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1. Creating Significant Learning Experiences in an Engineering Technology Bridge Course: a backward design approach

   Villalta-Cerdas, A.; Yildiz, F. (January 2022, 2022 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access)

   Academic bridge courses are implemented to impact students’ academic success by revising fundamental concepts and skills necessary to successfully complete discipline-specific courses. The bridge courses are often short (one to three weeks) and highly dense in content (commonly mathematics or math-related applications). With the support of the NSF-funded (DUE - Division of Undergraduate Education) STEM Center at Sam Houston State University (SHSU), we designed a course for upcoming engineering majors (i.e., first-year students and transfer students) that consists of a two-week-long pre-semester course organized into two main sessions. The first sessions (delivered in the mornings) were synchronous activities focused on strengthening student academic preparedness and socio-academic integration and fostering networking leading to a strong STEM learning community. The second sessions (delivered in the afternoons) were asynchronous activities focused on discipline-specific content knowledge in engineering. The engineering concepts were organized via eight learning modules covering basic math operations, applied trigonometry, functions in engineering, applied physics, introduction to statics and Microsoft Excel, and engineering economics and its applied decision. All materials in the course were designed by engineering faculty (from the chair of the department to assistant professors and lecturers in engineering) and one educational research faculty (from the department of chemistry). The course design process started with a literature review on engineering bridge courses to understand prior work, followed by surveying current engineering faculty to propose goals for the course. The designed team met weekly after setting the course goals over two semesters. The design process was initiated with backward design principles (i.e., start with the course goals, then the assessments, end with the learning activities) and continued with ongoing revision. The work herein presents this new engineering bridge course’s goals, strategy, and design process. Preliminary student outcomes will be discussed based on the course’s first implementation during summer 2021. 

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2. Meeting report: transposable elements at the crossroads of evolution, health and disease 2023

   https://doi.org/10.1186/s13100-023-00307-4  

   Arkhipova, Irina R; Burns, Kathleen H; Chiappinelli, Katherine B; Chuong, Edward B; Goubert, Clement; Guarné, Alba; Larracuente, Amanda M; Lee, E Alice; Levin, Henry L (December 2023, Mobile DNA)

   Abstract The conference “Transposable Elements at the Crossroads of Evolution, Health and Disease” was hosted by Keystone Symposia in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada, on September 3–6, 2023, and was organized by Kathleen Burns, Harmit Malik and Irina Arkhipova. The central theme of the meeting was the incredible diversity of ways in which transposable elements (TEs) interact with the host, from disrupting the existing genes and pathways to creating novel gene products and expression patterns, enhancing the repertoire of host functions, and ultimately driving host evolution. The meeting was organized into six plenary sessions and two afternoon workshops with a total of 50 invited and contributed talks, two poster sessions, and a career roundtable. The topics ranged from TE roles in normal and pathological processes to restricting and harnessing TE activity based on mechanistic insights gained from genetic, structural, and biochemical studies. 

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3. Lessons Learned in an S-STEM Program: How to Improve Recruitment and Cohort Building

   Gartner, Jacqueline; Miller, Michele; Rynearson, Anastasia (July 2021, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   null (Ed.)

   A small liberal arts university in the south received an S-STEM grant in 2018 focused on the School of Engineering. Important factors in the program's success are applicant recruitment and cohort building. Our recruiting efforts targeted at-risk students who entered the University with less math preparation. In the first year, we met our goals for recruitment in terms of overall applicant numbers but not in terms of the number of at-risk students. In the second year, we had fewer overall applicants, but the proportion that were at-risk was higher. In the area of cohort building, feedback from the scholarship recipients indicated our programming did not build community or provide opportunities for them to meet students in the other years. In that first year, the project team organized and led professional development and social events. The social events had little structure, and attendance was poor. In the second year, we hired a consultant to provide sessions for students on topics such as value identification, gratitude, and mindfulness. The sessions had positive student feedback. In addition to providing professional development skills, the interactivity of the sessions helped build a stronger cohort. This paper reviews the lessons learned from the first two years and reports on the results of the third-year program implementation. 

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4. Bridging the Workforce Skills Gap in High Value Manufacturing through Continuing Education

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--32423  

   Johnson, M. D. (January 2019, ASEE annual conference)

   Research shows that there is a growing need for skilled workers in the area of advanced manufacturing; this refers to making use of new technologies and advanced processes to produce products that have high value. More importantly, U.S. government employment data reveals that there is lack of supply of skilled workers in the manufacturing sector. Furthermore, it has also been widely cited in industrial literature that there is a concern regarding the job readiness of fresh college graduates and the gaps in skills sets needed to be successful in an industrial setting, especially in the engineering or manufacturing fields. One approach to bridge the skills gap is to provide customized continuing education to current the workforce as per the industry need. This paper presents a case study of such customized continuing education offered by Texas A&M University for oil and gas industry in Houston, Texas. Specifically, as a part of National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education project, two professional development sessions were organized in the summer of 2018 in Houston targeting the energy industry. Both programs were two-days long and focused on two key aspects of high value manufacturing: manufacturing operations excellence and manufacturing quality excellence. The professional development sessions were focused on materials and inventory planning, production economics, manufacturing quality, non-destructive evaluation, statistical process control, and lean/ sixsigma. The continuing education programs and course materials were developed based on the feedback from the industry advisory board for the Manufacturing Center of Excellence at Houston Community College, which is a collaborating partner on the ATE Grant. As a part of assessment of the programs, industry participants in the both sessions were given comprehensive surveys asking for their feedback on the applicability of the educational sessions. Overall, the participants rated the sessions very highly on the organization and the relevancy of the program topics and learning materials. The participants also felt that they learned new information through these programs. 

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5. Mid-Career Workshop: Empowering Women in the Learning Sciences

   Teasley, S. D. (January 2019, Computersupported collaborative learning)

   The 2019 Mid-Career Workshop has refocused its conference-related activities to serve as community-building opportunity for those who have achieved tenure or a related professional milestone (e.g., learning scientists with positions in industry, non-profits, museums, and other learning-oriented organizations). Organized and facilitated by senior scholars, this pre-conference session will cover a diverse array of topics of concern to the mid-career community in parallel break-out sessions of approximately 30 minutes each. Participants can rotate through multiple break-out sessions. 

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