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Engineering Leaders Conference 2014 on Engineering Education
- Conference date: 8-11 Nov 2014
- Location: Doha, Qatar
- Volume number: 2015
- Published: 29 August 2015
1 - 50 of 80 results
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Introduction to the Proceedings of the 2014 Engineering Leaders Conference
Authors: Hamid R. Parsaei and Nimir ElbashirFollowing the huge success story of the 2013 World Congress of Engineering Education, TexasA&M University at Qatar, in collaboration with our industry partner Maersk Oil Qatar, organizedthe 2014 Engineering Leaders Conference as an event to bring together Engineering Educationscholars from all over the world in one summit. The conference was held on November 8-11,2014 in the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Doha, Qatar. Over 350 people representing 28 countries fromsix continents attended this global event. This conference intended to provide a forum forresearchers, engineers and academicians from around the world to present and disseminate theirresearch results and development activities on engineering and STEM education. The conferencealso provided a platform to exchange ideas about effective techniques and pedagogies toprepare new generations of engineering leaders who will address global challenges.Many of our participants shared their findings and experience on how to motivate and engageyoung talent to choose STEM disciplines as career paths. One of our objectives in organizing the2014 Engineering Leaders conference was to bring together engineering and STEM educatorsfrom around the region and throughout the globe to further promote and exchange ideas anddiscuss experiences in STEM education, instructional excellence, engineering education research,the role of technology in engineering education, entrepreneurship, new models for collaborativeengineering education, and leadership.The Congress also intended to serve as a forum to encourage the involvement of corporatedecision makers, as well as public policy makers, to convey their opinion regarding the needsand type of theoretical and practical hands-on education the modern engineering graduate isexpected to possess. The conference included several plenary sessions and discussion groupsfor high profile scholars and industry leaders to provide insight in the future of EngineeringEducation. Future trends in STEM and engineering education and instructional quality, aswell as the resources required to deliver a world-class education, were some of the significantissues addressed by this annual event. The conference also showcased the advancements inengineering and STEM education in Qatar and Middle East and North African countries over thepast two decades.We received over 150 submissions and selected 78 of them for presentation and inclusion inthis proceedings.Again, we truly appreciate your submission and participation in this conference and lookforward to seeing you at the third conference in 2016. The editor of this proceeding wouldlike to acknowledge QScience for their support in developing and publishing the conferenceproceedings.
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A report on a university-wide internship scheme in higher education
Authors: Achilles Vairis, Kostas Loulakakis and Markos PetousisInternships in firms are becoming more widespread, either as an integral part of higher education courses, (ranging from engineering to accounting and social work), or are sought out by students themselves. This paper reports on a four-year period (2010-2013) of internship practice at a technological university on the Greek island of Crete – where internships are a compulsory part of undergraduate courses – and analyses the experiential-learning process as experienced by the students, academics and business managers. The particular internship programmes are described in terms of goals and procedures regarding employment conditions and assesses the students, employers and the process itself through questionnaires. Finally, recommendations are made for the future of internship programmes based on this assessment so as to benefit all stakeholders.
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Ethical issues in teaching at an American university in the Middle-East
Authors: Sami W. Tabsh, Hany A. El Kadi and Akmal S. AbdelfatahResponsibilities of faculty members generally focus on teaching, research, and service. Faculty members are expected to hold high standards of ethics while performing their duties. As teachers, faculty members are involved in the education of students and are responsible for supervising student work. They are expected to maintain competency in their field of concentration, conduct their courses in conformity with the content and format, and carry out classes and exams at the scheduled times and places. They should encourage honest academic conduct and make sure that student evaluation reflects their true performance. This paper discusses the results of a survey completed by faculty on issues related to faculty ethics at a university in the Middle-East. Results of the study showed that a large number of the faculty considered issues related to grade change to be serious. Preferred courses of action by senior faculty were stricter than those of junior faculty. No definite trend was observed between the responses of faculty based on their discipline. Female faculty and administrators were generally in favor of seeking information from the guilty faculty on issues involving dishonesty before taking the matter up to the higher administration.
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African American female engineering students' experience with stereotype threat: A narrative inquiry
More LessDue to the social context of engineering classrooms, stereotype threat (STT) may play an essential role in the dearth of AA females in engineering. Empirical studies have confirmed the deleterious effects STT has on students' performance. However, acceptance of STT as more than a laboratory phenomenon necessitates an in-depth understanding of how stigmatized groups experience being socially devalued and negatively stereotyped. In this qualitative investigation, the Critical Race Theory tenet of counter-storytelling is applied to capture the narratives of AA females to comprehend how they resist or overcome STT and persist in engineering. Data from semi-structured interviews is used to assess what meaning AA female engineering students construct of events that trigger or protect them from STT. Findings suggest that AA females in engineering are certainly experiencing STT. Preliminary analysis reveal five characteristic themes shared by the participants: (1) excessive competitiveness with other students, especially other females; (2) being ‘invisible’ or an aversion of being identified by their gender and/or race; (3) discomfort with uncaring and unwelcoming environments; (4) silence and (5) reliance on received knowledge.
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Factors pertaining to academic probation of engineering students: A case study
Authors: Abdullah Al-Badi, Joseph Jervase, Saleh Sanussi and Adel GastliEnsuring normal progression of students isof paramount importance due to its financial implications in a higher education institution. An indicator that reflects how well an institution is doing in this respect is in the number of students on probation. This study was conducted through a survey to determine the underlying factors that lead to academic probation by the students in order to help in recommending remedial measures. As a case study, the survey was carried out on students in the College of Engineering at Sultan Qaboos University (Oman) who were on academic probation by the end of fall semester. This study has revealed that failure in basic science courses is a major contributing factor. Other factors are the students' poor study habits, inability to concentrate and lack of academic advising in some cases. Recommended remedial measures include establishing drop-in centers to provide individual tutoring, and an advising unit in each department. A course on study skills and time management is recommended for all new students.
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Engineering ethics and professionalism education for a global practice
By Nael BarakatEngineering practice today has no geographical boundaries. When considering global challenges shared by all humans, collaboration between engineers around the globe becomes a requirement for the success of any proposed solution. Therefore, globally competent engineers are critical and needed in huge numbers to lead such collaborations. Nevertheless, preparing globally competent engineers requires equipping them with a solid and relevant technical base, coupled with a thorough and robust engineering ethics and professionalism understanding, which will allow them to quickly understand the human, societal, and local context of their practice, adapt to unexpected situations, and lead improvements and innovations. This set of skills in engineering, also known in the literature as soft or professional skills, falls within the area of engineering ethics and professionalism, which make up the umbrella covering all the qualitative and evolving aspects of engineering education and practice, and needed for leadership. These same aspects are prominently emphasized by accreditation standards for engineering education programs, like the accreditation criteria produced by ABET.
Literature includes many reports investigating the different issues related to global practice of engineering as well as attempts to formulate lists of attributes of a competent global engineer. The majority of these reports include common themes related to understanding and including the human and local context while practicing engineering, as well as the tools to handle this context gathered under the leadership skillset. A major reason is because most barriers to success in international engineering practice belong to this qualitative side of engineering and the context of practice.
This paper will discuss and summarize the common themes related to engineering ethics and professionalism education, for a global practice and leadership, and provide recommendations on the best practices to incorporate or update these themes in engineering education, based on multiple sources including the author's own research and findings.
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Applying Dale's Cone of Experience to increase learning and retention: A study of student learning in a foundational leadership course
Authors: Beverly Davis and Michele SummersThe goal of this study will be to examine how Edger Dale's Cone of Experience is employed to positively impact student learning in a foundational leadership course. To accomplish this we will examine student projects in a foundational leadership course at Purdue in which students interactively evaluate leadership by creating surveys, summarizing the results and developing a leadership guidebook with practical recommendations. In addition, the authors will survey students who have completed this project and measure student achievement of learning outcomes as defined as what the student should know and realistically be able to do by the end of the course. This approach will focus on a self-assessment survey to gather in-depth understanding of learning and the reasons that student learning occurred as a result application of Edger Dale's Cone of Experience. The results will be the why and how of learning and retention, not just what. This method will produce information only on this particular course but general conclusions about the application of student projects in any course or discipline will be inferred.
Our study will show that in the foundational leadership course effective learning was achieved by applying strategies at the bottom of the pyramid using direct, purposeful learning experiences that simulates “doing the real thing,” and represents reality or the closest things to real, every-day life.
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Using technology in engineering education
More LessWith the exponential rate of development in technology for delivering education, we now stand at the gateway of seeing sweeping changes in how the engineering students are educated in the 21st century. These techniques will need to be tailored to satisfy the needs of the generation of students who are now in college—better known as the millennial students. These students have some unique characteristics which make it difficult for them to derive maximum benefits from the traditional teaching methods with hour-long classroom lectures. They have developed short attention spans and so, when they are not interested in something, their attention quickly shifts somewhere else. As a result, their ideal learning environment has changed to shorter lectures, use of a variety of multimedia, and collaborating with their peers for maximum effectiveness. With the help of technology, it has been found that techniques such as the flipped classroom and on-line and hybrid offering of the class are helping today's students to become independent learners, an attribute that will be extremely useful in their future where lifelong learning has become an integral part of a person's working career.
For the past three years I have been offering two math-based courses as a hybrid class using the inverted classroom model. During this period, I have offered 15 sections to about 400 students with extreme success. In my presentation I will discuss the changes which I have made in my courses to teach them as a “paperless” class using technology. I will also relate my experiences with these courses and the improvement in results obtained from this change.
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Using online Moodle quizzes to support the teaching of mathematics to foundation engineering students
More LessSome first year engineering students lack basic knowledge of, and have a lack of engagement with the topics of foundation mathematics. This was clearly reflected on their low level of in-class interaction with the face-to-face lectures, and low marks in their final exams. The aim of this paper is to investigate the usefulness of online Moodle quizzes in improving and enhancing the teaching of mathematics to foundation engineering students. For this purpose, online Moodle quizzes with multiple-choice questions were developed and used to support the teaching and learning of foundation mathematics, help students during their exam revision, and improve their engagement with the topics of mathematics. The students had the opportunity to customize the online quizzes to their needs, control the topics and level of difficulty they want to study, and control their own pace and time of study during their revision before final exams.
The preliminary results from this research revealed an improvement of students' exam results compared to last year's results. More than 90% of the students felt positively about and commended the use of online Moodle quizzes, thought that online quizzes helped them learn mathematics, and prepared them during revision for their final exams.
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Developing a professional skills matrix for engineering students
More LessGraduates of engineering programs in today's globalized economy must be able to apply their technical knowledge in team-based environments where flexibility, communication, and cooperation are needed to solve problems that do not necessarily have well-defined technical boundaries. Despite the importance of soft skills, research indicates that students in engineering programs are not satisfied with the soft skills training they receive at the university level. In order to better integrate soft skills and technical knowledge in the university curriculum, the mode of instruction must veer away from traditional lecture-based models to more student-centered and project-based approaches.
At the Petroleum Institute (PI), an engineering university in Abu Dhabi, the identification of core professional skills is an ongoing process that involves the integration of technical knowledge with soft skills training to prepare graduates for work in the oil and gas industry. These skills include communication (oral, written, and graphical), teamwork, project management, critical thinking, and lifelong learning. Given the interdisciplinary and global nature of the industry, these skills are essential for engineers to be successful in the field.
This paper discusses the process of mapping the engineering professional skills across three curriculum levels in the Arts and Sciences Program at the PI. It also includes feedback from students who completed the target courses to show how they perceive the growth of their own professional skills as engineering students and their level of preparedness for work in the oil and gas industry.
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Chemical engineering curricula and challenges resulting from global megatrends
Authors: Norbert Kockmann, Philip Lutze and Andrzej GórakChemical processing industry is progressively focusing their research activities and product placements in the areas of global megatrends, such as mobility, energy, materials, or health care and nutrition. Innovation in all these fields requires solving highly complex problems, rapid product development as well as dealing with international competition. These factors should also be reflected in modern chemical and biochemical engineering curricula. At TU Dortmund University, chemical and biochemical engineering education has a long tradition in combining fundamental knowledge in natural science with engineering skills. Hence, the introductory course on chemical engineering presents the subject in view of the aforementioned global challenges and megatrends. The lecture and tutorials are accompanied by a group project. Here, already in the first semester, the students work on a subject related to a/or more than one megatrend and finalize this with poster presentation. Besides the fundamentals in chemical engineering and related subjects, problem-based learning - as well as design skills and problem-solving techniques - are utilized throughout later courses. In the final phase of the Bachelor curriculum, for example, a group of 8 to 10 students develop a complete production plant, starting from conceptual process design including reaction kinetics and separation units identification, to detailed engineering (plant layout), up to cost calculation. In the last phase of their studies, students are often directly involved in research projects for their Bachelor's or Master's thesis. With the final presentation and “defence” of their work, the students are well prepared for their industrial experience.
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Beyond professional development: The value proposition of multi-disciplinary networks for creating global engineers
Authors: Alexander T. Dale, Justin L. Hess, Robert E. Best and Erin R. LennoxNeither current engineering curricula, nor existing professional and international development organizations, will be sufficient to create engineers who can productively engage with the grand challenges and the ‘wicked’ problems in which they are embedded. There is a need to develop multi-disciplinary coursework and extracurricular learning experiences, and enacting these changes can benefit from a new type of institution, ‘topical networks’, that support local coursework and extracurricular activities and connect multiple stakeholders and disciplines around broad and important topics. We describe potential benefits to three core stakeholder groups - students, faculty, and universities - from engaging with such an organization, using the case study of Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW).
Networks help students by improving the resilience of local chapters and supporting projects through grants or mentorship, provide faculty with curriculum materials that can be localized to avoid designing bespoke courses in a resource-scarce environment, and allow universities to leverage a broader geographic and disciplinary scope to find people or partners that are not locally available. Topical networks also focus on enabling all three of these groups to share knowledge about best practices and benefit from others' experience. The presence of topical networks at a college or university can provide separate value from professional societies or international development groups while collaborating with them at the local level, and simultaneously address barriers to change within the existing curriculum.
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Successfully mentoring diverse male students in Engineering at North Carolina State University: An engaged approach
Authors: Olgha Davis, Christine Grant, Tuere Bowles and Rex JeffriesOver the past three decades, the U.S. social, educational and economic outcomes for African-American and Hispanic (minority) males have been more systemically devastating than the outcomes for any other group - such as race, ethnicity, or gender group. In 2009/10, the national high school graduation rate for African-American male (AAM) students was 52%, while the graduation rate for Caucasian males students was 78%. On average, AAMs are more likely to attend the most segregated and least-resourced public schools. However, in most states, the stratification of school quality works to minimize educational opportunities specifically for African-American students. According to a 2012 National Science Foundation report, AAM students made up only 4% of the currently enrolled male students in engineering.
Therefore, there is a compelling need for a program that develops self-efficacy in Under-Represented Minority (URM) male students in engineering fields. To answer this need, professor and lifelong mentor, Dr. Christine Grant, developed the national mentored-leadership initiative program to empower URM students at the high school and the 2-year and 4-year undergraduate levels in their successful pursuit of engineering careers. This objective is accomplished by actively partnering students with senior URM mentors (i.e. graduate students, post-doctoral associates and faculty members) in targeted research, academic preparation, and professional development. Students that completed the program more likely have a stronger mathematics and programming foundations and a firm understanding of the translational aspects of their research, enabling them to make informed career choices to maximize their expertise and engineering interests. Ultimately, this outcome can be achieved through engaged participation in: a “mentoring incubator” and mentoring course led by URM full professor and lifelong mentor; weekly math and programming tutoring sessions, one-on-one meetings with an education mentor to discuss research and learning contracts, interactive seminars and roundtable discussions with mentee “success story” resource group; sessions with research group of successful URM engineering faculty; and targeted research experiences at a large research university (i.e. North Carolina State University), leveraging partnerships with agency-sponsored programs. The participated students present their final research results at a showcase event and a university-wide Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium at North Carolina State University.
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Development of a methodology and information technology tools for micro-adaptive instruction: An engineering course case study
More LessDespite the wide spread of modern teaching techniques such as the flipped classroom and blended learning, most still provide one-way feedback, from the instructor to the student. A new teaching approach – the micro-Adaptive Instruction (mAI) – isa presented in this paper. Through mAI the instructor can adapt lecture content based on student feedback and additional detailed information on their learning progress. mAI is mainly based on a multimedia platform that delivers the course material, and monitors and tracks students’ activities. The instructor is now aware of the specific topics that need to be addressed and clarified, so the lectures can be carried out more efficiently. This new approach has been tested and demonstrated on a module of Chemical Engineering Fluid Operations course (CHEN 304) at Texas A&M University at Qatar. Three evaluation metrics were implemented during and at the end of the demonstration. All metrics showed improvement at both the comprehension level and perception of the students. Around 80% of the students agreed that the collected information helped the instructor to properly adapt the lectures to their needs, while 87% believed that the platform enhanced their understanding. On average, students spent 34 active minutes on the platform while 23% spent more than 60 minutes. In spite of all the positive feedback and impact of this approach, it should be noted that significant effort might be necessary to upgrade existing teaching material to the level of the presented platform. On the other hand, this is a process that can take place gradually or even be directly adopted by educational publishers.
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Promoting a culture of inquiry: Foregrounding research skills in first and second year engineering students
Authors: Robert Craig and Brian BielenbergThis paper describes a program of study designed to enhance research skills and promote cognitive development in first and second year undergraduate engineering students. The concerned population consists primarily of students studying in English as an additional language (EAL) while simultaneously adapting to an approach to learning which is considerably different from their most recent high school experiences. The discussed program is an extension of the ‘Learning to Write, Writing to Learn’ concept of the Writing Across the Curriculum movement, and adds the notion of ‘Learning to Research, Researching to Learn’, to its rationale. In two first-year courses, COMM 101 and COMM 151, students learn the basics of inquiry including quantitative and qualitative analysis methods. As ‘apprentice researchers’ they receive instruction, guidance and support while engaging in team-based, real-world research which serves as a platform for further development and application of research methods during engineering design courses and in their future participation in a knowledge based society. The paper highlights documented gains across several relevant learning outcomes related to research, thinking, and teamwork skills, all desired competencies for participation in a knowledge based society.
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Active engineering learning in a simulated environment
More LessThis work emphasizes novel ways to teach and learn which can be developed by most instructors provided that they have the patience and interest to produce class innovations using computers. The specific approach followed is known as “learning-by-doing in a virtual environment”. The basic idea is to train students to do sophisticated tasks in a way similar to what an expert would do, and the only way to verify if the learner has learned a lesson is to ask her to perform a task in a specific situation. The learning modules developed include a problem statement, with the specific tasks that the participant is required to accomplish. The system allows following of multiple paths in order to gather information and expert advice. There is a virtual library, in which literature related to the case is available; a computer room, in which computations can be carried out to obtain new data for the case; there is expert advice, in which typical questions related to the topic are responded by virtual experts in this field; and there is a navigation dimension, in which the participant can interact with the case by asking questions to virtual characters, exploring data specific for this case, going to a virtual field, and others. As a result, the participant should provide her response to the problem statement which originated the study. Construction of the navigation tool is made by means of a web-page with a tree structure. A number of simulations have been implemented, with differences in contents and also in complexity. This work addresses the National Academies Grand Challenge of “Advancing Personalized Learning”.
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An assessment of the awareness of non-technical skills of future engineers
By Nihad DukhanThe importance and nature of non-technical skills for future engineers are described in this paper. The discourses of educational, industrial and governmental organizations concerning these skills are summarized. Related issues such as nature of the knowledge-based economy, the nature and need for innovation, entrepreneurship, working in teams and the need for life-long learning in relation to non-technical skills are also discussed. The rubric that was used to assess the awareness of engineering students of these skills is presented, along with the results of the assessment. In general, the results show that the vast majority of students showed a great deal of awareness and importance of these skills for their futures as engineers. The assessment for establishing the existing knowledge level of students is critical for guiding future curricular materials geared toward enhancing some of the non-technical skills of future engineers. Particularly, the results suggest any new curricular materials must enhance existing awareness and go deeper in its addressing of non-technical skills with tangible exercises and applications.
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On the worldwide engineering students' meager performance in thermodynamics
By Nihad DukhanIn engineering, thermodynamics is the science of energy. This includes traditional and alternative sources of energy and energy availability, conversion and transmission. Practical engineering issues such as the efficiency of thermodynamic processes and systems are also covered in engineering thermodynamics courses. As the world is becoming more aware of the impeding energy crisis, a rounded understanding of thermodynamics by the engineers of 2020 is vital for addressing this global issue. Despite the importance of the subject, past and current engineering students worldwide struggle with thermodynamics as indicated by the pertinent literature. Student's difficulties with thermodynamics have been reported in several European countries, the US, Australia and India. Indeed, understanding the root causes of problems with teaching/learning thermodynamics is a requisite first step toward any solution, e.g., a design of effective new instructional strategies, curricula and textbooks. This paper provides a concise account of the pertinent literature, and analyzes this literature in order to accurately frame the problems of learning (and teaching) thermodynamics. The paper describes methods used for probing these problems and attempts to solve them.
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Undergraduate group projects: Challenges and learning experiences
Authors: Siara Isaac and Roland TormeyWorking in groups and managing projects are important professional skills for engineers, and there is a growing demand to teach and assess such skills. But what should be taught and when? Tuckman's famous “stages of development of performing groups” provides a framework for understanding the types of challenges which groups face. Yet, as with any abstract model, it will not be transferred into students' practice if they do not see it as relevant to their lived experiences.
In 2014, a new course exploring the nexus of social and engineering issues in relation to the global challenges facing humanity was added to the obligatory program for all first year engineering students. Among the many noble goals of this course, in addition to gaining a more nuanced view of the global challenges from both an engineering and social science perspective, are the development of transversal skills such as team work, communication, presentation, library research and ethical engagement.
The taught material about team work was presented online, allowing for the use learning analytics on students' online responses to assess how well the “stages of group formation” literature matched students' experiences. It also allowed us to consider how students' perceptions of the challenges they will face differed from challenges they actually did face, as well as the implications of this for how they should be taught about group processes.
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Application of Critical Path Method scheduling to research plan and management of graduate students' research project in engineering education
More LessFull research graduate degree programmes in engineering and science are a unique set of coordinated scientific activities with definite starting and finishing points to meet specific performance objectives within defined schedule, cost and performance parameters. Often in graduate engineering programmes, little emphasis is placed on proper research management before and during execution. This leads to improper management and overshooting deadlines, culminating in unnecessary stress on budgets, resources and time. In this article, we present a case study application of critical path method (CPM) scheduling without resource constraints in planning and managing a typical graduate chemical engineering research project. The case study describes a full MSc research degree programme that considers the synthesis and performance evaluation of a carbon nanotube-polyaspartamide (CNT-PAA) composite material for carbon dioxide capture from coal-fired power plants. Based on the approved project proposal, the scheduled project duration for completion of the degree programme is 104 weeks. However, results of the application of CPM scheduling to the project show expected project duration of ninety-four (94) weeks, indicating a reduction of about 10%. In the presence of unexpected variability in the activity time of the activities in the critical path (CP) during the life cycle of the project, the programme evaluation and review technique (PERT) reveals that there is 85 percent chance of completing the degree programme on, or before, the scheduled project deadline.
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Post-MSc technological design (PDEng) traineeships by Dutch universities of technology catalyse industrial innovation
More LessThe two-year post-MSc technological design traineeships organized by the Dutch Universities of Technology, and leading to the Professional Doctorate in Engineering (PDEng) degree, are still going strong after 28 years of existence. In 1986 the Dutch government and the Dutch industry - both aiming to increase the level of design competencies and personal and business skills of selected top-level MSc graduates in selected technical areas - jointly initiated these traineeships. The technical content of these traineeships, and the one-year design thesis projects from industry have been continuously adjusted to the industry's needs and the universities’ research, design and education capabilities. Currently 20 PDEng programmes spread over many technical disciplines (automotive, (bio)chemical, food, energy, logistics, robotics, civil engineering industries) and where industry is actively pursuing innovation, are active. Six of these programmes were started in the last four years and cooperation with new industrial partners was initiated. The design theses (almost without exception executed under confidentiality agreement between the partners) lead to new innovation leads and trade secrets or patents. The vast majority of the PDEng graduates recruited from all over the globe, find employment at one of these innovative companies in the Netherlands, and populate the companies’ technical career track for a very extended period of time.
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Global STEM: Opportunities and Challenges
More LessThe need for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) literacy extends beyond the boundaries of the major developed economies. The lack of wide reaching STEM literacy in the Countries with Less Economic Resources (CLER) is caused, and indeed compounded, by the lack of STEM economy in those countries. Here CLER is used as an umbrella acronym for the ‘Least Developed Countries’ and the lower tier ‘Developing Countries’ according to the United Nations (UN) economic classifications. Any STEM workforce development in a country without a foundation in the STEM economy would simply feed those countries (through immigration) where STEM jobs are located and in abundance. This flight of talent is known as ‘brain drain’. Tragically, this has manifested itself into a ‘feast’ or ‘famine’ situation for countries seeking economic prosperity. Whereas the major developed economies are feasting on STEM-based economic prosperity and growth, CLER is seemingly in perpetual famine state. On an intellectual level, the ethical approach to STEM education and literacy, in the countries with abundant economic resources must be designed to cross national boundaries and devote special attention and resources to those in the global village that are in the famine state, i.e., the CLER. In the absence of external stimulus, however the famine states, for the most part, would not be in the position to self-correct and thus the economic divide and injustice would continue to deepen.
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Increasing the STEM pipeline: Impact of a multi-faceted STEM organization
Authors: Jim Morgan, Robert M. Capraro, Mary M. Capraro and Sandra B. NiteAggie STEM serves K-12 teachers and students by providing professional development (PD) over a wide range of STEM educational topics in a variety of formats and settings. The goal of the PD is to provide teachers with the tools they need for effective classroom instruction, with the objective of increasing the STEM pipeline by providing students with more engaging instruction in formal and informal settings. This paper describes Aggie STEM's role in improving STEM instruction and experiences through PD for teachers and summer camp for students. By supporting teachers to improve classroom instruction, Aggie STEM impacted more students than was possible by teaching secondary students in the classroom. In a single year, through PD to more than 800 teachers, the number of students whose STEM knowledge was enriched exceeded 24,000.
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Enhancing quality of engineering education via industrial training: A proposed strategy for South African universities
More LessIndustrial training (IT) of engineering undergraduates has always been an integral part of any engineering undergraduate curriculum. While engineering education equips students only with the potential for jobs in engineering, industrial training aims at giving students immediate practical competencies required to do a job. It also creates an opportunity for students to blend theoretical knowledge acquired in the classroom with practical hands-on application of knowledge in industry.
As a way of enhancing the quality of engineering and technology education in South Africa through industrial training, this article suggests a scheme exploring the existing synergy between engineering education and training at South African comprehensive universities (CU), universities of technology (UT) and further education and training (FET) colleges. Consequently, the Student Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES) is proposed. The SIWES suggests that students from CU, UT and FET, having diverse engineering and technology education curricula, should undergo SIWES together at the same place. Through the scheme, transfer of theoretical knowledge and hands-on skills to the parties will be encouraged through various engagements and interactions. Additionally, professional development and team-building amongst these students will be promoted and they will see themselves as a team of engineers-in-the-making rather than competitors. However, workability and sustainability of the proposed scheme depends strongly on the collaboration of the government, industry and the institutions involved in engineering education and training in South Africa.
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An argument for the practice of evidence-based teaching in engineering education for developing countries with focus on Nigerian universities
Authors: Gordon M. Bubou, Ibebietei T. Offor and Seigha GumusThe global and national challenges of the educational sector and the shifting paradigms in education necessitates far-reaching changes to engineering education, especially in late-emerging economies like Nigeria. While changes in engineering education are taking place in most advanced and some emerging countries; the situation in most developing countries, especially Nigeria seems unchanged. Thus, there are concerns and persistent calls by researchers for a review of engineering education globally and in Nigeria. The issues range from poor funding, inadequate infrastructure, brain-drain, industrial actions, etc. The way and manner engineering education is taught was identified as one of major concern to some researchers as well. Consequently, we suggest that engineering education adopt the evidence-based teaching (EBT) as part of the bouquet of solutions to the problems. EBT approach involves the use of scientifically-based research to guide educational decisions regarding teaching and learning approaches, strategies, and interventions to teaching. The aim of this discourse is primarily to heighten faculty members' awareness of EBT in an effort to help them improve their teaching practices and thereby enhance their students' learning, thinking, and analytical skills as well as their motivation for, and enjoyment of learning. Ultimately, we hope to advance the practice of EBT in engineering education that will lead to work ready engineers within the current global contexts.
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Transportation systems STEM summer academy for teachers
Authors: Shashi Nambisan and Jennifer RichardsThis paper summarizes the efforts related to, and outcomes from, the development and implementation of a 3-day long transportation systems-based summer academy for teachers. It also includes lessons learned and suggestions for the adoption of this program in other settings.
The academy utilized an experiential learning process to alert, engage, attract, and excite teachers in pre-collegiate (K-12) systems to adopting “authentic” transportation systems (engineering and beyond) contexts to facilitate learning. It also provides teachers first-hand experiences about educational and career opportunities in transportation. It facilitates collaborative learning, the development of professional networks, and peer-support groups.
The program includes brief ‘in-class’ overviews of transportation systems, logistics and supply chain management, followed by 2 days of site/field visits to a variety of real-life settings such a state Department of Transportation (DOT) Traffic Management Center, an air-traffic control tower, a commercial airport and airfield, a traffic signal systems laboratory, a crash-reconstruction study site, and a driving simulator.
Based on these experiences, the teachers develop lesson plans and related materials for use in curricular, co-curricular, and extra-curricular activities. This case-based approach provides real-world concepts to formulate lessons and learning experiences for students. The literature documents the importance of such authentic learning approaches to foster deep learning of concepts and methods, especially in STEM disciplines. The participants work collaboratively to develop transportation themed instructional units for use in classrooms. They are provided guidance by curriculum design experts and peer teachers to develop authentic learning experiences that support established curricular skills and standards in STEM disciplines and other subject areas. They collaborate in work sessions to develop frameworks for transportation themed lesson plans for subsequent use.
Twenty teachers were selected to attend the academy workshop that was held in mid-July 2014. Participants received a certificate for professional development activities. These participants were provided a nominal stipend. Of these participants, nine were selected to join a cohort for the purpose of developing high-quality transportation themed lesson plans for online publication to enable broad distribution globally. This cohort is presently working collaboratively with a transportation engineering professor, a curriculum development professor, and peer mentors to fully develop lessons, field test them in their classrooms, and to modify them for online publication. This subgroup will be provided an additional stipend for completing these activities. These activities are to be completed by December 2014.
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Industry-academe linkages in education, R&D, and innovation
By R NatarajanThis paper examines the nature and scope of academe-industry cooperation, collaboration and partnership. It is demonstrated that complementary roles exist for synergizing the strengths of each partner for mutual benefit and common good. An analysis is provided of the barriers or inhibitors to academe-industry partnership, and strategies are suggested for overcoming these barriers. Some best practices for achieving success in industry-academe collaborations are identified. Responsible partnering is emerging as a strategy for improving strategic collaboration and knowledge exchange between companies and publicly-funded research organizations (PROs). An annual industry-institute survey initiated by the AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education), in collaboration with the CII (Confederation of Indian Industry), aims to showcase the best practices in AICTE-approved institutions in India. Several other initiatives of AICTE and other agencies in India are also highlighted in the paper.
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On cooperative engagement strategies in the Arab Gulf States: Potential plans and current practices
By Waddah AkiliEngineering education in the Arab Gulf States (the Region) faces significant challenges as it seeks to meet the demands on the engineering profession in the twenty-first century. This paper focuses on classroom-based pedagogies of engagement, and cooperative learning strategies in particular. The paper is a follow up to previous work by the author, on viable strategies to improve the classroom environment of engineering colleges in the Region. At the start, the paper provides an overview of engineering education in the Region. Then, relates author's findings on teaching/learning practices in Region's colleges, and sheds light on active learning protocols, focusing on cooperative engagement strategies. Next, it identifies barriers to reformation in general, and to the use of modern pedagogical skills in particular. The paper also argues that any change in Region's classroom practices (dominated by traditional lecture-based methods) should be supported by the university administration. What is necessary to create a change, is for the department or college, to have a feasible set of plans: articulated expectations, opportunities for faculty to learn about new pedagogies, and an equitable reward system.
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Chemical engineering education in European higher education
More LessThe Bologna process started in 1999 when Ministers of Education from 29 European countries signed the Bologna declaration 1 . Fifteen years later, 47 countries are participating in the Bologna process while jointly establishing the common European Higher Education Area (EHEA) 2 and adopting the Bologna Three Cycle Degree System, undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate. One of the main objectives with respect to chemical engineering education has been to adopt chemical engineering programs to the needs of current and future (bio)chemical, specialty chemical, pharmaceutical, food, medical and other process industries.
Two questions have been posed in order to reshape current chemical engineering study programs: i) which skills and knowledge, common to all chemical engineers, should not be ignored while developing new chemical engineer curricula, and ii) which are other chemical engineering topics, engineering fields and non-engineering knowledge necessary for the engineers to manage problems of specific current and future (bio)chemical and process related industries.
In order to clarify the first question, the Working Party for Education at the European Federation of Chemical Engineers (EFCE) developed EFCE Recommendations for Chemical Engineering Education in the Bologna Three Cycle Degree System 3 . One of the aims of this presentation is to discuss basic learning outcomes and recommended topics common to all chemical engineers. On the other hand, some non-traditional orientations and topics like chemical engineering concepts of molecular transformation, different scale of process/product operations, bio-, product-, energy-, and environmental engineering will be outlined in order to approach the second question. A structure of a typical chemical engineering program, which consists of consecutive study of exact and natural sciences, natural phenomena, Chemical Engineering Science, and Process Systems Engineering, incorporating both the analytical and synthesis approaches, will be outlined. The distribution of the program across the Bologna three cycle study system will be discussed.
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Spatial skills of engineering students in the United Arab Emirates
Authors: Sheryl A. Sorby, Samuel Cubero, Nausheen Pasha-Zaidi and Hamad KarkiSpatial skills are known to be important to success in engineering, and in particular, to success in engineering graphics/CAD courses. Recent studies demonstrate the link between spatial skills and creativity and innovation. Student spatial skills have been widely studied in the U.S., but work in this area in other parts of the world has been somewhat limited. In a recent data analysis in the U.S, the spatial skills of students by region of origin were examined and it was found that students from Africa, India, and the Middle East tended to have weaker spatial skills when compared to domestic students; however, it is unknown whether this is merely a reflection of the student population who chooses study in the U.S. or if it is generally true for the populations in these regions. In this study, we examined the spatial skills of second year engineering students at the Petroleum Institute in the United Arab Emirates. This paper will outline our findings, comparing the spatial skills of students in the UAE to those in the U.S. We will also include data regarding the correlation between spatial skills and performance in a second-year design course at the Petroleum Institute and will describe differences in educational systems between the two countries.
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Developments in the provision of chemical engineering teaching and training to industry and academia
Authors: Jiří Jaromír Klemeš and Simon John PerryThe last few years have seen rapid development in computer and computer-type hardware, the availability of the internet, and software that can support materials that have been developed in a large number of different formats for different platforms. Consequently, training providers are no longer restricted to the provision of training courses that have be delivered in a face-to-face environment, and can use materials that are accessible across a number of hardware platforms. The development of these new hardware platforms, more flexible and faster communication methods, and software that can exploit these new technologies, offers new opportunities in the engineering training sector. In addition, engineers are rapidly becoming conversant with these new technologies, and consequently are expecting to be able exploit them to their advantage in the training arena. This paper examines both the hardware and software technologies that are being used by universities with considerable experience in this field - The University of Manchester, UK (UoM) and the University of Pannonia. Hungary (UP) for the provision of chemical engineering training in the industrial sector. The CPI2 research and teaching has been modelled as an EC Marie Currie Chair of Excellence project on the UoM long term experience and achievements. In addition, the paper looks towards future provision of training courses in light of the most recent developments that are available. These include internet based technologies which are being used to host virtual learning environments and now able to support many learning based activities such as discussion boards and a variety of teaching and learning materials. Communication technologies, such as webinars, are evaluated in relation to flexibility and usability. And finally, different hardware platforms are considered as a possible replacement for the ubiquitous computer.
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Virtualization of engineering laboratory experiments: Opportunities and limitations
Authors: Isaac W. Wait and Andrew P. NicholsNew opportunities to virtualize engineering laboratory experiments have arisen due to the proliferation of low-cost video recording devices, the widespread availability of free video hosting, and rising student preferences for “always available” learning activities. In years past, such virtualization required bulky, expensive, and complex video equipment, and was limited by inconvenient analog editing tools and the physical distribution of the finished product. At the present, by contrast, instructors wishing to prepare instructional video recordings often have the requisite video recording, editing, and publishing tools already built into their smartphones, and easy video hosting from YouTube, Vimeo, and university-owned networks. Therefore, students can access recordings moments after they are posted, at any distance from campus, using a myriad of electronic devices such as PCs, tablets, smartphones, etc.
An in-person, hands-on laboratory experience may be pedagogically superior in such cases as the first time that students are introduced to a certain piece of lab equipment, in order for students to develop experience performing a certain lab procedure, or when team interaction is a key component of a particular learning exercise. However, there are other instances where there is limited educational benefit to the student being physically present in the lab while an experiment is being carried out. In the case of a fluid mechanics laboratory where data collection consists entirely of transcribing data from a pressure gage to a data collection sheet, for example, the primary educational value of the lab exercise lies after data collection is complete and the student begins to analyze the data in question. Thus, virtualization of the laboratory experiment through asynchronous review of a video recording of the experiment being conducted represents a compromise between the student being physically present for data collection and simply being given the data directly.
This manner of virtualization presents a number of benefits to students and instructors. For students, there are schedule flexibility and travel-avoidance advantages to being able to participate in the experiment at the time that is most convenient. Additionally, many students may benefit from being able to re-watch portions of the experiment multiple times. Finally, virtualization can give each student an optimal, front-row view of the phenomena being studied. For instructors, virtualization can reduce the amount of time engaged in repetitive tasks in the lab and enable this time to be redirected to answering student questions and giving meaningful feedback on student lab reports.
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Addressing critical needs in the technical energy workforce: Focused certificate and degree programs beyond the associates
Authors: Heidar A. Malki and Ramanan KrishnamoortiThe University of Houston, along with consortium partners Lee College, Lone Star Community College and San Jacinto College, propose to develop training and educational programs to accelerate energy-related workforce development in critical areas for the state of Texas through: 1) three certificate programs each consist of 5 courses in advanced petroleum technology, advanced process technology and advanced safety technology, 2) collaboration and articulation between consortium partners to seamlessly develop and deliver the certificate courses, 3) development of stackable credentials for students who successfully complete any two of these certificates an accelerated pathway (i.e., one additional year) towards a BS degree in Organizational Leadership and Supervision program at UH's College of Technology, and 4) a competency-based survey to assess the effectiveness of the program. These goals will be achieved through the formation of a consortium with initially four Houston area community colleges and extending to encompass all community colleges in the Houston area. The introductory courses for each certificate will be offered at the participating community colleges and the advanced courses will be offered at the University of Houston. Once developed and assessed, the proposed three certificate programs will be available for adoption with interested institutions across the nation and worldwide. The highlights of this program are the acceleration of skill enhancement of mid-skill workers and their re-deployment in areas of critical need to the economic development of the state and due to the stackable format the rapid portability and scalability of the program to be expanded statewide and to interested institutions.
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Bridging the gap between research and engineering education: A case study of the distributed constraints programming research field
More LessWell-prepared human capital in research and development is one of the key pillars that support knowledge and innovation. Therefore, a well-educated engineering workforce is essential to undertake those grand challenges. We note that in our engineering institutions in Morocco, there is a big gap between how engineering is actually taught and the interesting immaterial capital of research knowledge and productivity. Reducing this gap requires global motivation, innovation and collaboration from engineering educators and researchers. However, effective curriculum innovation is required to better respond to new demands of engineering in our economy. One of the most widespread teaching strategies is the promotion of engineering education through research: bringing research into the classroom and involving students in research projects.
Training through research is a fundamental process of transferring knowledge and skills from engineering educators to undergraduates. However, making the correlation between research productivity and teaching activities is not an obvious task. In this paper, we present our fundamental engineering education strategic process for bridging the gap between these elements. A case study is proposed of how we could exploit the results of our research in engineering education. Thanks to the robustness of our approach and the motivation of our students, developing innovative and intelligent multi-agent applications based on distributed constraints reasoning techniques is now possible in our classrooms.
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Patent practitioners: Global insight into early-stage technology and future engineering skills
Authors: Austin Talley and Stephen MasonThe authors surveyed 315 patent practitioners with respect to both the engineering education coursework and engineering work experience that they seek in the transcripts and resumes of interview candidates entering their organizations. This set of technology professionals uses engineering education in support of innovation in early stages of technology development and therefore possesses an unexplored view of the research that will influence the needs of the engineering workforce for product development roles by 2020. An understanding of the educational needs of patent practitioners is useful to engineering education because patent practitioners tend to address global opportunities by handling cases in front of the patent offices of multiple countries. Specifically, it is common for a patent practitioner to represent and supervise the representation of applicants on a single family of patent cases in front of multiple patent offices in Europe, Asia and the Americas, thereby receiving uncommon global exposure to the opportunities and challenges represented by differing market conditions and differences in cultural norms with respect to both technology and communication.
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An effective framework for industry-academia collaboration
Authors: Sudheer Reddy Kola and Srinagesh ChatarajupalliIndustries readily employ talent with versatility and industry-ready skills. The business challenge is that the fresh engineering students, who are tested during recruitment and hired, should be employable and be productive – aware of IT industry landscape, technology areas, aware of their role, and the competencies that need to be demonstrated in IT industry. However, the employability factor of on-campus engineering students is about 20–25%, due to the student's low exposure to industry awareness, and they are not aware of current trends and industry expectations. Infosys has developed a framework – Campus Connect (CC) – to address this.
While there are other collaborating platforms to share best practices between industry and academia, this paper describes a framework for effectively collaborating industry and engineering institutions in India. Industry-academia relationship is low in India, except at the premier engineering institutes. CC provided an opportunity to work with non-premier engineering institutes to bridge this gap and help design an industry-based curriculum to enhance students' employability. The number of graduates from the premier institutes is not sufficient to meet IT industry needs. Hence Infosys believes that the quality of students in non-premier institutes has to be enhanced. Infosys also believes in a program which is both scalable and sustainable. The CC program was initiated in 2004, to bridge the ‘quality’ gap in skills and competencies of fresh engineering graduates and the ‘quantity’ gap between the needs of a high-growth industry and the employable pool of graduates. The decade-long program aims to enable engineering college faculty members, students and management for systematic implementation.
The framework has helped improve the rollout rate by 38% and reduce the lead-time for rollout by 132%, with a network of over 400 engineering colleges in India.
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At the intersection of the humanities and engineering: Building a strong communication foundation for student success
Authors: Bernadette Longo, David Kmiec and Julia WilliamsToday's engineering students will work on global projects that are inherently interdisciplinary, whether in business, government, or non-profit sectors. In order to succeed in these settings, we need to provide opportunities for students to strengthen their communication skills in writing, speaking, and visual display of information. These skills are vital to students' success on teams, in project leadership, in program management, and in professional development after graduation. Communication skills are crucial to understanding the professional, ethical, and cultural contexts in which technology development and transfer occur.
This paper will discuss an approach for technical writing in engineering programs that presents information about forms of engineering communication in a clear and accessible format, without reducing the information to templates for filling in the blanks. This format allows for complexity, while also drawing on a traditional and proven body of knowledge from logic. Writers will learn how to produce technical documents based on analysis of audience, purpose, and situation. From this analysis, writers can decide how to employ and modify formulaic documents to best meet their situated needs. Suites of sample workplace documents will be available to students and instructors, enabling students to analyze how people used the various documents to accomplish project objectives. These documents will be organized in a way that tells the story of real world engineering projects. For each project, narration by industrial professionals will walk the user through the steps of managing, completing, and communicating the engineering work done and will deliver key insights into the situated and central nature of communication to the way work gets done.
This paper also provides ideas for teaching engineering students how to analyze workplace situations and relations in order to develop professional technical documents in conventional.
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Team and project based learning: A critical instructional strategy for engineering education
More LessTeam-based learning (TBL) is one of the most important instructional strategies used in engineering education. It emulates real-life professional situations where most activities tend to be team-based. TBL helps to develop intrinsic motivation as per the self-deterministic theory and aides to develop ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) criteria such as, the ability to work in multidisciplinary teams and the ability to communicate effectively. TBL helps in developing other abilities such as to conduct and design experiments, to design a system, component or process and to identify, formulate and solve engineering problems and to understand the impact of engineering solutions in global and societal context, etc. Addition of project based learning (PBL) enhances all the benefits of TBL. Given these benefits, we have been employing the strategy in many of our courses. In this paper we illustrate its usage in two non-traditional sophomore courses – “Liberal Learning” and “Innovation and Creativity”. In the Liberal Learning course students learnt non-engineering areas on their own in clusters of 15 students and in Innovation and Creativity course they chose to do innovative team projects based on their passions.
We received overwhelmingly positive feedback for both the courses. In the case of Liberal Learning, students seem to have liked the course and its approach. Besides the overall theme, they liked the freedom offered to them to choose topics and opportunities to make presentations. Interestingly, one-third of the students who provided feedback did not dislike anything. Some of them wanted more time and more credit for the course which can be considered as positive feedback. Students conveyed their liking for the Innovation and Creativity course by giving the highest votes for course plan. The ‘disliked’ factors that captured the highest votes were paucity of time which can be considered as a positive feedback. The strategy does require some efforts on the part of faculty but the returns are more than worth the efforts.
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Leveraging digital platforms for teaching and learning processes
Authors: Sudheer Reddy Kola and Kantha Reddy MuthangiEmployability remains a serious concern in India, with the country producing about 1.5 million engineers each year from over 3200 institutions. Surveys and analysis reports from several industries and apex bodies have pointed out the talent shortage and presented that only 30–35% of them are employable in Industry sector. In order to enhance the employability skills and competencies of engineering students in a large scale, a Learning Management System (LMS), has been adopted. The digital collaboration platform has been the catalyst for transforming the education world. This paper presents the need for a digital collaboration framework that promote employability skills (technical, soft and problem solving) required for engineering students to become global professionals by effectively leveraging the technology.
The proposed digital platform has been deployed on Moodle, an open source web LMS. The goal of this framework is to create an online learning collaboration platform that help teachers in getting the learning repositories, including assessments, case studies, assignments up on the learning portal for students and to facilitate the traditional classroom activities viz., participation, assignments, events calendar, time lines, instructions, resources, discussions, quizzes and grading.
Leveraging digital infrastructure has led to a higher grade of dissemination, linked to traditional classroom teaching. Successively, this model has facilitated the learning fraternity to have broader, wider, easier and anytime, anywhere access to knowledge repository. The effective teaching and learning mechanisms have been greatly influence by the digital infrastructure.
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Bridging the gap: Using design based activities to develop problem-solving skills in Qatari high school students
A substantial number of secondary school students are accepted into engineering schools without adequate exposure to key engineering based skills, such as analytical thinking, problem solving, critical thinking and design. Unfamiliarity with the practical skills needed in engineering leaves students unprepared, leading to poor academic performance and demotivating them about engineering. It is critical that students be able to apply learnt scientific concepts to solve real life problems. In this paper, we will present a set of design-based learning activities created to help develop the analytical thinking and problem solving skills of students in local Qatari secondary schools. We will discuss implementation details of these design-based learning activities along with results, comments from participating students and teachers as well as data analysis.
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The University of Texas faces the 21st Century Engineering Grand Challenges: Driving local and global economies with innovation and entrepreneurship
More LessInnovation transforms insight and technology into novel products, processes, and services that create new value for stakeholders, drive economic growth, and improve standards of living. Our vision at The University of Texas for innovation and entrepreneurship to transform the processes and services of higher education is supported by: 1) implementing the new university-wide, transcript-recognized certificate Grand Challenges Scholars Program (GCSP); 2) developing a Grand Challenges-focused incubator for diverse students who will have faculty and industry mentors; 3) creating a scalable model of NAE GCSPs at other universities around the world with new online educational resources; 4) hosting interdisciplinary, inter-institutional GC design-a-thons; and 5) continuing to annually host a student start-up pitch competition at SXSW Interactive.
Throughout the program and course, GC Scholars research important real world problems while fostering their abilities to design innovative solutions. We structured our GCSP to leverage the strengths of the entrepreneurship ecology at UT and in Austin and embed them as part of the curriculum. Unique to our GCSP at UT, students from all majors are invited to engage in multi-semester/multi-year design-based projects from as early as freshman year. The GC Director and partnering Engineering Faculty designed a course for the GC and then they mentor the students throughout the rest of their program on ways to include a total of 18 credit hours towards their GC certificate.
This reflective paper includes descriptions of our GCSP since its inception in 2011, methods for assessment and support, and examples of entrepreneurship from our Scholars. We indicate ways that the GCSP develops globally competent engineers who are capable of being leaders in meeting the complex needs of the 21st century.
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Intellectual property teaching as part of an engineering degree
Authors: Achilles Vairis and Markos PetousisUndergraduate teaching of engineers should prepare graduates for designing processes and making products to solve real-world problems. As such, an engineering course should enable the development of engineering knowledge, skills, imagination and experience. On the other hand, intellectual property rights cover topics such as patents, utility models and registered designs among others. These tools are granted for inventions, form and appearance of objects and can be found in every single product available to a lesser or greater extent. This paper reports on teaching aspects of intellectual property rights to undergraduate and postgraduate engineering students as part of the syllabus at a technological university in the Greek island of Crete. The courses are described in terms of goals and procedures which teach students IP rights so as to prepare them to benefit the maximum in today's knowledge-based economy.
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The Deliberative and Dynamic model for engineering education curriculum renewal
Authors: Karlson ‘Charlie’ Hargroves and Cheryl DeshaThis paper will assist engineering educators around the world to prepare graduates that can contribute to a number of the grand challenges for engineering. Responding to the understanding that it will be critical that engineering educators evolve curricula and pedagogy to meet new demands of the 21st century, the paper focuses on preparing graduates to assist society to respond to climate change. Based on the 2014 book, ‘Higher Education and Sustainable Development’, the paper outlines the first comprehensive model for achieving program wide curriculum renewal to embed sustainability topics into higher education. Examples of each aspect are drawn from efforts to embed energy efficiency into engineering programs. This model has been trialled in a number of universities and peer-reviewed by over 70 leaders in engineering education. The paper presents a strategic and optimistic approach to engineering education curriculum renewal that will provide a valuable tool for engineering education around the world. The paper overviews a model for rapid curriculum renewal, including a focus on six core elements: 1) Developing a curriculum renewal strategy. 2) Identifying graduate attributes. 3) Mapping learning pathways. 4) Auditing learning outcomes. 5) Develop and update curriculum, and 6) Implement program. The purpose of the paper is to provide academic staff with an overview of tools and insights to rapidly align program offerings with the needs of present and future generations of engineering students.
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EAP or ELF: The case of technical writing engineering students
More LessThis study investigates the attitude of the engineering students towards learning technical English for academic purposes and workplace. The paper analyzes the students' motivation for learning technical English and explores if academic standard and academic level have a role in motivating students to learn. The study particularly analyzes the source of their motivation: did the students put effort to learn technical English to maintain a high GPA or are they powered by their personal motivation? The study sample consisted of the technical writing engineering students in Summer I & II 2013 and Summer II 2014 in a local Lebanese university. A questionnaire to test their attitudes and motivation was developed, and used after piloting, as the instrument for data collection. Focused group interviews with each group to triangulate the findings were also conducted. Findings reveal that the participants of high academic standard have positive attitude towards technical English and believe it will further their status and employment chances while students of weak academic standard would rather learn English only as a means for communication (ELF). This becomes possible since ELF focuses on the function of the language- i.e. communicating the message across instead of stressing on accurate structure (Cogo, 2010). In this manner, students become users of the English language, not learners of the language. Proponents of ELF consider ELF speakers as users of English rather than learners (Björkman, 2011). Moreover, results reveal that there was a minor difference of attitude among the participants with respect to academic level.
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Ritaj: Birzeit University academic and administrative portal
More LessRitaj is the Birzeit University electronic academic and administrative portal gate for students, staff, and administration. It allows students to view the teaching material posted by instructors, communicate with their fellow colleagues and instructors, perform registration, review academic and financial files, and access the database of available books in the library. For instructors, it enables them to communicate effectively with students in all matters related to the registered courses, submit course grades, access the available university administrative resources, and reach out resources allocated for their particular departments or faculties. The university administration utilizes Ritaj to extract useful academic, administrative, and financial indicators that will assist the university in planning and development as well as in the assessment of the performance of the various university units.
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The role of a “caring” professor in developing a proper learning environment
By Waddah AkiliThe paper focuses on the role of a “caring” faculty who believes that being dedicated, thoughtful, and passionate is as important as being professionally competent. A caring faculty understands, encourages and supports students' individuality and is willing to listen and provide advice. The paper discusses the role of the “caring” professor in creating a positive environment where students feel comfortable being themselves, enjoying and appreciating the total experience of learning. The paper addresses relevant topics that supports teacher-students' relations, and as a consequence, does improve the learning environment. The aforementioned topics include: development of critical rationale for good teaching, taking account of learning styles, and how to teach responsively. In this environment, students feel that they are important, that their needs can be met, and that others experience joy and satisfaction in helping them meet their needs. In concluding, the author presents his own reflections as an engineering student and a faculty member. The author firmly believes that the only professor who belongs in a classroom is a caring professor.
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