This project evaluates if and how an intervention to design a K-12 STEM activity related to water chemistry impacts the innovation self-efficacy (ISE) of junior students enrolled in a required environmental engineering course. ISE is defined as having five behavioral components: questioning, observing, experimenting, idea networking, and associational thinking. In this course, the K-12 STEM activity is designed with a team of 3 to 5 students. The activity requires that the students develop an innovative activity that demonstrates environmental engineering concepts such as acid mine drainage, ocean acidification, and contaminant removal. The student projects are scaffolded throughout the 10 weeks via intermediate submissions and meetings with a K-12 STEM teacher and design mentors. In fall 2022 a pilot of the study was conducted and relied on a quantitative survey instrument that measured ISE, innovation interest (INT), and future innovative work interest (IW). Based on the preliminary findings of factor structure, item reliability, and face validity evaluated by two faculty and two undergraduate students, small changes were made to the quantitative assessment instrument. The revised survey was deployed in the fall of 2023 in a required junior-level test course and a senior-level control course. The senior-level control course consisted of students who took the junior-level course with the K-12 STEM activity in the previous year. In 2023 the K-12 STEM activity intervention also included additional scaffolding through the addition of 3 team-based and 2 individual reflections to understand the process of ISE formation. Pre-post comparisons of the quantitative survey items will be conducted for individual students in the test and control courses. Team and individual reflections from the test course will be analyzed after the course. Potential demographic differences in ISE will be explored. Potential team-level influences will also be evaluated to understand the impact of a team’s ISE score on enhancing an individual team member’s ISE gain. Focus groups and individual interviews with students who participated in the test course will take place in spring 2024. The ISE, INT, and IW of environmental engineering students will be further assessed in spring 2024 through the ISE survey in the environmental engineering capstone design course and a junior-level creativity and entrepreneurship design course. This assessment will compare two different learning experiences on ISE, INT, and IW, the K-12 STEM education activity design with a semester-long, group-based technical design experience. Preliminary results will be presented in the NSF Grantees Poster Session.
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Work in Progress: Development of UAS Module in Laboratory Class for a Senior Engineering Core Course.
Designing a senior-level course that involves problem-based learning, including project completion task, is laborious and challenging. A well-designed project motivates the students to be self-learners and prepares them for future industrial or academic endeavors. The COVID-19 pandemic brought many challenges when instructions were forced to move either online or to a remote teaching/learning environment. Due to this rapid transition, delivery modes in teaching and learning modalities faced disruption making course design more difficult. The senior level Flight Controls course AME - 4513 is designed with Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) related projects for the students to have a better understanding of UAS usage on various applications in support of Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program. The purpose of this paper is to present the UAS lab modules in a junior level robotics lab, AME - 4802, which preceded the Flight Controls course in the school of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Oklahoma. Successfully completing the course project requires independent research and involves numerical simulations of UAS. The Robotics Lab course focuses on hands-on projects of robotic systems with an emphasis on semi-autonomous mobile robots, including an UAS introduction module. - The UAS module in the Robotics Lab class is introduced in Spring 2020. Therefore, most of the students enrolled in the Spring 2020 Robotics Lab course have introductory knowledge about the UAS system when taking the Fall 2020 Flight Control course. In addition, Spring 2020 Robotics Lab was affected due to COVID-19. - The UAS module was not introduced in 2019 Spring Robotics lab. Thus, the students enrolled in Fall 2019 Flight Controls course did not have prior knowledge on the UAS system. - We thus present the implementation of UAS module in a junior level robotics lab which preceded the senior level Flight Controls course in following Fall semester, when the same instructor taught the course.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1700640
- PAR ID:
- 10382056
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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