Engineering Education Commons^™

Insights From Two Decades Of P-12 Engineering Education Research, Cary I. Sneider, Mihir K. Ravel

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

The 21st century has seen a growing movement in the United States towards the adoption of engineering and technology as a complement to science education. Motivated by this shift, this article offers insights into engineering education for grades P-12, based on a landscape review of 263 empirical research studies spanning the two decades from January 2000 to June 2021. These insights are organized around three core themes: (1) students’ understandings, skills, and attitudes about engineering and technology; (2) effective methods of P-12 engineering education; and (3) benefits of P-12 engineering education. The insights are captured in the form of evidence-based …

Transforming Technology & Engineering Educator Inputs Into Desired Student Outputs Through Mechanism Analysis And Synthesis, Andrew J. Hughes, Chris Merrill

Educational Leadership & Technology Faculty Publications

The intention of this article is to provide middle and high school Technology and Engineering Educators (T&EEs) with a more thorough understanding of an engineering approach to the teaching and learning of mechanics. During the teaching and learning of engineering content, in this case mechanics, the educator should attempt to align pedagogical content knowledge with engineering content knowledge and practices. T&EEs will also need to focus on terminology, structure, and applying theory to practical hands-on learning activities inside and outside of the classroom. T&EEs have the potential to foster middle and high school students’ mechanical knowledge and the ability to …

Scope Process: Fostering Students' Design Outcome Effectiveness, Andrew J. Hughes, Cameron D. Denson

Educational Leadership & Technology Faculty Publications

The purpose of this article is to help Technology and Engineering Educators scaffold engineering design and problem-solving experiences so that students taking technology and engineering courses will develop an improved ability to design. Technology and Engineering Education seems to increasingly focus on problem-solving, design, and engineering. Technology and Engineering Education is not the only discipline with this focus. The fact that both Science and Technology and Engineering Education are similarly focused on the teaching and learning of engineering begs the question of what separates technology and engineering educators from science educators in the teaching of engineering? Lewis (2004) cautioned that …

Mechanism Design And Analysis: Developing An Understanding Of Mechanism Motion Through Graphical Modeling, Andrew J. Hughes, Chris Merrill

Educational Leadership & Technology Faculty Publications

The intention of this article is to provide Technology and Engineering Educators with foundational knowledge of mechanism design and analysis and the ability to develop middle and high school students' mechanism knowledge during practical hands-on learning activities in the STEM classroom. Technology and Engineering Educators' implementation of mechanism design and analysis could promote students' increased depth of mechanical knowledge and ability to apply this knowledge during engineering design challenges. In this article, the authors present an introduction to four-bar mechanism design and analysis using CAD software to produce graphical representations. After designing mechanisms graphical, students should be allowed to produce …

The Identification Of Future Professional Skills For The Graduate Structural Engineer And The Co-Creation Of Their Definitions., Aimee Byrne, Una Beagon, Darren Carthy, Patrick Crean, Caitriona Depaor, Louise Lynch, Dervilla Niall

Conference Papers

Employers recognise that the future is changing and as such the structural engineer’s role is changing along with the skill set required. The skills gap has been acknowledged yet there is no consensus on which skills are most important for these engineers. This research presents the outcome of a project which proposes future professional skills needs for the structural engineer and the co-creation of their definitions. A review of the most recent relevant literature alongside chartership requirements of the Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE) and Engineers Ireland (EI), as well as consideration of three seminal consultation and analysis reports on …

Teaching Learning Newsletter Vol 1 Issue 3, Sastra Deemed To Be University

TLC Newsletter

No abstract provided.

The Influence Of Policy Implementation In The Midwest: How A Sstem Program Broadens Participation And Enhances Engineering Identity For Community College Students, Sarah L. Rodriguez, Maria L. Espino, Brian D. Le, Kelly J. Cunniham

Faculty Publications

This qualitative research study describes how a Midwest community college’s implementation of an Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (SSTEM) program influences engineering identity development for its students with financial need. Using a phenomenological approach, the study finds that the program enables community college students to have greater financial freedom and an ability to focus on engineering identity. In addition, the SSTEM program enhances student connections with STEM faculty, program staff, and peers. The study highlights the need for creating spaces for engineering identity development, developing connections between faculty, staff, and students, and enhancing transfer connections through different experiences. …

A Phenomenographic Study Of Academics Teaching In Engineering Programmes In Ireland: Conceptions Of Professional Skills And Approaches To Teaching Professional Skills, Una Beagon

Doctoral

Engineers play a central role in addressing the challenges which face society. However, the influence of globalisation, disruptive technological change and socially complex problems will greatly affect the way engineers work in the future.

As a result, there have been calls to embrace transformational change in engineering education, yet the literature reveals that many reform efforts have fallen short. Industry and society will therefore continue to look to Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to better prepare engineering graduates with the new skills needed to face the challenges of the future. Notwithstanding the critical and valued role that technical engineering subjects have …

Scaffolding Middle And High School Students’ Engineering Design Experiences: Quality Problem-Scopeing Promoting Successful Solutions, Andrew Hughes, Cameron Denson

Educational Leadership & Technology Faculty Publications

Highly proficient expert engineers begin the iterative process of design by thoroughly investigating the design problem. Engineering students are often distracted by surface details, leading to a faulty conception of the problem and inappropriate solution strategies. Adequate problem-scoping is arguably the most important step in the design process. To address this issue, the researchers developed an instructional framework to help teachers scaffold students’ cognitive and metacognitive processes during the problem-scoping phase of a design challenge. The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to investigate the impact that scaffolded instruction related to the SCOPE process had on students’ solution success during …

What Do Undergraduate Engineering Students And Preservice Teachers Learn By Collaborating And Teaching Engineering And Coding Through Robotics?, Jennifer Jill Kidd, Krishnanand Kaipa, Samuel J. Jacks, Stacie I. Ringleb, Pilar Pazos, Kristie Gutierrez, Orlando M. Ayala, Lillian Maria De Souza Almeida

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

This research paper presents preliminary results of an NSF-supported interdisciplinary collaboration between undergraduate engineering students and preservice teachers. The fields of engineering and elementary education share similar challenges when it comes to preparing undergraduate students for the new demands they will encounter in their profession. Engineering students need interprofessional skills that will help them value and negotiate the contributions of various disciplines while working on problems that require a multidisciplinary approach. Increasingly, the solutions to today's complex problems must integrate knowledge and practices from multiple disciplines and engineers must be able to recognize when expertise from outside their field can …

The Impact Of A Smartlab Implementation On Rural Schools In North Dakota, Tonya M. Greywind

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

This mixed methods quasi-experimental phenomenological study investigated the impact that a SmartLab® implementation had on four rural schools in the state of North Dakota. This study featured semi structured interview questions for facilitators, semi-structured focus group questions for students, and a digital literacy pre and post assessment (DLA) that was administered to students. This study looked at student learning in terms of twenty-first century skills, teacher and student perspectives in terms of student learning as well as teacher perspectives on the impact of the SmartLab® on their own teaching methods.

Two facilitators from two of the four schools were interviewed …

What's The Buzz?, Christine L. Moskalik

Professional Learning Day

A fun, interdisciplinary, hands-on activity with circuits, engineering, and bees Teachers will learn how to implement an activity with their students to explore circuit basics, energy transfer, and pollination through a hands-on toothbrush-bot activity that is coupled with a fun storyline involving honey bee communication and behavior.

Concrete Beam Design: Pouring The Foundation To Engineering In T&E Classrooms, Andrew J. Hughes, Chris Merrill

Educational Leadership & Technology Faculty Publications

Ask a middle or high school student if they could design a concrete beam that weighs only 20 pounds and is 36” long but must hold 600 pounds without failing. What is the student likely to say? What if the student was told that, with some optimized decision making based on relatively straightforward mathematics, their beam could hold 2400 pounds or more? The focus of this article is not on concrete beam design, it is rather an introduction to engineering principles in beam design using a lab activity. The concepts and skills learned in this article will lead students into …

Analyzing Concrete Beam Design: Verifying Predictions In T&Ee Classrooms, Andrew J. Hughes, Chris Merrill

Educational Leadership & Technology Faculty Publications

Design is often accepted as a fundamental aspect of engineering (Dym, et al., 2005). The design process is frequently portrayed as a set of steps. However, the design process is more complex than just a set of steps in a relatively fixed process. The complex nature of design, design thinking, questioning, and decision-making is exactly what technology and engineering classrooms are well suited to address. When addressing the question—“Why is technology and engineering education (T&EE) so important?”—the authors believe T&EE’s importance relates to our discipline’s ability to solve complex problems by balancing theory and practice in engaging hands-on learning scenarios …

Disassemble/Analyze/Assemble: How A Hands-On Engineering Project Affects High School Girls' Science/Engineering Self-Efficacy, Interest And Career Considerations, Jennifer Corbett Ferguson

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

Engineering education as part of the K-12 curriculum can be an effective instructional tool and its benefits include improved science and mathematical achievement as well as an increased interest and understanding of the engineering field, especially for female students. However, there is a serious lack of research-based engineering curriculum being used at the middle and high school levels and lessons most often rely on building or construction competitions. Over the past decade or two, many well-known colleges have implemented a reverse engineering instructional unit known as Disassemble/Analyze/Assemble projects within their introductory engineering courses. These units have been shown to improve …

Inclusion & Marginalization: How Perceptions Of Design Thinking Pedagogy Influence Computer, Electrical, And Software Engineering Identity, Sarah L. Rodriguez, Erin E. Doran, Rachel E. Friedensen, Elizabeth Martínez-Podolsky, Paul S. Hengesteg

Faculty Publications

Engineering identity plays a vital role in the persistence of engineering students, yet limited research exists on how particular pedagogical approaches influence engineering identity at the college level. This qualitative case study explored how undergraduate student perceptions of design thinking pedagogy influence computer, electrical, and software engineering identity. The study found that design thinking pedagogy reinforces the recognition of an engineering identity, particularly for those from historically marginalized groups (i.e., women, people of color). Intentional implementation, including organization and framing of design thinking pedagogy, was an essential foundation for fostering student interest in the course and connecting to their role …

Exploratory Learning Activities In The Physics Classroom: Contrasting Cases Versus A Rich Dataset., Campbell Rightmyer Bego

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In exploratory learning, students engage in an exploration activity on a new topic prior to instruction. This inversion of the traditional tell-then-practice order has been shown to benefit learning outcomes, especially conceptual knowledge and preparation for future learning, but not always. In three studies, the current work examines whether the type of exploration activity impacts learning mechanisms and outcomes, on the topic of gravitational field in undergraduate physics classrooms. Activities using either contrasting cases (CC) or a rich dataset (RD) are compared in two instructional orders, explore-first (EF) and instruct-first (IF). Learning outcomes measured procedural knowledge, conceptual knowledge, and performance …

Teaching Top-Down Approaches To The Engineering Design Process, Joshua E. Katz, Joshua E. Katz

STAR Program Research Presentations

One of the main focuses of metacognition is to have students think about their learning. By bringing the engineering design process with educational psychology together, it can lead to a society that thinks more in-depth on various topics. The goal of the internship was to utilize and teach top-down educational and instructional objectives. Throughout the project, we followed a modified progression of the System Architecture Methodology to help other interns think in a top-down fashion. The purpose of this procedure is to create and induce new innovative and creative ideas for different projects. As teaching this methodology was tasked, research …

”Cyberworld” As A Theme For A University-Wide First-Year Common Course, Kristen Przyborski, Frank Breitinger, Lauren Beck, Ronald S. Harichandran

Engineering and Applied Science Education Faculty Publications

Nowadays we all live in a cyber world and use the internet for emailing, banking, streaming video, shopping, reading news, or other activities. Given all the time people spend online, it is important that all students (regardless of their major) learn some basics about living in a cyber world, e.g., strategies for online safety, impact of artificial intelligence, digital forensics or ancestry.com. To facilitate students from many majors to learn about important issues related to the internet, eight faculty from a variety of disciplines at the University of New Haven integrated the theme of Cyber World into our team-taught, first-year …

On The Road To Flipping, Raji Lukkoor

Faculty Publications

The poster presentation will address the following topics: experience taking the Flip Workshop, How the instructor went from a “no” to a “yes” on considering implementing the flip, the frenzied list of activities that helped set up the framework for a mini-flip in approximately a week’s time, the actual development of content in under 4 weeks, and the role played by my support network.

Ignatian Pedagogy For Sustainability To Support Community-Based Projects: Client-Focused Sustainable Energy Solutions, Andrew Baruth

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

Seeing the words of Laudato Si’ as a call to action, we are engaging students in Ignatian Pedagogy for Sustainability through a series of community-based projects with the goal of client-focused sustainable energy solutions and associated dialogue. We outline the development of a purpose-created Energy Technology undergraduate program housed in the College of Arts and Sciences at Creighton University, born from Ignatian Sensibilities, and highlight the role of client engagement to engross students in a client-focused design process to deliver sustainable energy initiatives that become practically feasible with student leadership. For the senior capstone of this program, students engage in …

Study Of Physical Layer Security And Teaching Methods In Wireless Communications, Zhijian Xie, Christopher Horne

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

In most wireless channels, the signals propagate in all directions. For the communication between Alice and Bob, an Eavesdropper can receive the signals from both Alice and Bob as far as the Eavesdropper is in the range determined by the transmitting power. Through phased array antenna with beam tracking circuits or cooperative iteration, the signals are confined near the straight line connecting the positions of Alice and Bob, so it will largely reduce the valid placement of an Eavesdropper. Sometimes, this reduction can be prohibitive for Eavesdropper to wiretap the channel since the reduced space can be readily protected. Two …

Improving Introductory Computer Science Education With Draco, Mike Dongyub Ryu

Master's Theses

Today, many introductory computer science courses rely heavily on a specific programming language to convey fundamental programming concepts. For beginning students, the cognitive capacity required to operate with the syntactic forms of this language may overwhelm their ability to formulate a solution to a program.

We recognize that the introductory computer science courses can be more effective if they convey fundamental concepts without requiring the students to focus on the syntax of a programming language. To achieve this, we propose a new teaching method based on the Design Recipe and Code Outlining (DRaCO) processes. Our new pedagogy capitalizes on the …

A Comparative Analysis Of Holographic, 3d-Printed, And Computer-Generated Models: Implications For Engineering Technology Students' Spatial Visualization Ability, Petros J. Katsioloudis, Mildred V. Jones

STEMPS Faculty Publications

A number of studies indicate that the use of holographic displays can influence spatial visualization ability; however, research provides inconsistent results. Considering this, a quasi-experimental study was conducted to identify the existence of statistically significant effects on sectional view drawing ability due to the impacts of holographic displays. In particular, the study compared the use of three different types of displays: 3D printed model, computer generated model, and holographic model to determine whether a significant difference exists towards sectional view drawing ability, among engineering technology students. According to the results of this study, it is suggested that the impact of …

Engineering Identity Development: A Review Of Higher Education Literature, Sarah L. Rodriguez, Charles Lu, Morgan Bartlett

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this systematic literature review was to appraise and synthesize the current scholarship pertaining to engineering identity development within the higher education context and create recommendations for future scholarship within engineering education. A review of the literature concluded that research on engineering identity development has increased over the past ten years, has been conducted primarily with qualitative methods, and has been primarily limited to academic communities focused on mathematics, science, and engineering education. In addition, current scholarship reflected that most of the work in this area has focused on the learning contexts and experiences of women and underrepresented …

Life Is A Lab: Developing A Communication Research Lab For Undergraduate And Graduate Education, Autumn P. Edwards, Chad Edwards, Patric R. Spence

Journal of Communication Pedagogy

Tips offered center on classroom discourse, curriculum choices, and potential assignments. In this article, we present tips for creating a thriving undergraduate and graduate communication research lab. Based on our experiences developing and co-directing the Communication and Social Robotics Labs (CSRLs), we offer 10 best practices for acquiring resources and recognition, building a strong lab community, and attaining faculty and student goals for scholarship and beyond. Our overarching approach is framed by Dewey’s (1916) pragmatist educational metaphysic, which stresses student- and subject-centered learning, enlarging experiences, and the co-construction of meaning and knowledge. Although our labs are focused on human-machine communication …

Approaches To Integrating Engineering In Stem Units And Student Achievement Gains, Elizabeth A. Crotty, Selcen S. Guzey, Gillian H. Roehrig, Aran W. Glancy, Elizabeth A. Ring-Whalen, Tamara J. Moore

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

This study examined different approaches to integrating engineering practices in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curriculum units. These various approaches were correlated with student outcomes on engineering assessment items. There are numerous reform documents in the USA and around the world that emphasize the need to incorporate engineering into science education. The authors of this study contend that different approaches to integrating engineering in STEM units correlate to larger student achievement gains in engineering, based on assessment items developed from the Framework for Quality K–12 Engineering Education (Moore, Glancy, Tank, Kersten, & Smith, 2014). The goal of this work …

Flipping Stem Classrooms Collaboratively Across Campuses In California, Laura Sullivan-Green, Ravisha Mathur, Andrew Feinstein

Office of the Provost Scholarship

San José State University, in partnership with California State University-Los Angeles and Cal Poly Pomona, was awarded a prestigious 2015 First in the World grant, sponsored by the Department of Education. The multi-campus effort is focused on bringing the flipped classroom model to seven STEM gateway courses over three years that have high failure rates through collaborative efforts from faculty on the three partner campuses. SJSU, CSULA, and CPP are all designated Hispanic-Serving Institutions and Minority-Serving Institutions, though their demographics are very different. High impact practices like the flipped classroom approach have been shown to increase URM student success and …

Overview Of Game And Content Design For A Mobile Game That Will Prepare Students In Calculus And Physics Prerequisites To The Engineering Curriculum, Katherine Smith, John Shull, Patrick Sean Heaney, Yuzhong Shen, Anthony W. Dean, Jennifer G. Michaeli

VMASC Publications

As part of a research project which assists veterans as they exit the military, complete engineering degrees, and enter the workforce as engineering professionals, a range of serious games for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education is under development. The current focus of this development is CAPTIVATE, a serious game to assist student veterans in mastering the calculus and physics skills that are necessary prerequisites to the main engineering curriculum. Building on the development and lessons learned from MAVEN, a game developed previously to help student veterans master precalculus skills, the design and initial implementation for CAPTIVATE involves careful …

Effects Of Light Intensity On Spatial Visualization Ability, Petros J. Katsioloudis ., Mildred Jones

STEMPS Faculty Publications

A plethora of technological advances have happened since artificial illumination was developed by Thomas Edison. Like technology has had an effect in many areas in the modern civilization it also made a difference in the classroom. Nowadays, students can have instruction in classrooms with no external windows, even during gloomy winter or rainy days, and virtually during any hour of the day. Several lightning devices are being used, ranging from energy efficient LEDs to fluorescent lighting. Some forms of lighting methods have been found to be inappropriate for prolonged exposure to the human eye such as various gas-discharge lamps that …