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1. Knowledge Transfer from a First-Year, Stand-Alone Technical Communications Course into Second-Year Laboratory and Design-Focused Courses

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--56905  

   Buckley, Jenni; De_Rosa, Alexander (June 2025, ASEE Conferences)

   The ability to communicate technical information in written, graphical, and verbal formats is an essential durable skill for engineering students to develop as undergraduates and carry forward into the workplace. The importance of technical communication skills is emphasized in the core ABET outcome “3. an ability to communicate effectively with a range of audiences.” Undergraduate engineering programs tend to adopt one of two strategies for technical writing instruction, either offering a stand-alone course that is frequently taught out-of-discipline or embedding technical communications skills within-discipline in laboratory or design classes. Despite these efforts, employers still report that novice engineers’ technical communications skills do not meet industry expectations. Prior work by our group attempted to address this skills gap through the design and implementation of a unique stand-alone technical communications course that was specifically created for first-year mechanical engineering students and centered on multiple, industry-aligned modalities of communication. Preliminary evaluation of this new curriculum showed that students demonstrated substantive gains in self-efficacy for nearly all technical communication skills covered in the course, including synthesis of background research, graphical representation of data, basic statistical analyses, and composition of technical reports and presentations in a variety of formats. In this paper, we will extend our prior work by examining whether the skills emphasized in this stand-alone first year course are transferred into later courses within the discipline. Specifically, we will focus on three core skill sets: (1) writing clear, concise, and coherent technical narratives; (2) graphical representation of quantitative and qualitative data sets; and (3) basic statistical analyses, including linear regressions, one-way ANOVA, and propagation of error. We will follow a single cohort of mechanical engineering students (n=147), beginning with the stand-alone technical communications course taken in the spring of their freshmen year, through their two subsequent semesters of coursework involving discipline-specific design and laboratory-based courses. For two semesters, post-course surveys will be administered to students that assess self-efficacy for the three core skill sets as well as their perceptions of the value and applicability of the first-year technical communications course in their current coursework. Also, written deliverables for a subset of students will be evaluated by faculty instructors according to established technical communications rubrics. The results of this study will be used to refine our first-year technical communications course and modify the strategies that we are using in later lab and design courses to activate prior technical communications knowledge (e.g., review exercises, exemplars, and common rubrics). More broadly, our approach to developing and reinforcing industry-aligned technical communications skills throughout our undergraduate curriculum may be of interest to other programs seeking to improve student outcomes in this area. 

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2. Work in Progress: Interactive Introductory Online Modules on Wireless Communications and Radio-frequency Spectrum Sharing

   Dietrich, C. B.; Polys, N. F.; Reid, K.; García Sheridan, J. A.; Emenonye, D.; Gomez, X.; Tolley, J.; Makin, C.; Gaeddert, J. (July 2021, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   1. Description of the objectives and motivation for the contribution to ECE education The demand for wireless data transmission capacity is increasing rapidly and this growth is expected to continue due to ongoing prevalence of cellular phones and new and emerging bandwidth-intensive applications that encompass high-definition video, unmanned aerial systems (UAS), intelligent transportation systems (ITS) including autonomous vehicles, and others. Meanwhile, vital military and public safety applications also depend on access to the radio frequency spectrum. To meet these demands, the US federal government is beginning to move from the proven but inefficient model of exclusive frequency assignments to a more-efficient, shared-spectrum approach in some bands of the radio frequency spectrum. A STEM workforce that understands the radio frequency spectrum and applications that use the spectrum is needed to further increase spectrum efficiency and cost-effectiveness of wireless systems over the next several decades to meet anticipated and unanticipated increases in wireless data capacity. 2. Relevant background including literature search examples if appropriate CISCO Systems’ annual survey indicates continued strong growth in demand for wireless data capacity. Meanwhile, undergraduate electrical and computer engineering courses in communication systems, electromagnetics, and networks tend to emphasize mathematical and theoretical fundamentals and higher-layer protocols, with less focus on fundamental concepts that are more specific to radio frequency wireless systems, including the physical and media access control layers of wireless communication systems and networks. An efficient way is needed to introduce basic RF system and spectrum concepts to undergraduate engineering students in courses such as those mentioned above who are unable to, or had not planned to take a full course in radio frequency / microwave engineering or wireless systems and networks. We have developed a series of interactive online modules that introduce concepts fundamental to wireless communications, the radio frequency spectrum, and spectrum sharing, and seek to present these concepts in context. The modules include interactive, JavaScript-based simulation exercises intended to reinforce the concepts that are presented in the modules through narrated slide presentations, text, and external links. Additional modules in development will introduce advanced undergraduate and graduate students and STEM professionals to configuration and programming of adaptive frequency-agile radios and spectrum management systems that can operate efficiently in congested radio frequency environments. Simulation exercises developed for the advanced modules allow both manual and automatic control of simulated radio links in timed, game-like simulations, and some exercises will enable students to select from among multiple pre-coded controller strategies and optionally edit the code before running the timed simulation. Additionally, we have developed infrastructure for running remote laboratory experiments that can also be embedded within the online modules, including a web-based user interface, an experiment management framework, and software defined radio (SDR) application software that runs in a wireless testbed initially developed for research. Although these experiments rely on limited hardware resources and introduce additional logistical considerations, they provide additional realism that may further challenge and motivate students. 3. Description of any assessment methods used to evaluate the effectiveness of the contribution, Each set of modules is preceded and followed by a survey. Each individual module is preceded by a quiz and followed by another quiz, with pre- and post-quiz questions drawn from the same pool. The pre-surveys allow students to opt in or out of having their survey and quiz results used anonymously in research. 4. Statement of results. The initial modules have been and are being used by three groups of students: (1) students in an undergraduate Introduction to Communication Systems course; (2) an interdisciplinary group of engineering students, including computer science students, who are participating in related undergraduate research project; and (3) students in a graduate-level communications course that includes both electrical and computer engineers. Analysis of results from the first group of students showed statistically significant increases from pre-quiz to post-quiz for each of four modules on fundamental wireless communication concepts. Results for the other students have not yet been analyzed, but also appear to show substantial pre-quiz to post-quiz increases in mean scores. 

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3. Developing a “Revolution”: Design Challenges in a Chemical Engineering Department

   https://doi.org/10.14434/ijdl.v15i1.34535  

   Wilson-Fetrow, Madalyn; Svihla, Vanessa; Datye, Abhaya K; Gomez, Jamie; Chi, Eva; Han, Sang (February 2024, International Journal of Designs for Learning)

   Engineering is fundamentally about design, yet many undergraduate programs offer limited opportunities for students to learn to design. This design case reports on a grant-funded effort to revolutionize how chemical engineering is taught. Prior to this effort, our chemical engineering program was like many, offering core courses primarily taught through lectures and problem sets. While some faculty referenced examples, students had few opportunities to construct and apply what they were learning. Spearheaded by a team that included the department chair, a learning scientist, a teaching-intensive faculty member, and faculty heavily engaged with the undergraduate program, we developed and implemented design challenges in core chemical engineering courses. We began by co-designing with students and faculty, initially focusing on the first two chemical engineering courses students take. We then developed templates and strategies that supported other faculty-student teams to expand the approach into more courses. Across seven years of data collection and iterative refinements, we developed a framework that offers guidance as we continue to support new faculty in threading design challenges through core content-focused courses. We share insights from our process that supported us in navigating through challenging questions and concerns. 

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4. Identifying Gaps in the Secure Programming Knowledge and Skills of Students

   Lam, Jessica; Fang, Elias; Almansoori, Majed; Chatterjee, Rahul; Soosai Raj, Adalbert Gerald (March 2022, In Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education)

   Often, security topics are only taught in advanced computer science (CS) courses. However, most US R1 universities do not require students to take these courses to complete an undergraduate CS degree. As a result, students can graduate without learning about computer security and secure programming practices. To gauge students’ knowledge and skills of secure programming, we conducted a coding interview with 21 students from two R1 universities in the United States. All the students in our study had at least taken Computer Systems or an equivalent course. We then analyzed the students’ approach to safe programming practices, such as avoiding unsafe functions like gets and strcpy, and basic security knowledge, such as writing code that assumes user inputs can be malicious. Our results suggest that students lack the key fundamental skills to write secure programs. For example, students rarely pay attention to details, such as compiler warnings, and often do not read programming language documentation with care. Moreover, some students’ understanding of memory layout is cursory, which is crucial for writing secure programs. We also found that some students are struggling with even the basics of C programming, even though it is the main language taught in Computer Systems courses. 

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5. Embedding communication concepts in forecasting training increases students' understanding of ecological uncertainty

   https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.4628  

   Woelmer, Whitney M.; Moore, Tadhg N.; Lofton, Mary E.; Thomas, R. Quinn; Carey, Cayelan C. (August 2023, Ecosphere)

   Abstract Communicating and interpreting uncertainty in ecological model predictions is notoriously challenging, motivating the need for new educational tools, which introduce ecology students to core concepts in uncertainty communication. Ecological forecasting, an emerging approach to estimate future states of ecological systems with uncertainty, provides a relevant and engaging framework for introducing uncertainty communication to undergraduate students, as forecasts can be used as decision support tools for addressing real‐world ecological problems and are inherently uncertain. To provide critical training on uncertainty communication and introduce undergraduate students to the use of ecological forecasts for guiding decision‐making, we developed a hands‐on teaching module within the Macrosystems Environmental Data‐Driven Inquiry and Exploration (EDDIE;MacrosystemsEDDIE.org) educational program. Our module used an active learning approach by embedding forecasting activities in an R Shiny application to engage ecology students in introductory data science, ecological modeling, and forecasting concepts without needing advanced computational or programming skills. Pre‐ and post‐module assessment data from more than 250 undergraduate students enrolled in ecology, freshwater ecology, and zoology courses indicate that the module significantly increased students' ability to interpret forecast visualizations with uncertainty, identify different ways to communicate forecast uncertainty for diverse users, and correctly define ecological forecasting terms. Specifically, students were more likely to describe visual, numeric, and probabilistic methods of uncertainty communication following module completion. Students were also able to identify more benefits of ecological forecasting following module completion, with the key benefits of using forecasts for prediction and decision‐making most commonly described. These results show promise for introducing ecological model uncertainty, data visualizations, and forecasting into undergraduate ecology curricula via software‐based learning, which can increase students' ability to engage and understand complex ecological concepts. 

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