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1. Preparing Early Engineers through Context, Connections, and Community

   Davishahl, Eric; Booker, Anna Fay; McDonnell-Ingoglia, Petra; Burnett, Pat (June 2024, 2024 ASEE Annual Conference)

   This NSF-IUSE project began in fall 2022 and features cross-disciplinary collaboration between faculty in engineering, math, history, English, and physics to design, pilot, and assess a new learning community approach to welcome precalculus level students into an engineering transfer degree program. The learning community spans two academic quarters and includes six different courses. The place-based curriculum includes contextualized precalculus and English composition, Pacific Northwest history, orientation to the engineering profession, and introductory skills such as problem-solving, computer programming, and team-based design. The program also features community-engaged project-based learning in the first quarter and a course-based undergraduate research experience in the second quarter, both with an overarching theme of energy and water resources. The approach leverages multiple high-impact educational practices to promote deep conceptual learning, motivate foundational skill development, explore social relevance and connection, and ultimately seeks to strengthen our students’ engineering identity, sense of belonging, and general academic preparation for success in an engineering major. Fall 2023 marked the first quarter of piloting the new learning community with a cohort of 19 students out of a capacity limit of 24. This paper reports on the demographics of the first cohort and compares them to enrollment in a parallel section of our Introduction to Engineering course that is not linked. We also share some of the students’ reasons for enrolling and their feedback on the experience. We found that students in populations with intensive entry advising such as International Programs and Running Start (a high school dual-enrollment program) appear to be overrepresented in the first cohort. This finding correlates with a theme in nearly all student responses that they learned about the program through advising. Finally, we describe some example activities and student projects that illustrate how the curriculum design integrates content across the academic disciplines involved. 

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2. Work in Progress: Cultivating Reflective Engineers: Does providing a reflective ePortfolio experience in a first-year design course lead students to be more reflective in later courses?

   R. Thomas, S. A. (July 2023, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   This work in progress paper assesses whether a first-year ePortfolio experience promotes better reflection in subsequent engineering courses. While reflection is vital to promote learning, historically, reflection receives less attention in engineering education when compared to other fields [1]. Yet, cultivating more reflective engineers yields several important benefits including building self-efficacy and empowering student agency. Through continued practice, engineering students can develop a habit of reflective thinking which increases students’ ability to transfer knowledge across contexts. The adoption of ePortfolios is becoming an increasingly popular strategy to improve student learning and establish a culture of reflection. The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at a small liberal arts college in the northeastern United States is beginning to incorporate ePortfolios into courses. Professors of a first-year design course developed an ePortfolio assignment that gives students a space to reflect on their potential career paths and envision themselves as future engineers. We were curious about the impact this experience might have on students’ reflective thinking as they continue through the program. This work was guided by the research question: Do student ePortfolios in a first-year design course promote better reflection in subsequent technical courses? In this paper, we investigate this question by coding instances of reflection in student lab reports from a second-year design course. As a control group, lab reports from students the previous year who had not completed the ePortfolio activity were compared. We provide a quantitative summary of our analysis which concludes students that were provided with a reflective ePortfolio experience in their first-year are more reflective thinkers in their second-year. 

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3. The Mini-Mill Experience: A Self-Paced Introductory Machining Exercise for Mechanical Engineering Students

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--48122  

   Buckley, Jenni; Trauth, Amy; De_Rosa, Alexander (June 2024, ASEE Conferences)

   Practicing mechanical engineers interface regularly with machinists to design and manufacture components in metal and other engineered materials. Direct, hands-on exposure to precision machining operations, like mill and lathe work, helps young engineers design manufacturable components and facilitates better collaboration with machinists. Mechanical engineering undergraduate programs have been cited for weaknesses in training students on industry-standard manufacturing practices. While there are several excellent examples in the literature of student manufacturing projects, these projects are relatively advanced on the whole, and they require extensive human and capital resources to deploy in large-enrollment classes. Prior investigators have conserved resources by teaming students on projects, which dilutes the hands-on manufacturing experience for individual learners. In this study, we present an introductory mill training exercise for engineering students that allows them to individually develop transferable machining skills but requires fairly modest resources. This exercise, which we call the “Mini-Mill Experience,” involves students individually manufacturing two separate parts with a hobby-grade mini-mill and then completing a written self-reflection documenting their procedures and final part inspection. Students first manufacture a simple part out of reusable wax with direct coaching from a teaching assistant. They then independently manufacture one of six different wooden Erector Set components. The Mini-Mill Experience is designed to give students firsthand experience and promote confidence with the basic mill controls and operations, e.g., changing out an endmill or squaring up a face, that are transferable to the full-sized mills they will use in later courses. The one-time equipment set-up costs for this exercise were approximately $60 per student, with recurring costs of less than $2 per student for stock material. Each student completed the exercise during a two-hour lab period, and it took approximately six weeks for all students in the course (ca. 170 students) to complete the exercise. All sessions were supervised by a machinist and one to two teaching assistants. To gauge the effectiveness of the Mini-Mill Experience, a survey was distributed to all students in a freshmen year mechanical engineering design course. Survey responses indicated that the majority of the students (77%) had no prior experience with mills. Post-activity, students reported high levels of self-confidence in identifying the critical components of a mill and most basic mill operations, like proper use of a vise and tool changes. Compared to students who had prior mill experience, students with no prior experience demonstrated slightly lower self-efficacy with more advanced mill operations like creating blind holes and tapping threads. Post-activity, 75% of students agreed they “were not intimidated or afraid to use the mill to make a part,” and 90% said that they “looked forward to their next experience on a mill.” In this study, we developed an introductory manufacturing experience – the “Mini-Mill Experience” – that is effective in teaching basic mill operations, promotes students’ self-efficacy and enthusiasm for future machining experiences, and is cost effective and scalable for large class sizes. In these ways, it is a valuable addition to the existing literature and curriculum on manufacturing education for mechanical engineers. Future work by our group will focus on whether the skills acquired in the Mini-Mill Experience are transferable to manufacturing experiences later in the curriculum. 

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4. Retention Focused S-STEM Support Program

   Hensel, Robin; Morris, Melissa; Dygert, Joseph (September 2019, AAAS/NSF 2019 S-STEM Symposium)

   POSTER. Presented at the Symposium (9/12/2019) Abstract: The Academy of Engineering Success (AcES) employs literature-based, best practices to support and retain underrepresented students in engineering through graduation with the ultimate goal of diversifying the engineering workforce. AcES was established in 2012 and has been supported via NSF S-STEM award number 1644119 since 2016. The 2016, 2017, and 2018 cohorts consist of 12, 20, and 22 students, respectively. Five S-STEM supported scholarships were awarded to the 2016 cohort, seven scholarships were awarded to students from the 2017 cohort, and six scholarships were awarded to students from the 2018 cohort. AcES students participate in a one-week summer bridge experience, a common fall semester course focused on professional development, and a common spring semester course emphasizing the role of engineers in societal development. Starting with the summer bridge experience, and continuing until graduation, students are immersed in curricular and co-curricular activities with the goals of fostering feelings of institutional inclusion and belonging in engineering, providing academic support and student success skills, and professional development. The aforementioned goals are achieved by providing (1) opportunities for faculty-student, student-student, and industry mentor-student interaction, (2) academic support, and student success education in areas such as time management and study skills, and (3) facilitated career and major exploration. Four research questions are being examined, (1) What is the relationship between participation in the AcES program and participants’ academic success?, (2) What aspects of the AcES program most significantly impact participants’ success in engineering, (3) How do AcES students seek to overcome challenges in studying engineering, and (4) What is the longitudinal impact of the AcES program in terms of motivation, perceptions, feelings of inclusion, outcome expectations of the participants and retention? Students enrolled in the AcES program participate in the GRIT, LAESE, and MSLQ surveys, focus groups, and one-on-one interviews at the start and end of each fall semester and at the end of the spring semester. The surveys provide a measure of students’ GRIT, general self-efficacy, engineering self-efficacy, test anxiety, math outcome efficacy, intrinsic value of learning, inclusion, career expectations, and coping efficacy. Focus group and interview responses are analyzed in order to answer research questions 2, 3, and 4. Survey responses are analyzed to answer research question 4, and institutional data such as GPA is used to answer research question 1. An analysis of the 2017 AcES cohort survey responses produced a surprising result. When the responses of AcES students who retained were compared to the responses of AcES students who left engineering, those who left engineering had higher baseline values of GRIT, career expectations, engineering self-efficacy, and math outcome efficacy than those students who retained. A preliminary analysis of the 2016, 2017, and 2018 focus group and one-on-one interview responses indicates that the Engineering Learning Center, tutors, organized out of class experiences, first-year seminar, the AcES cohort, the AcES summer bridge, the AcES program, AcES Faculty/Staff, AcES guest lecturers, and FEP faculty/Staff are viewed as valuable by students and cited with contributing to their success in engineering. It is also evident that AcES students seek help from peers, seek help from tutors, use online resources, and attend office hours to overcome their challenges in studying engineering. 

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5. Understanding Student Retention in Engineering

   Hensel, Robin A.; Dygert, Joseph; Morris, Melissa Lynn (June 2020, 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access)

   The Academy of Engineering Success (AcES) program employs known best practices to support engineering students with the goal of retaining them through graduation and diversifying the engineering workforce. The AcES program started in 2012 and has been supported by NSF SSTEM award number DUE-1644119 since 2016. Cohorts from 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 consist of 12, 20, 22, and 17 students, respectively. Twenty-one renewable S-STEM supported scholarships have been awarded to students since 2016. AcES students participate in a one-week pre-fall bridge experience, a common fall professional development course, and a course emphasizing the role of engineers in societal development in the spring semester. Starting in the bridge experience and continuing until graduation, students participate in curricular and co-curricular activities with the goals of: (1) fostering feelings of belonging in engineering and institutional inclusion, (2) encouraging professional development, and (3) supporting academic achievement and student success. These goals are achieved by providing: (1) opportunities for interaction between students and peers, faculty, and industry mentors; (2) major and career exploration opportunities; and (3) academic support and student success education in areas such as time management and study skills. AcES students participate in the GRIT, LAESE, and MSLQ surveys, as well as in focus groups and one-on-one interviews at the start and end of each fall semester and at the end of the spring semester. The surveys provide a quantitative measure of students’ GRIT, general self-efficacy, engineering self-efficacy, test anxiety, math outcome efficacy, intrinsic value of learning, inclusion, career expectations, and coping efficacy. Qualitative data from the focus group and individual interview responses are used to provide insight into the quantitative survey results. Surprisingly, a previous analysis of the 2017 cohort survey responses revealed that students who left engineering had higher baseline values of GRIT, career expectations, engineering self-efficacy, and math outcome efficacy than those students who retained. Hence, the 2018 cohort survey responses were analyzed in relation to retention and are presented along with qualitative results to provide a holistic understanding of student retention. Results from both the 2017 and 2018 cohorts are presented and discussed in the paper and poster. 

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