Engineering Education Commons^™

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 …

Rare But Conceivable: Determining The Likelihood Of Meteors And Other Infrequent Events, Michael S. Schmidt, Maria Vega-Westhoff

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In the aftermath of a rare but devastating disaster, there is a tendency to overestimate how frequent such an event may be, hence a tendency to overestimate the risk associated with such an event. Those concerned with process safety will acknowledge that though rare, events like meteors, hurricanes, and airplane crashes that can impact chemical plants are conceivable. Typically, though, they have nothing more than feelings to decide whether these events are likely enough to be considered "credible." This compiles data from the literature for several "meteors," both natural and man-made, that often become a cause of general concern after …

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 …

Voices Of Our Students: Using Evidence-Based Methods To Inform A Multidisciplinary Engineering Program Design, Vicki Stieha, Noah Salzman, Amy J. Moll

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Listening carefully to our students and integrating the variables that matter to them is a step that we can take to increase the number of women and underrepresented minority graduates in engineering. This paper shares an evaluative case study as we report findings from data gathering tools guiding our continuous improvement process. The findings illuminate students’ perceptions of their engineering design course and curriculum. We conclude by discussing the pedagogical decisions the teaching team is making as a result of listening to our students’ voices.

Application Of Computational Tools To Spaghetti-Based Truss Bridge Design, Jin Xu, Jiliang Li, Nuri Zeytinoglu, Jinyuan Zhai

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

Application of Computational Tools to Spaghetti-Based Truss Design

Statics and Strength of Materials are two foundational courses for Mechanical/Civil Engineering. In order to assist students in better understanding and applying concepts to a meaningful design task, SolidWorks and theoretical calculation were used for a spaghetti-bridge design contest with the constraints of given maximum weight and allowable support-material weight. As the first step of this iterative designing process, both extrude feature and structural member were introduced to model planar bridge trusses. Then SolidWorks’ Statics module was used to run FEA analysis of the structural performance in efforts to optimize the …

The Redshirt In Engineering Consortium: Progress And Early Insights, Janet Callahan, Donna C. Llewellyn, Ann E. Delaney

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The NSF-funded Redshirt in Engineering Consortium was formed in 2016 with the goal of enhancing the ability of academically talented but underprepared students coming from lowincome backgrounds to successfully graduate with engineering degrees. The Consortium takes its name from the practice of redshirting in college athletics, with the idea of providing an extra year and support to help promising engineering students complete a bachelor’s degree. The Consortium builds on the success of three existing “academic redshirt” programs and expands the model to three new schools. The Existing Redshirt Institutions (ERIs) help mentor and train the new Student Success Partners (SSPs), …

Encouraging A Growth Mindset In Engineering Students, Megan Frary

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

A person’s “mindset” guides a great deal of how one approaches life -- and especially how students approach education. While someone with a fixed mindset believes that their intelligence is fixed and unchangeable, someone with a growth mindset believes that their intelligence is changeable and can grow as they learn more. Most people’s mindset lies along a spectrum with these two extremes at either end. In addition to other outcomes, the mindset that a person has determines how they interpret mistakes they make; whereas someone with a fixed mindset thinks mistakes result from their innate lack of ability, someone with …

Work In Progress: Institutional Context And The Implementation Of The Redshirt In Engineering Model At Six Universities, Ann Delaney, Donna C. Llewellyn, Janet Callahan

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Low-income students are underrepresented in engineering and are more likely to struggle in engineering programs. Such students may be academically talented and perform well in high school, but may have relatively weak academic preparation for college compared to students who attended better-resourced schools. Four-year engineering and computer science curricula are designed for students who are calculus-ready, but many students who are eager to become engineers or computer scientists need additional time and support to succeed. The NSF-funded Redshirt in Engineering Consortium was formed in 2016 as a collaborative effort to build on the success of three existing “academic Redshirt” programs …

Next Generation Protocol: Innovating A Resilient Future, Andrew Steven Rudnick, Jamie Cannady, Joe Decesaro, Juan A. Ortiz Salazar

Materials Engineering

Conventional practices do not account for product life beyond end-of-sale – these practices are not sustainable. We have developed an end-of-life protocol that includes a metric that we call the Recovery Rating. The objectives of this Next Generation Protocol, beyond supporting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, are to encourage the production of goods designed for recovery and to promote the collaboration between consumers, the public, and the private sector to recover goods at their end-of-life. The Recovery Rating that we propose evaluates and quantifies recovery potential of products. The Recovery Rating, which is normed against embodied energy from the …

Redshirt In Engineering: A Model For Improving Equity And Inclusion, Donna C. Llewellyn, Ann Delaney, Janet Callahan

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The NSF-funded Redshirt in Engineering Consortium was formed in 2016 with the goal of enhancing the ability of academically talented but underprepared students coming from low-income backgrounds to successfully graduate with engineering degrees. The Consortium takes its name from the practice of redshirting in college athletics, with the idea of providing an extra year and support to help promising engineering students complete a bachelor’s degree. The Consortium builds on the success of three existing “academic redshirt” programs and expands the model to three new schools. The Existing Redshirt Institutions (ERIs) help mentor and train the new Student Success Partners (SSP), …

Hawai'i Wildlife Fund V. County Of Maui, Lowell J. Chandler

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In Hawai’i Wildlife Fund v. County of Maui, the Ninth Circuit held that the plain language of the Clean Water Act provides jurisdiction over indirect discharges of pollutants from a point source into groundwater that is shown to be connected to navigable waters. The court found that studies confirmed pollutants entering the Pacific Ocean were fairly traceable to the County of Maui’s sewage disposal wells. In affirming the district court’s ruling, the Ninth Circuit held that Maui County violated the Clean Water Act by discharging pollutants into a navigable water without the required permit. The court also concluded the …

Listening And Negotiation Ii, Adjo A. Amekudzi-Kennedy, Kevin D. Hall, Trevor Scott Harding, Amy J. Moll, Janet Callahan

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper is based on a panel held in June, 2017 in Columbus, Ohio, jointly sponsored by the Women in Engineering Division and by the Minorities in Engineering Division. It is focused on negotiation, with an emphasis on providing practical strategies that are relevant in an academic setting. The panel featured academic leaders at multiple levels, including professor, chair and dean, from diverse engineering institutions, ranging from teaching-centric to heavily research-focused. Panelists discussed strategies for negotiation, with an emphasis on an approach that meets the interests of both parties to the extent possible. The panel was administrated with an opening …

Establishing Doctoral Programs In Electrical Engineering, Materials Science And Engineering, And Computing In An Emerging Research Institution: Lessons Learned And Best Practices, Janet Callahan, Cheryl B. Schrader, Darryl P. Butt, Timothy Anderson, Tammi Vacha-Hasse, Amy J. Moll

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Over the past decade, three doctoral programs have been launched at Boise State University. The first doctoral program established was in Electrical and Computer Engineering, selected because of the need for a trained workforce in the region. The other two doctoral programs, Materials Science and Engineering, and Computing, were from the start designed as interdisciplinary degree programs. That is, they were designed for the participation of not just program faculty within the division, but for the participation of program faculty with related research interests in other departments at the university. This paper presents the steps taken to launch the programs, …

Ten Years Later: Where Are They Now?, Janet Callahan, Donna C. Llewellyn, Vicki Stieha, Ann E. Delaney

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper explores the educational and career trajectories of the alumnae of an outreach activity for girls. The outreach activity was originally developed using an integrated marketing approach to attract girls into engineering programs.¹ The program, a two day, overnight experience for rising 9^th, 10^th and 11^th grade girls, focuses on showcasing engineering as an exciting, creative activity, including activities developed from that perspective. Started in 2005 and held annually since then, a total of over 500 girls have participated, with approximately 85% of them coming from Boise State University’s immediate metropolitan area. Facilitated by …

Tensile Specimen Punch, John Allen

All Undergraduate Projects

This project comes from a need to have tensile specimens made for the MET 351, Metallurgy/Materials and Processes, and 426, Applied Strengths of Materials, labs. This punch is designed to be used with an arbor press to create the desired tensile specimen shape out of plastic blanks. The initial concept was suggested by Dr. Craig Johnson. The designs went through many changes, for example getting rid of the sides originally proposed to hold the specimen in place, and modifications to other parts to make them more efficient. Additional parts were also added to the design with the help and advice …

The Impact Of Volunteering At A Girls Outreach Activity On Community Formation, Donna C. Llewellyn, Janet Callahan, Amy J. Moll, Catherine Rose Bates

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper is focused on exploring the motivation for volunteering at an engineering outreach activity. The outreach activity itself involved a two day, overnight experience for 9th and 10th grade girls that started in 2005, and which has been held annually since that time. The outreach event takes place in Boise, Idaho, and at the time of its onset was the only outreach or camp activity in the state focused on girls or young women. Across ten years, 510 total girls have participated, with approximately 85% of them coming from the immediate metropolitan area. The program was developed with a …

Listening And Negotiation, Janet Callahan, Mary E. Besterfield-Sacre, Jenna P. Carpenter, Kim Lascola Needy, Cheryl B. Schrader

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Negotiation is an important skill for faculty at all stages of their career, but one that research suggests is often uncomfortable for women faculty to employ. This paper focuses on the topic of negotiation, with an emphasis on providing practical ideas and strategies relevant to academic professionals at both entry-level and mid-career who find that they need to negotiate a career opportunity. The paper will review negotiation basics, as well as discuss what can be negotiated, how one might proceed to discuss these, and how listening is critical to negotiation. By viewing negotiation as a "wise agreement"¹ that seeks …

Support Model For Transfer Students Utilizing The Stem Scholarship Program, Lynn Olson, Amy J. Moll, Doug Bullock, Amit Jain, Janet Callahan

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper describes how the College of Engineering at Boise State University utilized a National Science Foundation S-STEM award from 2011 to 2016 to support transfer students in their path toward graduation. The need for this support was a result of both Boise State University College of Engineering’s transition from a 2-year pre-engineering program to the establishment of Bachelors of Science in Engineering Degree programs in 1997 as well as the establishment of the College of Western Idaho as a regional community college in 2007. Both of these factors led to an increase in the numbers of incoming engineering students …

Revealing Student Misconceptions And Instructor Blind Spots With Muddiest Point Formative Feedback, Cindy Waters, Stephen J. Krause, Janet Callahan, Barry Dupen, Mary B. Vollaro, Peggie Weeks

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Of interest to all engineering disciplines, well-designed formative feedback has the potential to enhance both instructor teaching and student learning. Delivering fundamental courses year after year, can ultimately lead faculty to use stale notes or slides from past years. This approach may save time, but does not meet the shifting needs of our students who have high expectations from their instructors. One simple method to improve teaching is to employ muddiest point reflections. Muddiest point reflections involve simply asking students to anonymously reflect on what was “muddy”, i.e. confusing, during class and to rank their level of confusion which not …

Nanohub.Org: A Gateway To Undergraduate Simulation-Based Research In Materials Science And Related Fields, Tanya A. Faltens, Peter A. Bermel, Amanda Buckles, K Anna Douglas, Alejandro H. Strachan, Lynn K. Zentner, Gerhard Klimeck

Birck and NCN Publications

Our future engineers and scientists will likely be required to use advanced simulations to solve many of tomorrow's challenges in nanotechnology. To prepare students to meet this need, the Network for Computational Nanotechnology (NCN) provides simulation-focused research experiences for undergraduates at an early point in their educational path, to increase the likelihood that they will ultimately complete a doctoral program. The NCN summer research program currently serves over 20 undergraduate students per year who are recruited nationwide, and selected by NCN and the faculty for aptitude in their chosen field within STEM, as well as complementary skills such as coding …

Creating A Stem Identity: Investment With Return, Janet Callahan, Patricia Pyke, Susan Shadle, R. Eric Landrum

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Establishing a strong STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) identity at Boise State University, a metropolitan campus with approximately 3,655 undergraduate STEM students and a total undergraduate enrollment of approximately 19,042 (16,136 FTE) has been an important step toward creating a climate conducive to facilitating fundamental change. Examples of such change include building collaborations among faculty within and across departments, establishing the identity of students as part of a community beyond their chosen major, improving the efficiency and effectiveness of university systems, and perhaps most importantly, developing a framework to think deliberately about ways to effect change. This paper is …

A Comparison Of Two Engineering Outreach Programs For Adolescents, Louis S. Nadelson, Janet M. Callahan

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

There is continued growth and development of outreach programs designed to increase pre-college students’ awareness and understanding of engineering as a profession and as a career. These outreach programs vary in format and in the groups targeted for participation but maintain the same fundamental goal of increasing participant knowledge of engineering. Many of these outreach programs also maintain the implicit goal of increasing the participants' knowledge and attitudes toward college. The additional resources and funding that are commonly allocated to support outreach programs frequently involve documenting accountability which motivates evaluation of program impact. Therefore, many outreach events include program evaluation …

An Investigation Of Students’ Conceptual Understanding In Related Sophomore To Graduate-Level Engineering And Mechanics Courses, Devlin Montfort, Shane Brown, David Pollock

Faculty Publications - Biomedical, Mechanical, and Civil Engineering

Interviews were conducted with students from a sophomore-level mechanics of materials class, a sophomore/junior-level structures class, a senior-level steel design class and a graduate-level advanced steel design class to investigate students’ conceptual understanding of bending and normal stress. The graduate students generally demonstrated higher computational skill and confidence but they were not significantly different from the sophomores in terms of conceptual understanding. Interestingly, the seniors showed markedly lower confidence in their ability to solve the problems posed in the interviews. Common difficulties include a conceptual definition of stress and reasoning involving the normal stresses developed under bending.

Enhancing Precalculus Curricula With E-Learning: Implementation And Assessment, Janet Callahan, Seung Youn Chyung, Joanna Guild, William Clement, Joe Guarino, Doug Bullock, Cheryl Schrader

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

During Fall semester of 2007, a semester-long, quasi-experimental study was conducted at Boise State University to investigate the effectiveness of a systematically sequenced and managed, self-paced e-learning activity on improving students’ academic performance and motivation. A total of 125 students enrolled in 3 different sections of a Precalculus class participated in the study. The e-learning activity was implemented in 2 of the 3 sections as a required homework assignment. Students enrolled in one of the 2 selected sections were all engineering majors. The 3^rd section was a control group that did not use the e-learning activity. A pre-test, measuring …

Engineering Project Laboratory Modules For An Introduction To Materials Course, Stacy Gleixner, Elliot Douglas, Olivia Graeve

Faculty Publications

The final results of curriculum development under an NSF, CCLI-EMD sponsored project, “Development of Project-Based Introductory to Materials Engineering Modules” (DUE # #0341633) is discussed. A multi-university team of faculty developed five lecture and three laboratory modules for use in Introductory to Materials courses. This course is required by most engineering programs in the U.S., with an annual enrollment of 50,000 students.1 This freshman/ sophomore class is an ideal place to excite students about their engineering majors and expose them to real world engineering problems. PRIME Modules, Project Based Resources for Introduction to Materials Engineering, utilize modern materials science and …

Prime Modules: Teaching Introduction To Materials Engineering In The Context Of Modern Technologies, Stacy Gleixner, Elliot Douglas, Olivia Graeve

Faculty Publications

This paper discusses the progress of curriculum development under an NSF, CCLI-EMD sponsored work, “Development of Project-Based Introductory to Materials Engineering Modules” (DUE # #0341633). A multi-university team of faculty is developing five lecture modules for use in Introductory to Materials courses. This course is required by most engineering programs in the U.S., with an annual enrollment of 50,000 students. This freshman/ sophomore class is an ideal place to excite students about their engineering majors and expose them to real world engineering experiences. PRIME Modules are being developed that teach the fundamentals of a traditional introduction to materials engineering course …

Project-Based Introductory To Materials Engineering Modules On Biomaterials, Solid Oxide Fuel Cells, Non-Volatile Memory, And Fiber Reinforced Plastics, Stacy Gleixner, Elliot Douglas, Olivia Graeve

Faculty Publications

PRIME Modules, Project Based Resources for Introduction to Materials Engineering, are being developed that utilize modern materials science and engineering technologies and proven education methodologies of active learning and open ended projects. The modules are designed for use in a freshmen/ sophomore level Introduction to Materials Engineering course. This course is required by most engineering programs and is an ideal place to excite students about their engineering majors and expose them to real world engineering experiences. Currently four of the classroom modules have been developed and utilized in Introduction to Materials classes. There is a non-volatile memory module where students …

Development Of Project-Based Introductory To Materials Engineering Modules, Stacy Gleixner, Elliot Douglas, Olivia Graeve, Hilary Lackritz, Laura Demsetz, Amy Moll

Faculty Publications

This paper will discuss the progress of curriculum development under an NSF, CCLI-EMD sponsored work, “Development of Project-Based Introductory to Materials Engineering Modules” (DUE # #0341633). A multi-university team of faculty are developing six lecture and three laboratory modules for use in Introductory to Materials courses. This course is required by most engineering programs in the U.S., with an annual enrollment of 50,000 students. This freshman/ sophomore class is an ideal place to excite students about their engineering majors and expose them to engineering design experiences. PRIME Modules, Project Based Resources for Introduction to Materials Engineering, are being developed that …

Use Of Collaborative Learning Exercises To Increase Student Motivation And Learning In An Introduction To Materials Engineering Course, Stacy Gleixner, Hilary Lackritz

Faculty Publications

A collection of collaborative, in-class exercises have been designed for use in a freshmen/sophomore level Introduction to Materials Science and Engineering class. The activities are team based problems that include open ended design problems, calculation questions, and thought problems on unanswered research questions. The activities have been designed with the goal of having one or two a week embedded in a more traditional lecture setting. The exercises relate to the topics covered in most standard Introduction to Materials classes (crystal structure, mechanical properties, polymers, phase diagrams…). Each activity is designed specifically to engage the students in the lecture and excite …

Efficacy Of Interactive Internet-Based Education In Structural Timber Design, Aaron B. Henson, Kenneth J. Fridley, David Pollock, C Jayne Brahler

Faculty Publications - Biomedical, Mechanical, and Civil Engineering

While traditional teaching methods (e.g., real-time, synchronous lectures) have proven effective for training future engineers, the Internet provides an avenue to reinforce the material and augment student learning, comprehension, and retention of material. This paper presents the integration and assessment of a library of interactive instructional modules specifically for a senior-level undergraduate elective course in civil engineering. An ongoing, comprehensive assessment process was implemented in the fall 1999 semester. The results of this quantitative assessment indicate that the use of well designed and pedagogically sound Internet-based supplemental modules provide students with a better understanding of course material. However, when Internet-based …