Edward J. Berger

Effects of sensilla morphology on mechanosensory sensitivity in the crayfish

Crustaceans contain a great variety of sensilla along their antennules that enable them to sense both hydrodynamic and chemical stimuli in aquatic environments, and can be used to inspire the design of engineered sensing systems. For example, along the antennule of the freshwater crayfish, Procambarus clarkii, four predominant mechanosensory sensilla morphologies are found. To study their response to upstream flow perturbations, atomic force microscopy was utilized to determine P. clarkii sensilla bending in response to an applied force and a mean torsional stiffness, k(t) = 1 × 10(-12) N m degree(-1) was found. A numerical model was developed to quantify the deformation of the four sensilla morphologies due to flow perturbations within their surrounding fluid. These flow perturbations were intended to mimic predator and ambient fluid movements. Results show that upstream fluid motion causes alterations in velocity near the sensilla, accompanied by corresponding variations in pressure along the sensilla surface. The feathered and filamentous sensilla, which are hydrodynamic sensilla, were found to be highly sensitive to flow perturbations. The beaked and asymmetric sensilla, which are bimodal chemo-mechanoreceptors, were found to be much less sensitive to hydrodynamic disturbances. Results also show that sensilla are most sensitive to fluid movement in the along-axis plane of the antennule, with a sharp drop in sensitivity perpendicular to this axis. This sensitivity agrees well with neural responses measured directly from the paired sensory neurons associated with each sensillum. Greater along-axis sensitivity is likely beneficial for determining the direction of fluid movements, which may be important for both aquatic organisms and biomimetic sensing systems.

HigherEd 2.0: Web 2.0 in Higher Education

The web 2.0 era, which began in the mid-2000’s, has ushered in unprecedented opportunities for individuals to author and share content, to amplify their voice, and to generally share information in a rapid and platform-independent way. Throughout the past five years, both blogging and video have become completely mainstream as a result of powerful browser-based platforms such as Wordpress (blogging) and YouTube (video sharing). Bandwidth has become largely ubiquitous, with high-speed wireless connections available in a huge variety of environments. And now, with the surging usage of smartphones and other mobile devices, users can capture video, upload it to YouTube, and share it via a link on their blog or a Twitter update, all from their phone and all within just a few minutes. In the future, the names of the tools may change, but the pervasiveness of powerful authoring and sharing tools will continue to be a primary part of the fabric of communication and social interactions.

Impact of a Student Affairs-Academic Partnership on Engineering Students' Academic Outcomes

This three-year study examined academic outcomes of students in an engineering school supported by two student support models: (a) a decentralized model typical of the institution and (b) a partnership model in which a student affairs professional was embedded within the engineering school. Descriptive statistics and a logistic regression model demonstrated differences in outcomes for students experiencing each model. Results indicate a statistically significant improvement in academic outcomes for students who experienced the partnership model.

Ritual as Work Strategy: A Window into Organizational Culture

Learning in cooperation and/or collaboration with others is embedded in many higher education settings. Research on learning communities of various types often focuses on academic performance and pedagogical and curriculum enhancements. Our intent was to explore the cultural aspects of peer-to-peer collaboration. We apply the analytic lens of ritual to understand how engineering majors manage this “betwixt and between” phase of their lives prior to graduation. Our ethnographic and survey data go beyond confirming the emergence of “communitas” (an egalitarian and collaborative community spirit) among these undergraduates, to examine its value, how it works, and why it is sustained. We argue that students learn and adopt various work strategies, many of which are collaborative efforts, in response to the engineering schools organizational culture. This research raises options for new collaborations to transform the organizational culture while enhancing student performance and the college experience.

Perspectives on pedagogical change: instructor and student experiences of a newly implemented undergraduate engineering dynamics curriculum

ABSTRACT Engineering education has been slow to adopt research-based educational innovations. Few prior works on such adoption have investigated the combined classroom experiences of instructors and students when such innovations are being implemented. Therefore, this work focuses on the lived experiences of an instructor and her students when adopting an active, blended, and collaborative learning environment, known as Freeform, in a second-year dynamics course. Weekly reflections from the instructor were processed alongside student interviews using Thematic Analysis to discern prominent themes in their perspectives for comparison and discussion. The results indicate that the instructor navigated internal tensions between her previous instructional preferences and the philosophy and resources of Freeform. Similarly, students had to adapt to this new philosophy and suite of resources that were uncommon for their institution. Ultimately, this work highlights the contextual natures of teaching and learning, and how situational factors can influence educational innovation.

Resource usage and usefulness: academic help-seeking behaviours of undergraduate engineering students

ABSTRACT Help-seeking behaviours (HSB) are central to the learning process and have a profound impact on academic success. We explore the HSB of students enrolled in a Mechanical Engineering programme at a large research-intensive university in the U.S. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, we examine ten resources available to assist students, the frequency with which students use these resources, the perceived usefulness of these resources and students’ stated rationale in seeking help from specific resources. Results indicate that students use the available resources at different frequencies, but the frequency with which a student uses a resource is not always related to how useful the student perceives the resource to be. Using Exploratory Factor Analysis, resources were divided into two main groups based on frequency of use, which we classify as ‘anchored’ or ‘detached’ based on temporal and spatial accessibility. Patterns emerge in student HSB showing that students access resources in a progression from more detached to more anchored resources. The primary explanatory variable to student HSB is convenience, defined by temporal and spatial accessibility. The more convenient a resource is perceived to be, the more likely a student is to use that resource.