Education Commons^™

Development Of First-Year Engineering Teams' Mathematical Models Through Linked Modeling And Simulation Projects, Kelsey Joy Rodgers

Open Access Dissertations

The development and use of mathematical models and simulations underlies much of the work of engineers. Mathematical models describe a situation or system through mathematics, quantification, and pattern identification. Simulations enable users to interact with models through manipulation of input variables and visualization of model outputs. Although modeling skills are fundamental, they are rarely explicitly taught in engineering. Model-eliciting activities (MEAs) represent a pedagogical approach used in engineering to teach students mathematical modeling skills through the development of a model to solve an authentic problem.

This study is an investigation into the impact of linking a MEA and a simulation-building …

A Standards-Based Grading Model To Predict Students' Success In A First-Year Engineering Course, Farshid Marbouti

Open Access Dissertations

Using predictive modeling methods, it is possible to identify at-risk students early in the semester and inform both the instructors and the students. While some universities have started to use standards-based grading, which has educational advantages over common score-based grading, at–risk prediction models have not been adapted to reap the benefits of standards-based grading. In this study, seven prediction models were compared to identify at-risk students in a course that used standards-based grading. When identifying at-risk students, it is important to minimize false negative (i.e., type II) errors while not increasing false positive (i.e., type I) errors significantly. To increase …