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1. A MATLAB App to Introduce Chemical Engineering Design Concepts to Engineering Freshmen through a Pharmaceutical Dosing Case Study

   C. V. Eastep, G. K. ( April 2019 , Chemical engineering education)

   Hands-on design experiences to introduce first year students to chemical engineering are limited.[1] The College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology (CEAT) Summer Bridge Program at Oklahoma State University is a three-week camp designed to acclimate first year students to college life while providing calculus and physics preparatory short courses and design experiences from multiple disciplines in CEAT.[2] Since first-year students enjoy and value hands-on experiences,[2] we have developed a hands-on design module on the topic of pharmaceutical dosing for the chemical engineering portion of the Summer Bridge Program. We have taught the design module in nine sessions that were eachmore »two hours per day over three days during the 2015 – 2018 offerings of the Summer Bridge Program. The detailed lesson plan for using the design module to introduce mass balance and design concepts and an overview of the initial version of the MATLAB app were discussed in our previous ASEE conference proceedings paper.[2] In the present work, we discuss a redesigned MATLAB app (Figure 1) that has been expanded from two drugs and four cases to five drugs and eight cases. The new version of the MATLAB app is available as SB17CHE.mlappinstall on our GitHub repository.[3] Any future updates to the software will be released to the same archive. Additionally, we include a new section focused on our experiences in teaching chemical engineering design concepts using the MATLAB app and in responding to typical student questions. Our aim is to provide a tutorial for other educators interested in using the MATLAB app in their classroom or outreach activities related to chemical engineering design. For those interested in creating similar computational instructional tools, we have published details regarding the software implementation of the app and its documentation.[4]« less
2. Biologically Inspired Design For Engineering Education: Online Teacher Professional Learning (Evaluation)

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--36749  

   Alemdar, Meltem ; Ehsan, Hoda ; Cappelli, Christopher ; Kim, Euisun ; Moore, Roxanne ; Helms, Michael ; Rosen, Jeffrey ; Weissburg, Marc ( July 2021 , American Society of Engineering education)

   Biologically inspired design has become increasingly common in graduate and undergraduate engineering programs, consistent with an expanding emphasis by professional engineering societies on cross-disciplinary critical thinking skills and adaptive and sustainable design. However, bio-inspired engineering is less common in K-12 education. In 2019, the NSF funded a K-12 project entitled Biologically Inspired Design for Engineering Education (BIRDEE), to create socially relevant, accessible, and highly contextualized high school engineering curricula focusing on bio-inspired design. Studies have shown that women and underrepresented minorities are drawn to curricula, courses, and instructional strategies that are integrated, emphasize systems thinking, and facilitate connection building acrossmore »courses or disciplines. The BIRDEE project also seeks to interest high school girls in engineering by providing curricula that incorporate humanistic, bio-inspired engineering with a focus on sustainable and authentic design contexts. BIRDEE curricula integrate bio-inspired design into the engineering design process by leveraging design tools that facilitate the application of biological concepts to design challenges. This provides a conceptual framework enabling students to systematically define a design problem, resulting in better, more well-rounded problem specifications. The professional development (PD) for the participating teachers include six-week-long summer internships in university research laboratories focused on biology and bio-inspired design. The goal of these internships is to improve engineering teachers’ knowledge of bio-inspired design by partnering with cutting-edge engineers and scientists to study animal features and behaviors and their applications to engineering design. However, due to COVID-19 and research lab closures in the summer of 2020, the research team had to transfer the summer PD experience to an online setting. An asynchronous, quasi-facilitated online course was developed and delivered to teachers over six weeks. In this paper, we will discuss online pedagogical approaches to experiential learning, teaching bio-inspired design concepts, and the integration of these approaches in the engineering design process. Central to the online PD design and function of each course was the use of inquiry, experiential and highly-collaborative learning strategies. Preliminary results show that teachers appreciated the aspects of the summer PD that included exploration, such as during the “Found Object” activity, and the process of building a prototype. These activities represented experiential learning opportunities where teachers were able to learn by doing. It was noted throughout the focus group discussions that such opportunities were appreciated by participating teachers. Teachers indicated that the experiential learning components of the PD allowed them to do something outside of their comfort zone, inspired them to do research that they would not have done outside of this experience, and allowed them to “be in the student's seat and get hands-on application”. By participating in these experiential learning opportunities, teachers were also able to better understand how the BIRDEE curriculum may impact students’ learning in their classrooms« less
3. Students of Purdue Observing Tornadic Thunderstorms for Research (SPOTTR) A Severe Storms Field Work Course at Purdue University

   https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-19-0025.1  

   Tanamachi, Robin L. ; Dawson, Daniel T. ; Parker, Loran Carleton ( June 2020 , Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society)

   Abstract A summer course has been developed at Purdue University that leverages students’ intrinsic desire to observe tornadoes as a motivator for learning severe storms forecasting. Relative to previous “storm chasing” courses described in the literature, the Students of Purdue Observing Tornadic Thunderstorms for Research (SPOTTR) course is enhanced by active learning exercises, career exploration activities, and the inclusion of research-grade meteorological instrumentation in order to provide an authentic in-field experiential learning scenario. After teaching severe weather forecasting skills and deployment techniques for several meteorological instruments (such as a mobile radar, radiosondes, and disdrometers), the instructors then guide the studentsmore »on a 1-week field trip to the Great Plains, where the group executes a miniature field campaign to collect high-quality meteorological observations in and near severe storms. On days with no targetable severe weather, the participants visit sites deemed beneficial to the students’ professional development. The final week of the course is spent performing retrospective case studies based on the observations collected, and distilling lessons learned. Surveys given to SPOTTR students show that students’ understanding of severe storms forecasting, technical skills, and career aspirations all improved as a result of having participated in the SPOTTR course, affirming the efficacy of the course design.« less
4. Delivering Contextual Knowledge and Critical Skills of Disruptive Technologies through Problem-based Learning in a Research Experiences for Undergraduates Setting

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--34377  

   Comert, Gurcan ; Pierce, Charles ; Berk, Zulfikar ; Huynh, Nathan ; Petrulis, Robert ; Uddin, Majbah ( June 2020 , 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference)

   The recent development in transportation, such as energy-efficient and autonomous vehicles, defines a condition for the students in transportation engineering. Students in the field of transportation engineering should be ready upon their graduation with new knowledge and skills that are compatible with the need of the industry and sustainable engineering practices. During summers of2018 and 2019, we developed and implemented an eight-week program to increase the knowledge and skills of students coming from multidisciplinary fields related to autonomous vehicles. Problem of “How much will platooning reduce fuel consumption and emissions per vehicle mile traveled?” was instrumentalized in subsequent activities tomore »introduce the comprehensive knowledge structure of autonomous vehicles. The engineering concept of reducing the cost and sustainability was embedded in the leading research question that helped us to develop and implement activities on an overall knowledge structure in autonomous vehicles. The goal of using problem-based learning activities was not to encourage the students to focus on reaching the solution merely. We aimed to introduce the multidisciplinary knowledge and critical skills aspects of learning about disruptive technologies. In this paper, we will discuss how a multidisciplinary research approach was incorporated into a problem-based learning activity. The students were introduced the subjects related to math, physics, computer science, and biology as the integration of the knowledge structure of autonomous vehicles. We will also present the results on students’ use of critical skills such as machine learning and computer programming.« less
5. Work-in-Progress: Social and Cultural Activities Integrated into an REU Site in the U.S. South

   Freeborn, T.J. ; Gosa, M.M. ( July 2021 , 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference)

   Participating in a research experience for undergraduates (REU) site provides opportunities for students to develop their research and technical skills, network with other REU students/professors, raise their awareness of graduate studies, and understand the social context of research. In support of this mission, our REU site at the University of Alabama is exploring research at the intersection of engineering and communicative disorders. Beyond research training though, an REU site provides the opportunity for professional development, social activities, and cultural activities to enrich the student experience. These are important features of an REU, which typically range from 9-10 weeks. Students thatmore »participate in summer REUs are recruited from around the country and are brought together at a central research site. Each student brings with them their unique perspectives and lived experiences. To form a cohesive cohort from the individual students, it is important to facilitate shared experiences early in their 9-10 week REU. Supporting the development of a student community through shared experiences has a significant impact on student perspectives of the program. Shared experiences also provide the opportunity to increase the students’ understanding of the new city/state/region that is the setting for the REU. The 2019 iteration of our REU Site, which has a theme of developing technology to support clinical practice in the field of communicative sciences and disorders, aimed to increase the level of social and cultural activities of the cohort in comparison to previous REU sites on campus. This was achieved with multiple professional development, cultural, and social activities. For professional development, students participated in a Practicing Inclusive Engagement workshop to build skills for intercultural engagement that in turn foster a more inclusive REU cohort. Students participated in this workshop within the first three days of arriving on campus. This workshop focused on identity, inclusive language, and creative ways to invite and engage in diverse perspectives. For cultural activities, full-day field trips were taken to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL and The Legacy Museum / The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, AL. These trips engaged students in very different aspects of Alabama's history. One showcasing achievements of the U.S. space and rocket program and the other investigating the racial injustice in American history and its legacy. While many of the students were familiar with these histories, the museums and their compelling visuals and data-rich exhibits provided a far deeper insight into these topics and facilitated further conversation between the REU cohort. The REU cohort spent much of their summer learning with and from graduate students enrolled in the masters of speech-language pathology (SLP) program at the University of Alabama. At the end of the summer experience, a BBQ event was facilitated (food, yard games) to spur on friendly competition between REU and SLP students. This provided both groups an informal opportunity to debrief about the summer experiences. In this work an overview of the REU site will be provided with a focus on the logistical elements to pilot the social, cultural and professional development efforts, a summary of the student feedback from the written reflections and focus groups, experiences of the program coordinators, and future plans to refine and improve these elements will be presented.« less