Engineering Education Commons^™

A Look Into Increasing The Number Of Veterans And Former Government Employees Converting To Career And Technical Cybersecurity Teachers, Vukica M. Jovanovic, Michael Anthony Crespo, Drew E. Brown, Deborah Marshall, Otilia Popescu, Murat Kuzlu, Petros J. Katsioloudis, Linda Vahala

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

The current state of technology with recent explosions in the digital processing of paperwork, computer networking use, and online and virtual approaches to areas, which until very recently had traditional and non-computerized ways of operating, led to a steady increase in the demand for jobs in the area of computer science and cybersecurity. The education system, the pipeline for the incoming workforce, needs to keep up with this tremendous pace in technology and the job market. The current K-12 school system has been extensively challenged to fill out necessary positions in order to address the increasing need for programs that …

Journal Of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-Peer) Annual Report From January 1, 2020 To December 31, 2020, Senay Purzer, Kami N. Schwatz

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

Over the last ten years, the Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER) has been disseminating research that seeks to investigate, enhance, and transform pre-college engineering education and, ultimately, to create an engineering‐literate society. The 2020 annual report presents readership metrics and statistics of the decade, trends and metrics on J-PEER's authorship in 2020, and our reflections on the last year.

Universal Biological Motions For Educational Robot Theatre And Games, Rajesh Venkatachalapathy, Martin Zwick, Adam Slowik, Kai Brooks, Mikhail Mayers, Roman Minko, Tyler Hull, Bliss Brass, Marek Perkowski

Complex Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

Paper presents a concept that is new to robotics education and social robotics. It is based on theatrical games, in motions for social robots and animatronic robots. Presented here motion model is based on Drift Differential Model from biology and Fokker-Planck equations. This model is used in various areas of science to describe many types of motion. The model was successfully verified on various simulated mobile robots and a motion game of three robots called "Mouse and Cheese."

More Than Mechanisms: Shifting Ideologies For Asset-Based Learning In Engineering Education, Brian E. Gravel, Eli Tucker-Raymond, Aditi Wagh, Susan Klimczak, Naeem Wilson

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

Learning spaces, the practices in which people engage, and the representations they use are ideological. Ideologies are coherent constellations of values, beliefs, and practices that impose order on how disciplines like engineering operate. Historically, engineering spaces have been dominated by a relatively technocratic, rationalistic, and exclusionary ideology, but more recent attention to asset-based approaches to engineering education offers transformative promise. Asset-based ideologies can reshape images of legitimized engineering practice, recasting engineering education to disrupt dominant exclusionary ideologies. This paper describes an assets-based learning space, SETC, that recaptures the imagination of engineering for technological and social change. Drawing from extensive ethnographic …

Making Makers: Tracing Stem Identity In Rural Communities, Jessie Nixon, Andy Stoiber, Erica Halverson, Michael Dando

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

In this article, we describe efforts to reduce barriers of entry to pre-college engineering in a rural community by training local teens to become maker-mentors and staff a mobile makerspace in their community. We bring a communities of practice frame to our inquiry, focusing on inbound and peripheral learning and identity trajectories as a mechanism for representing the maker-mentor experience. Through a longitudinal case study, we traced the individual trajectories of five maker-mentors over two years. We found a collection of interrelated factors present in those students who maintained inbound trajectories and those who remained on the periphery. Our research …

Review And Analysis Of Methods For Measuring Concentration Of Suspended Substances And Active Sludge During Biological Treatment Of Waste Water, Maxsud Maxmudov, Siroj Nurov, Zafar Qo'ziev, Sanjar Sidiqov

Scientific-technical journal

This work analyzes and compares the measuring and technical characteristics of methods for measuring and controlling the parameters of activated sludge in the processes of biological wastewater treatment. As methods for measuring the concentration of activated sludge, methods such as the optical method, the ultrasonic method and the method for measuring the nuclear density of a liquid are considered. The principles of operation of each of these methods are illustrated with graphic drawings for more clarity of the interaction of the measuring signal with the particles of the measured medium. At the end of the work, conclusions on the characteristics …

Funds Of Knowledge As Pre-College Experiences That Promote Minoritized Students’ Interest, Self-Efficacy Beliefs, And Choice Of Majoring In Engineering, Dina Verdín, Jessica M. Smith, Juan Lucena

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

Pre-college experiences both inside and outside of the classroom inform students’ interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-related activities, help them evaluate their knowledge and skills in various tasks, and shape their perceptions of themselves as individuals who can participate in STEM. Yet little empirical research examines the valuable pre-college knowledge, practices, and skills that minoritized students acquire through their home experiences and how they can support students’ transition into an engineering pathway. This study addresses this gap by investigating how students’ funds of knowledge support their interest in engineering, self-efficacy beliefs, and certainty of pursuing an engineering major. …

Equitable Pre-College Engineering Education: Teaching With Racism In Mind, James Holly Jr

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

Engineering educators must consider how the cultural backgrounds of students coincide (or diverge) with the epistemological and ontological formation of an engineer. Hence, this work is presented as an exhortation to engineering educators, particularly in a pre-college context, to critically evaluate how race-conscious pedagogies can be exerted in this field. In this autoethnographic study, I convey my attempt to teach engineering with explicit consideration of the sociopolitical context of the Black male youth I taught. As a Black male, I have an insider perspective into the realities that must be navigated to succeed in a racialized society, where Black males …

Solar Pv Emulator, Tristan Studer, Cody Kremer

Electrical Engineering

The implementation of a solar PV emulator. Creating a controllable testing environment which sufficiently recreates realistic conditions a photovoltaic cell would experience in real world use. The project aims to accurately show the efficiency and reliability of a solar PV cell, opposed to an ideal model which creates unrealistic expectations. The PV emulator implements conditions such as: irradiance, soiling and temperate changes. It gives feedback on a displayed IV curve and/or PV curve so the user may graphically analyze the output their PV cell produces given various conditions. It allows the user selectable conditions the solar cell may experience this …

Real-Life Conundrums In The Struggle For Institutional Transformation, Julia Mcquillan, Nestor Hernandez

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Intersecting systems of inequality (i.e., gender and race/ethnicity) are remarkably resistant to change. Many universities, however, seek National Science Foundation Institutional Transformation awards to change processes, procedures, and cultures to make science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) departments more inclusive. In this article we describe a case study with observations for eight years of before (2000–2007), five during (2008–2013), and seven after (2014–2020) intensive efforts to increase women through reducing barriers and increasing access to women. Finally, we reflect on flawed assumptions built into the proposal, the slow and uneven change in the proportion of women over time, the strengths …

Online Laboratory Course Using Low Tech Supplies To Introduce Digital Logic Design Concepts, Dhanya Nair

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

This paper describes a Digital Logic Design Laboratory Course developed to engage students with hardware systems within an online setting. This is a junior level core course for students from Computer Science (CS), Computer Engineering (CE) and Electrical Engineering (EE). Hence, the laboratories are designed to provide the hands-on experience of breadboarding, testing and debugging essential to CE and EE while accommodating CS students with no prior hardware experience. Commercially available low-cost electronic trainers (portable workstations) are loaned to the students in addition to basic electronic components. To ensure a strong foundation in debugging, prior to utilizing these workstations, students …

The Car (Confront, Address, Replace) Strategy: An Antiracist Engineering Pedagogy, Amman Fasil Asfaw

Master's Theses

The CAR (confront, address, replace) Strategy is an antiracist pedagogy aiming to drive out exclusionary terminology in engineering education.

“Master-slave” terminology is still commonplace in engineering education and industry. However, questions have been raised about the negative impacts of such language. Usage of exclusionary terminology such as “master-slave” in academia can make students—especially those who identify as women and/or Black/African-American—feel uncomfortable, potentially evoking Stereotype Threat (Danowitz, 2020) and/or Curriculum Trauma (Buul, 2020). Indeed, prior research shows that students from a number of backgrounds find non-inclusive terminologies such as “master-slave” to be a major problem (Danowitz, 2020). Currently, women-identifying and gender …

Transnational Latinx Youths’ Workplace Funds Of Knowledge And Implications For Assets-Based, Equity-Oriented Engineering Education, Amy Wilson-Lopez, Jorge Acosta-Feliz

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

Due to economic inequality in society, millions of Latinx high school youth work after-school jobs and summer jobs in order to provide additional income for their families. The purpose of this qualitative study, conducted with transnational Latinx youth, was to identify the engineering-related skills and bodies of knowledge they developed and applied while in different workplaces. This study is framed in complementary theories of funds of knowledge, Vygotskian theories of mediated action, and theories of resistant capital. Specifically, this study is based in the premise that youth can develop engineering-related funds of knowledge through tool-mediated, goal-directed activities jointly conducted with …

The Ingenuity Of Everyday Practice: A Framework For Justice-Centered Identity Work In Engineering In The Middle Grades, Angela M. Calabrese Barton, Kathleen Schenkel, Edna Tan

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

Inequities in opportunities to learn and become in engineering, especially for minoritized youth, are enduring and systemic. How students experience engineering education, through curriculum, pedagogy, and teacher/student interactions, all shape opportunities for identity development. In this paper we draw upon cultural studies and critical ethnography to explore how and why students engage in engineering for sustainable communities and its relationship to their identity work. We ground our work in a justice-centered asset-based stance that centers how people’s lived lives and community wisdom yield powerful forms of cultural knowledge/practice relevant to learning and engaging in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. We …

Elementary Teacher Adaptations To Engineering Curricula To Leverage Student And Community Resources, Jennifer L. Chiu, Sarah J. Fick, Kevin W. Mcelhaney, Nonye Alozie, Reina Fujii

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

This paper addresses an important consideration for promoting equitable engineering instruction: understanding how teachers contextualize curricular materials to draw upon student and community resources. We present a descriptive case study of two 5th grade teachers who co-designed a Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)-aligned curricular unit that integrated science, engineering, and computational modeling. The five-week project challenged students to redesign their school grounds to reduce water runoff and increase accessibility for students with disabilities. The teachers implemented the project with one Grade 5 class with a large proportion of students having individualized learning plans and cultural backgrounds minoritized in science, technology, …

Equitizing Engineering Education By Valuing Children’S Assets: Including Empathy And An Ethic Of Care When Considering Trade-Offs After Design Failures, Pamela S. Lottero-Perdue, John Settlage

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

The broad case being made in this paper is that recognizing student assets—rather than focusing on deficits—is essential for making engineering education more equitable. The paper begins with our exploration of an epistemic practice of engineering, ‘‘making trade-offs,’’ as enacted by kindergartners after experiencing design failure and during redesign. We then acknowledge through a reexamination of data that our understanding of children’s grappling about a trade-off was incomplete without considering another asset that children brought to the design experience: ‘‘enacting empathy and an ethic of care.’’ We argue for the inclusion of this asset as an epistemic practice of engineering. …

Reflections On Asset-Based Pre-College Engineering Education To Promote Equity: An Introduction To The Special Issue, Lee Martin, Kristen B. Wendell

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

In our call for proposals, we argued that engineering education is in need of a paradigm shift that takes students’ assets as epistemologically primary to our conception of what engineering, and engineering education, can and should be. The 12 papers collected in this special issue show how a focus on youth assets can realign engineering education to be more humane, more inclusive, and just as meaningful as that of a traditional model. The papers offer both theoretical argumentation and empirical evidence to support their answers to the question of how asset-based approaches can improve engineering education. An emergent theme in …

Stem Education In The Early Childhood Classroom, Julia Biagiotti

Honors Program Theses and Projects

This qualitative study focuses on the type of STEM education students are getting at the early childhood level (PK-2). Based on gaps found in literature, an interview protocol was created and six participants with various careers in the field of STEM education were interviewed. The research was concentrated on trying to determine what components of STEM education make it successful in the early childhood classroom. All of the interview responses were analyzed and coded and determined the results found below. A few integral parts of a successful STEM education seem to be curiosity, asking questions and a hands-on component, but …

Contributing To Engineering Colleges Students' Development Through Out-Of-Class Involvement: A Survey Of Chinese Private Colleges' Engineering Students, Wanlu Li

Education (PhD) Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the primary characteristics of engineering college students’ involvement in out-of-class activities (OA) at one private college in China through the use of the translated and culturally adapted Chinese version of the Postsecondary Student Engagement Survey (PosSES 2.1). This study provides the statistical analyses of the survey data completed by 283 senior engineering students on their perceptions about their levels of involvement related to positive/negative outcomes students perceive and affective engagement. Data results showed all levels of involvement have a significant influence on positive outcomes. Besides, active involvement degree, hours, and types of …

Design Of An Undergraduate Laboratory Experiment Utilizing A Stirred-Tank, Jacketed Bioreactor, Brennen Middleton

Honors Theses

Bioreactors are utilized in many industries, such as the food, alternative fuel, and pharmaceutical industries, to design and manufacture products. Unlike the similar chemical batch reactors utilized in many chemical processing facilities, bioreactor utilization requires engineers to consider a wider range of operating conditions and parameters. This results in a more complex reaction system and controls network. Due to this, it is imperative for chemical and biomedical engineering students to not only understand the theory surrounding these reactor systems, but also understand how to properly design and perform operating procedures with these systems. Thus, it was determined to create an …