Judith S. Zawojewski

A framework for posing open-ended engineering problems: model-eliciting activities

Integrating more engineering contexts, introducing advanced engineering topics, addressing multiple ABET criteria, and serving under-represented student populations in foundation engineering courses are some of the opportunities realized by the use of a new framework for developing real-world client-driven problems. These problems are called model-eliciting activities (MEAs), and they are based on the models and modeling perspective developed in mathematics education. Through a NSF-HRD gender equity project that has funded the development, use, and study of MEAs in undergraduate engineering courses for increasing womens interest in engineering, we have found that the MEA framework fosters significant change in the way engineering faculty think about their teaching and their students. In this paper, we will present the six principles that guide the development of an MEA, detail our motivation for using the MEA framework to construct open-ended problems, and discuss the opportunities and challenges to creating, implementing, and assessing MEAs.

Problem Solving Versus Modeling

This chapter is the third in a series intended to prompt discussion and debate in the Problem Solving vs. Modeling Theme Group. The chapter addresses distinctions between problem solving and modeling as a means to understand and conduct research by considering three main issues: What constitutes a problem-solving vs. modeling task?; What constitutes problem-solving vs. modeling processes?; and What are some implications for research?

Five Principles for Supporting Design Activity

When educators have access to highly supported and field-tested design activities, the act of planning for implementation itself is a creative design process in need of support. Five principles for supporting well-established design activities are presented in this chapter. The central focus of the principles is to maintain students’ engagement in the foundational design process: cycles of expressing, testing and revising the object under design. The type of design activity selected to illustrate the meaning and application of the principles is model design, due to its importance in the disciplines of science and mathematics and its current emphasis in the Next Generation Science Standards and the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. Selected model-eliciting activities (MEAs) are used for illustration of the five principles because the core design activity for each has been developed using rigorous design principles and each involves a substantive science problem that requires students to mathematize some construct (i.e., design a model) to meet a client’s need. Further, given the selected MEAs have been utilized in a wide variety of settings (e.g., urban, rural, suburban, gifted, support programs) at levels ranging in from middle school to college, they provide a context in which to exemplify the usefulness of the five principles for adapting core design activities to a variety of settings and levels.

Interactive session model-eliciting activities: a framework for posing open-ended engineering problems

This interactive session is for engineering and technology faculty interested in curriculum reform, real-world engineering problem-solving, addressing ABET criteria, and empowering under-represented populations of students. Participants will take part in a model-eliciting activity (MEA) group problem-solving session and learn the fundamental principles for developing a MEA. Participants will gain an understanding of the process involved in making advanced engineering content accessible to undergraduate students through a well-formulated MEA. They will also map the components of a MEA to the ABET criteria and learn how MEAs serve under-represented populations.

Initiating a Programmatic Assessment Report.

Abstract In the context of a department of applied mathematics, a program assessment was conducted to assess the departmental goal of enabling undergraduate students to recognize, appreciate, and apply the power of computational tools in solving mathematical problems that cannot be solved by hand, or would require extensive and tedious hand computation. A test was designed and administered in order to discover whether students are adept at thinking computationally at various levels of mathematical maturity in the program. The results were explained by the mathematical maturation that goes hand-in-hand with the development of computational thinking.