P.K. Imbrie

The future of engineering education

Thirteen engineering educators and researchers were each asked to choose a particular aspect of engineerings future to address. Each of the authors has contributed a short piece that has been edited into a discussion of the future as we collectively see it. Topics include the stimulating change, the changing university, teaching, learning, research, outcome assessment and technology as well as a look back at predictions for 2000.

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.

Assessment of Team Effectiveness During Complex Mathematical Modeling Tasks

ABET requires that engineering graduates be able to work on multi-disciplinary teams and apply mathematics and science when solving engineering problems. One manner of integrating teamwork and engineering contexts in a first-year foundation engineering course is through the use of model-eliciting activities (MEAs) - realistic, client-driven problems based on the theoretical framework of models and modeling. This study analyzes student team self-reflections of team functioning while engaged in model-eliciting activities as they compare to a researchers observations of the team effectiveness. Both the self-reflections and the observations measure team effectiveness using the following qualities: interdependency (cooperation among team members to accomplish a task), goal-setting (team sets outcome goals and sub-goals to accomplish tasks), and potency (shared belief among team members that they can accomplish their goals)

First-year engineering students with dyslexia: Comparison of spatial visualization performance and attitudes

Student diversity in higher education tends to focus on gender, ethnicity/race, and socio-economic status. However, these factors do not address cognitive diversity. Cognitive diversity, within the context of this study, refers to the varying ability of brain functions such as reasoning and memory, excluding persons with a developmental disability. Students with learning disabilities (LD), specifically dyslexia, contribute to this cognitive diversity. This study aims to initiate scholarly research on academic success factors for First-Year Engineering (FYE) students with dyslexia. FYE student performances on the Purdue Spatial Visualization Test-Rotations (PSVT-R) and Student Attitudinal Success Instrument (SASI) have been found to be predictors of academic success in engineering. A preliminary analysis of entering FYE student performance on the PSVT-R and SASI is conducted for three populations: students with dyslexia, students with a LD, and students without a LD. The anticipated findings will support the inclusion of cognitive ability, with an emphasis on LD and dyslexia, in FYE engineering diversity programs.

Engaging faculty in active/cooperative learning

The Foundation Coalition has been providing leadership in improving engineering teaching and learning in a variety of ways, but especially in active and cooperative learning (ACL). Over 1000 copies of a one-page overview of ACL have been distributed, and it seems to help faculty members get over the activation energy barrier and get started. A CD-ROM and web site (http://clte.asu.edu/active) have been created to help provide further guidance. The site offers advice from engineering faculty on preparing students for teamwork, planning lessons and activities, and managing and assessing cooperative work. It also contains content-specific lessons and activities. This paper describes a process of deepening the development of materials to help faculty engage students in active and cooperative learning. We describe the initial framing around the five essential elements of a well-structured cooperative learning activity, the negotiation process to come up with topics for further development, the back-and-forth between individual and joint work, and the use of eproject for joint work. We will present the five works-in-progress and engage the audience in reflection and discussion about our approach and ideas for reaching more faculty members.

Tools to facilitate development of conceptual understanding in the first and second year of engineering

We want our students to understand and apply the concepts in each course. Therefore, we work hard to help our students master often-difficult concepts; however, our evaluation of their conceptual understanding often occurs simultaneously with evaluation of other learning goals through use of traditional problem-solving tests. Seldom do we measure pre-to-post learning gains. Often, instruments that would facilitate pre-to-post learning evaluation are not available. Creation, development, and use of such instruments would likely promote constructive conversations between engineering students and faculty members. Assessment instruments that have been designed to evaluate only conceptual understanding are often referred to as concept inventories, following a convention established by the Force Concept Inventory. Concept inventories have a range of possible uses, e.g., a pre-course diagnostic to understand conceptual understanding of students at the beginning of a course, early course formative assessment to guide instructional planning, summative assessment to evaluate conceptual understanding at the end of the course, and pre-post assessment to aid evaluation of instructional strategies. Concept inventories have been used at both course and program levels. What distinguishes concept inventories from typical engineering course assessment methods is focus on a small set of key constructs, focus on a specific domain of academic content, and focus on conceptual understanding or qualitative reasoning, as opposed to computational problem solving. Considerable scholarship informs selection of the situations, formulation of the question, and development of plausible distracters. During the workshop, participants will (i) be provided an overview of research on conceptual understanding, (ii) be provided an overview of the historical development of concept inventories, (iii) engage in activities to describe effective uses and some misuses of concept inventories in their courses, (iv) learn how to access existing concept inventories via the developing ciHUB.org platform, (v) discuss psychometric properties of existing instruments, (vi) learn how psychometric analysis can aid development of concept inventories, and (vii) have opportunities to become active members in a growing community of users.

The elephant in the room First-year engineering students discuss diversity

This work in progress presents a developmental model representing the ability of students to negotiate shared meanings with cultural others in order to build sustainable and mutually beneficial partnerships. The goal of this research is to locate students within this continuum and provide a student-centered starting point in the ways students construct meaning around cultural differences. This paper uses a qualitative inquiry and analysis methodology with a focus on first-year engineering students at a large Midwestern public university and a similar large public university in Australia. The data collected were interviews and focus group discussions probing their experiences with cultural differences. Initial findings demonstrate that in order for students to be able to acknowledge and express their understanding of differences, they need and want models, tools and techniques to be able to communicate their thoughts about cultural differences and to negotiate bridges of mutual understanding. Student interviews in the US reflected more polarizing messages while focus groups in Australia generated more minimizing messages. Engineering educators encourage students to approach and explore both their own cultures (self-knowledge), internal dialogues and other cultures (perceived through the students own cultural lenses), and the language they use to describe others.