineering And Technology Student Mobility: Key Student Perspectives And Quality Determinants Before, During And After Student Exchange Under The Atlantis Programme, Mike Murphy, Donal Mchale, Michael Dyrenfurth

Conference papers

In this paper, we describe the lessons learned, and determinants of quality, from two Atlantis programmes. Additionally our two student authors will share key student perspectives relevant to student mobility: (1) before they visited the partner university, (2) while they were studying at the partner university and (3) after they returned to their home university. Purdue University and the Technological University Dublin, together with the Hochschule Darmstadt and Pennsylvania State University, were successful in securing an Atlantis mobility grant [1] for four years to support student and staff mobility between the United States and Europe. The programme has just completed …

Case Methods In Civil Engineering Teaching, Timothy A. Newson, Norbert J. Delatte

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

English: There have been significant changes in undergraduate civil engineering curricula in the last two decades. Key issues for university curriculum committees are selection and transference of appropriate skills and attributes for students to succeed in the industry. Despite significant changes occurring in teaching theories, civil engineering education still relies heavily on deductive instruction. Case-based teaching is one of the most widespread forms of inductive learning and this paper describes the differences between two of the most familiar types: 'case-histories' and 'case-studies'. These methods are presented using the Kansas City Hyatt Regency walkway collapse as an exemplar. The benefits of …

Formative Assessment Practices In Built Environment Higher Education Programmes And The Enhancement Of The Student Learning Experience, Lloyd Scott, Chrisopher Fortune

Conference papers

It is widely accepted across Higher Education (HE) that assessment has a strong link with learning and a key factor in this link is formative assessment. Formative assessment is generally defined as an activity taking place during a programme or unit of learning with the express purpose of improving and enhancing student learning. However, there is still considerable disagreement over the roles of lecturers and students in this process. It is therefore very important to understand how lecturers in built environment (BE) undergraduate education perceive their own roles and the role of their students in using assessment strategy to deliver …

Year Seven Annual Report: Activities, Findings And Evaluators' Reports, Ncete Faculty

Reports to NSF

The National Center for Engineering and Technology Education (NCETE) is a collaborative network of scholars with backgrounds in technology education, engineering, and related fields. Our mission is to build capacity in technology education and to improve the understanding of the learning and teaching of high school students and teachers as they apply engineering design processes to technological problems. This year’s accomplishments include: completion of doctoral dissertations and post-doctoral research; continuation of research program; exploration of a strategic alliance of engineering and technology education groups in major doctoral-degree-granting universities; development of a caucus on high school engineering design challenges; and ongoing …

Effect Of Freshman Chemistry On Student Performance In Sophomore Engineering Courses, Michael A. Collura, Shannon Ciston, Nancy Ortins Savage

Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Faculty Publications

The role of first year chemistry courses in engineering programs varies somewhat across programs and disciplines. Clearly most engineering majors will encounter chemistry topics of a general nature in some of their upper-level course work. The purpose of requiring chemistry in the first year, however, goes well beyond learning chemical concepts. As a quantitative science, chemistry requires the use of math, principally algebra, on a regular basis in solving various problems. Students should gain an appreciation of the importance of units in solving problems should come to understand the difference between implicit and explicit properties and should develop other quantitative …

A New Model Of Project Based Learning, Ron Ulseth, Jefferey E. Froyd, Thomas A. Lotzinger, Dan Ewert, Bart Johnson

Integrated Engineering Department Publications

A new model for engineering education has been developed and funded. The model is 100% project based learning (PBL) where the students develop their own learning objectives. The projects are authentic needs contributed by collaborating industries. Students monitor the acquisition of 32 technical competencies and all of the design and professionalism competencies required of new practicing engineers. The reasons for the new model, description of the model, research supporting the model, methods for evaluating the model and its transportability are discussed.

Entrepreneurship In The Iron Range Engineering (Ire) Model, Dan Ewert, Ron Ulseth, Bart Johnson, Jeff Wandler, Andrew Lillesve

Integrated Engineering Department Publications

The aim of this paper is to describe a new model for engineering education that has entrepreneurship, in its many form, as a focus. Issues involved with integrating student-based entrepreneurship into the educational process are also described.

Connecting Science With Engineering: Using Inquiry And Design In A Teacher Professional Development Course, Louis S. Nadelson, Patricia Pyke, Janet Callahan, Anne Hay, Joshua Pfiester, Mark A. Emmet

Curriculum, Instruction, and Foundational Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

The engineering design process has evolved over time to be the central and effective framework that engineers use to conduct their work. Logically, K-12 STEM professional development efforts have then attempted to incorporate the design process into their work. There has been little in the STEM literature, though, of the explicit measurement of the growth in design process knowledge. Our study presents findings of significant improvements in knowledge of the design process that resulted over the course of a recent summer STEM institute and professional development program among K-5 teachers.

As more emphasis is placed on integrating STEM into the …

Developing And Assessing Stem Curriculum With The Intent Of Promoting Technological Literacy, Scott Bartholomew, Geoff Wright, Ron Terry

Faculty Publications

Developing and Assessing STEM Curriculum with the Intent of Promoting Technological Literacy Technological literacy is a key component of President Barack Obama’s $260 Million STEM educational initiative (Office of the Press Secretary, 2009). Central to his plan is STEM teacher training and curriculum development. Both of these issues were addressed and are currently being measured by the research outlined in this paper. Spring2010 a collection of technology and engineering education graduate students developed with mentoring from two technology and engineering education professors 20 lesson unit and lesson plans promoting technological literacy. The lesson plans are currently being used and assessed …

Missouri S&T Engineering Management Capstone Senior Design: Lessons Learned And Challenges To Come, Stephen A. Raper

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A more traditional, capstone senior design course was recently added as a requirement for Engineering Management undergraduates in the Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Department at Missouri S&T. The case studies course that had served that purpose was deemed to be insufficient for ABET accreditation purposes by department faculty. The most recent 2008 accreditation visit for the department verified this belief and caused the department to launch the new class earlier than anticipated to prove the class would be taught and that it would meet required standards. Thus, no weaknesses or concerns were noted in this area in the final …

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 …

The Effect Of On-Line Videos On Learner Outcomes In A Mechanics Of Materials Course, Jeffery S. Thomas, Richard H. Hall, Timothy A. Philpot, Douglas R. Carroll

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The Mechanics of Materials course is one of the core engineering courses included in the curriculum of mechanical, civil, mining, petroleum, marine, aeronautical, and several other engineering disciplines. As a core course, the Mechanics of Materials course typically has large enrollment. Initiatives aimed at improving the effectiveness of the engineering core courses can have a major impact on engineering education by virtue of the large number of students affected.

Computers afford opportunities for creative instructional activities that are not possible in the traditional lecture-and-textbook class format. The study described in this paper examines the effectiveness of asynchronous online video that …

Using Social Networking Game To Teach Operations Research And Management Science Fundamental Concepts, Ivan G. Guardiola, Susan L. Murray, Elizabeth A. Cudney

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents our experience using the popular game FarmVille by Zynga® to teach the fundamentals of linear programming and integer programming concepts to undergraduate students in an introductory operations research course. FarmVille is a popular game within the social networking website Facebook®. A month-long contest was introduced amongst the students with the goal to be the best individual farmer by striving to reach high levels of revenue, experience, and aesthetic appeal of their own unique farm. The contest is to demonstrate the concepts of problem formulation, solution methods, multiple and competing objectives, implementation of policy, and reformulation. The students …

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

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. …

Evaluation Of Senior Project Group Processes Against Cmmi Standards, Jonathan Winstead

Honors Capstone Projects and Theses

No abstract provided.

Gender And Self-Selection Among Engineering Students, Maci Dickson

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Gender and graduation rates of first time engineering college students have been analyzed as a function of academic and demographic variables in order to investigate the hypothesis that an advantage to women with respect to student success might be attributed to their socioeconomic advantages as a student population. The authors present descriptive, graphical, and model-based evidence to support their ideas about gender and self-selection driven by socioeconomic phenomena that leave a disproportionate number of women out of higher education, but create a group of female students more likely than their male counterparts to succeed.