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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).more »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.« less
2. 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 sessionsmore »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.« less
3. Light Microscopy Outreach as an Introduction to Scientific Concepts for Students in Under-Resourced Schools Across the Globe

   Endow, Sharyn A. ; Paul, Umika S. ( January 2020 , Microscopy and microanalysis)

   Light microscopy provides a window into another world that is not visible to the unaided eye. Because of this and its importance in biological discoveries, the light microscope is an essential tool for scientific studies. It can also be used with a variety of easily obtained specimens to provide dramatic demonstrations of previously unknown features of common plants and animals. Thus, one way to interest young people in science is to start with an introduction to light microscopy. This is an especially effective strategy for individuals who attend less advantaged or under-resourced schools, as they may not have been previously exposed to scientific concepts in their classes. However, introducing light microscopy lessons in the classroom can be challenging because of the high cost of light microscopes, even those that are relatively basic, in addition to their usual large size. Efforts are underway by our laboratory in collaboration with the Biophysical Society (BPS) to introduce young people to light microscopy using small, easy-to-assemble wooden microscopes developed by Echo Laboratories. The microscopes are available online as low-cost kits ($10 each with shipping), each consisting of 19 parts printed onto an 81⁄2 x 11 inch sheet of light-weight wood (Fig. 1). After punchingmore »out the pieces, they can be assembled into a microscope with a moveable stage and a low-power lens, also provided in the kit (Fig. 2). Photos taken with a cell phone through the microscope lens can give magnifications of ~16-18x, or higher. At these magnifications, features of specimens that are not visible to the unaided eye can be easily observed, e.g., small hairs on the margins of leaves or lichens [1]. As a member of the BPS Education Committee, one of us (SAE) wrote a Lesson Plan on Light Microscopy specifically for use with the wooden microscopes. SAE was also able to obtain a gift of 500 wooden microscope kits for the BPS from Echo Laboratories and Chroma Technology Corp in 2016. The wooden microscope kits, together with the lesson plan, have provided the materials for our present outreach efforts. Rather than giving out the wooden microscope kits to individuals, the BPS asked the Education Committee to maximize the impact of the gift by distributing the microscopes with the Lesson Plan on Light Microscopy to teachers, e.g., through teachers’ workshops or outreach sessions. This strategy was devised to enable the Society to reach a larger number of young people than by giving the microscopes to individuals. The Education Committee first evaluated the microscopes as a tool to introduce students to scientific concepts by providing microscopes to a BPS member at the National University of Colombia who conducted a workshop on Sept 19-24, 2016 in Tumaco, Columbia. During the workshop, which involved 120 high school girls and 80 minority students, including Afro-Colombian and older students, the students built the wooden microscopes and examined specimens, and compared the microscopes to a conventional light microscope. Assembling the wooden microscopes was found to be a useful procedure that was similar to a scientific protocol, and encouraged young girls and older students to participate in science. This was especially promising in Colombia, where there are few women in science and little effort to increase women in STEM fields. Another area of outreach emerged recently when one of us, USP, an undergraduate student at Duke University, who was taught by SAE how to assemble the wooden microscopes and how to use the lesson plan, took three wooden microscopes on a visit to her family in Bangalore, India in summer 2018 [2]. There she organized and led three sessions in state run, under-resourced government schools, involving classes of ~25-40 students each. This was very successful – the students enjoyed learning about the microscopes and building them, and the science teachers were interested in expanding the sessions to other government schools. USP taught the teachers how to assemble and use the microscopes and gave the teachers the microscopes and lesson plan, which is also available to the public at the BPS web site. She also met with a founder of the organization, Whitefield Rising, which is working to improve teaching in government schools, and taught her and several volunteers how to assemble the microscopes and conduct the sessions. The Whitefield Rising members have been able to conduct nine further sessions in Bangalore over the past ~18 months (Fig. 3), using microscope kits provided to them by the BPS. USP has continued to work with members of the Whitefield Rising group during her summer and winter breaks on visits to Bangalore. Recently she has been working with another volunteer group that has expanded the outreach efforts to New Delhi. The light microscopy outreach that our laboratory is conducting in India in collaboration with the BPS is having a positive impact because we have been able to develop a partnership with volunteers in Bangalore and New Delhi. The overall goal is to enhance science education globally, especially in less advantaged schools, by providing a low-cost microscope that can be used to introduce students to scientific concepts.« less
4. The refinement of flipped teaching implementation to include retrieval practice

   https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00143.2019  

   Gopalan, Chaya ; Fentem, Andrea ; Rever, Anna L. ( June 2020 , Advances in Physiology Education)

   There has been growing evidence that flipped teaching (FT) can increase student engagement. Traditional lecture-based teaching (TT) method was compared with FT and FT combined with retrieval practice (FTR) in a 400-level Exercise Physiology course over eight semesters. In the FT format, lecture content was assigned for students to prepare before class along with an online quiz. During class, the assigned content and quiz questions were reviewed, and a team-based learning (TBL) activity was conducted. Students found FT implementation three times a week (FT3) to be overwhelming, which led to reconfiguration of the FT design to minimize the quiz and TBL sessions to one per week. Subsequently, FT was combined with retrieval exercises (FTR), which involved recalling information, thus promoting retention. The students in the FTR format were given weekly quizzes in class, where no notes were allowed, which affected their quiz grade negatively compared with FT ( P < 0.0001). Again, no resources were permitted during FTR’s TBL sessions. When exam scores were compared with TT, student performance was significantly greater ( P < 0.001) with the FT and FTR methods, suggesting these methods are superior to TT. While both male and female students benefited from FT and FTRmore »methods compared with TT ( P = 0.0008), male students benefited the most (( P = 0.0001). Similarly, when the exam scores were organized into upper and lower halves, both groups benefited from FT and FTR ( P < 0.0001) approaches. In conclusion, both FT and FTR methods benefit students more compared with TT, and male students are impacted the most.« less
5. Estuarine and coastal natural hazards: An introduction and synthesis

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2020.106654  

   Veeramony, Jay ; Li, Chunyan ; Sheremet, Alex ; Myers, Edward P. ; Xia, Meng ; Mitchell, Steve ( January 2020 , Estuarine coastal and shelf science)

   Two sessions were organized during the 2018 Fall AGU Meeting entitled, (1) Coastal Response to Extreme Events: Fidelity of Model Predictions of Surge, Inundation, and Morphodynamics and (2) Improved Observational and Modeling Skills to Understand the Hurricane and Winter Storm Induced Surge and Meteotsunami. The focus of these sessions was on examining the impact of natural disasters on estuarine and coastal regions worldwide, including the islands and mainland in the northwestern Atlantic and the northwestern Pacific. The key research interests are the investigations on the regional dynamics of storm surges, coastal inundations, waves, tides, currents, sea surface temperatures, storm inundations and coastal morphology using both numerical models and observations during tropical and extratropical cyclones. This Special Issue (SI) ‘Estuarine and coastal natural hazards’ in Estuarine Coastal and Shelf Science is an outcome of the talks presented at these two sessions. Five themes are considered (effects of storms of wave dynamics; tide and storm surge simulations; wave-current interaction during typhoons; wave effects on storm surges and hydrodynamics; hydrodynamic and morphodynamic responses to typhoons), arguably reflecting areas of greatest interest to researchers and policy makers. This synopsis of the articles published in the SI allows us to obtain a better understanding ofmore »the dynamics of natural hazards (e.g., storm surges, extreme waves, and storm induced inundation) from various physical aspects. The discussion in the SI explores future dimensions to comprehend numerical models with fully coupled windwave- current-morphology interactions at high spatial resolutions in the nearshore and surf zone during extreme wind events. In addition, it would be worthwhile to design numerical models incorporating climate change projections (sea level rise and global warming temperatures) for storm surges and coastal inundations to allow more precisely informed coastal zone management plans.« less