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1. The Agile Academic Enterprise

   Wilson, T. A. ; Towhidnejad, M. ; Pembridge, J. J. ; Bowen, E. E. ; Ochoa, O. ; Castro, C. A. ( January 2021 , 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference)

   null (Ed.)

   What might it mean to be an agile academic department? An agile college? An agile university? “Agile”, as used here, refers to practices and frameworks in software development and deployment, such as Scrum, Extreme Programming, and Crystal Clear. The Agile movement’s founding documents, the Agile Manifesto and its accompanying Agile Principles [https://agilemanifesto.org/], were published by leading software engineering researchers in February of 2001. The Manifesto staked out distinction with the prevailing software development approach at the time, called planned development and otherwise known as waterfall. The Agile Manifesto states, "We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value: "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan "That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.” Since the Manifesto’s publication, Agile use has expanded from its then primarily application in software development into a wide range of activities, from rocket motors (Space X), to race car development (Wikispeed), to finance (World Bank), to human resources (ING). Denning postulates Three Laws of the Agile Mindset: (1) The Law of the Small Team, in which small cross-functions teams work in short iterations receiving regular customer feedback; (2) The Law of the Customer, in which delighting the customer is taken as the ultimate purpose for any enterprise; and (3) The Law of the Network, in which networks of small teams act, having trust in the competency of each other, act like small teams in themselves [The Age of Agile: How Smart Companies Are Transforming the Way Work Gets Done. AMACOM, 2018]. Academic enterprises have unique attributes — recurring, months long, instructional terms; “customers” (students) whose short-term dissatisfaction can be part of the path to long-term success; industrial stakeholders who influence program direction and focus to satisfy hiring needs; generation of new knowledge, often with financial support from government agencies and industry; service to the profession and to our institutions. Using Denning’s Laws as a framing, we present possible approaches to employing agile within an academic department and discuss potential expansion of such to the level of a college and even an entire university. 

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2. Practical Skills for Students in Mechatronics and Robotics Education

   Berry, C. ; Gennert, M. ; Reck, R. ( June 2020 , ASEE annual conference exposition proceedings)

   In September 2019, the fourth and final workshop on the Future of Mechatronics and Robotics Education (FoMRE) was held at a Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, MI. This workshop was organized by faculty at several universities with financial support from industry partners and the National Science Foundation. The purpose of the workshops was to create a cohesive effort among mechatronics and robotics courses, minors and degree programs. Mechatronics and Robotics Engineering (MRE) is an integration of mechanics, controls, electronics, and software, which provides a unique opportunity for engineering students to function on multidisciplinary teams. Due to its multidisciplinary nature, it attracts diverse and innovative students, and graduates better-prepared professional engineers. In this fast growing field, there is a great need to standardize educational material and make MRE education more widely available and easier to adopt. This can only be accomplished if the community comes together to speak with one clear voice about not only the benefits, but also the best ways to teach it. These efforts would also aid in establishing more of these degree programs and integrating minors or majors into existing computer science, mechanical engineering, or electrical engineering departments. The final workshop was attended by approximately 50 practitioners from industry and academia. Participants identified many practical skills required for students to succeed in an MRE curriculum and as practicing engineers after graduation. These skills were then organized into the following categories: professional, independent learning, controller design, numerical simulation and analysis, electronics, software development, and system design. For example, professional skills include technical reports, presentations, and documentation. Independent learning includes reading data sheets, performing internet searches, doing a literature review, and having a maker mindset. Numerical simulation skills include understanding data, presenting data graphically, solving and simulating in software such as MATLAB, Simulink and Excel. Controller design involves selecting a controller, tuning a controller, designing to meet specifications, and understanding when the results are good enough. Electronics skills include selecting sensors, interfacing sensors, interfacing actuators, creating printed circuit boards, wiring on a breadboard, soldering, installing drivers, using integrated circuits, and using microcontrollers. Software development of embedded systems includes agile program design, state machines, analyzing and evaluating code results, commenting code, troubleshooting, debugging, AI and machine learning. Finally, system design includes prototyping, creating CAD models, design for manufacturing, breaking a system down into subsystems, integrating and interfacing subcomponents, having a multidisciplinary perspective, robustness, evaluating tradeoffs, testing, validation, and verification, failure, effect, and mode analysis. A survey was prepared and sent out to the participants from all four workshops as well as other robotics faculty, researchers and industry personnel in order to elicit a broader community response. Because one of the biggest challenges in mechatronics and robotics education is the absence of standardized curricula, textbooks, platforms, syllabi, assignments, and learning outcomes, this was a vital part of the process to achieve some level of consensus. This paper presents an introduction to MRE education, related work on existing programs, methods, results of the practical skills survey, and then draws conclusions based upon these results. It aims to create the foundation for standardizing the development of student skills in mechatronics and robotics curricula across institutions, disciplines, majors and minors. The survey was completed by 94 participants and it was clear that there is a consensus that the primary skills students should have upon completion of MRE courses or a program is a broader multidisciplinary systems-level perspective, an ability to problem solve, and an ability to design a system to meet specifications. 

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3. Work in Progress: An Exploration of Students’ Conceptualization of Research after Participating in an Undergraduate Research Experience

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--32361  

   Tise, J. ; Zappe, S.E. ; Gomez, E.W. ; Kumar, M. ; Croninger, R.M.V. ; Cutler, S. ( January 2019 , American Society for Engineering Education)

   This Work-in-Progress paper investigates how students participating in a chemical engineering (ChE) Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program conceptualize and make plans for research projects. The National Science Foundation has invested substantial financial resources in REU programs, which allow undergraduate students the opportunity to work with faculty in their labs and to conduct hands-on experiments. Prior research has shown that REU programs have an impact on students’ perceptions of their research skills, often measured through the Undergraduate Research Student Self-Assessment (URSSA) survey. However, few evaluation and research studies have gone beyond perception data to include direct measures of students’ gains from program participation. This work-in-progress describes efforts to evaluate the impact of an REU on students’ conceptualization and planning of research studies using a pre-post semi-structured interview process. The construct being investigated for this study is planning, which has been espoused as a critical step in the self-regulated learning (SRL) process (Winne & Perry, 2000; Zimmerman, 2008). Students who effectively self-regulate demonstrate higher levels of achievement and comprehension (Dignath & Büttner, 2008), and (arguably) work efficiency. Planning is also a critical step in large projects, such as research (Dvir & Lechler, 2004). Those who effectively plan their projects make consistent progress and are more likely to achieve project success (Dvir, Raz, & Shenhar, 2003). Prior REU research has been important in demonstrating some positive impacts of REU programs, but it is time to dig deeper into the potential benefits to REU participation. Many REU students are included in weekly lab meetings, and thus potentially take part in the planning process for research projects. Thus, the research question explored here is: How do REU participants conceptualize and make plans for research projects? The study was conducted in the ChE REU program at a large, mid-Atlantic research-oriented university during the summer of 2018. Sixteen students in the program participated in the study, which entailed them completing a planning task followed by a semi-structured interview at the start and the end of the REU program. During each session, participants read a case statement that asked them to outline a plan in writing for a research project from beginning to end. Using semi-structured interview procedures, their written outlines were then verbally described. The verbalizations were recorded and transcribed. Two members of the research team are currently analyzing the responses using an open coding process to gain familiarity with the transcripts. The data will be recoded based on the initial open coding and in line with a self-regulatory and project-management framework. Results: Coding is underway, preliminary results will be ready by the draft submission deadline. The methods employed in this study might prove fruitful in understanding the direct impact on students’ knowledge, rather than relying on their perceptions of gains. Future research could investigate differences in students’ research plans based on prior research experience, research intensity of students’ home institutions, and how their plans may be impacted by training. 

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4. Operationalizing team commitment in a project-based learning environment

   https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE56618.2022.9962577  

   Jaiswal, Aparajita ; Karabiyik, Tugba ; Thomas, Paul ; Magana, Alejandra J. ( October 2022 , Proceedings of the Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE))

   Commitment is a multi-dimensional construct that has been extensively researched in the context of organizations. Organizational and professional commitment have been positively associated with technical performance, client service, attention to detail, and degree of involvement with one’s job. However, there is a relative dearth of research in terms of team commitment, especially in educational settings. Teamwork is considered a 21stcentury skill and higher education institutions are focusing on helping students to develop teamwork skills by applied projects in the coursework. But studies have demonstrated that creating a team is not enough to help students build teamwork skills. Literature supports the use of team contracts to bolster commitment, among team members. However, the relationship between team contracts and team commitment has not been formally operationalized.This research category study presents a mixed-methods approach towards characterizing and operationalizing team commitment exhibited by students enrolled in a sophomore-level systems analysis and design course by analyzing team contracts and team retrospective reflections. The course covers concepts pertaining to information systems development and includes a semester-long team project where the students work together in four or five member teams to develop the project deliverables. The students have prior software development experiences through an introductory systems development course as well as multiple programming courses. The data for this study was collected through the team contracts signed by students belonging to one of the 23 teams of this course. The study aims to answer the following research question: How can team commitment be characterized in a sophomore-level system analysis and design course among the student teams?A rubric was developed to quantify the team commitment levels of students based on their responses on the team contracts. Students were classified as high or low commitment based on the rubric scores. The emergent themes of high and low commitment teams were also presented. The results indicated that the high commitment teams were focused on setting goals, effective communication, and having mechanisms in place for timely feedback and improvement. On the other hand, low commitment teams did not articulate the goals of the project, they demonstrated a lack of dedication for attending team meetings regularly, working as a team, and had a lack of proper coordination while working together. 

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5. A Reflection on Action Approach to Teamwork Facilitation

   Jaiswal, A. ; Patel, D. ; Zhu, Y. ; Lee, J. ; & Magana, A.J. ( January 2022 , ASEE annual conference exposition proceedings)

   Working in teams has been recognized as an essential 21st-century skill. Introducing teamwork in the undergraduate classroom is crucial as it allows the students to work with individuals with diverse skillsets and learn from one another. It is important to note that just creating a team and allowing the students to work does not foster teamwork skills. Inculcating teamwork skills requires a consciousness on the part of the instructor and the teaching assistants. Pedagogies such as cooperative learning have been recognized as effective in helping students develop teamwork skills. We introduced a joint reflection on action approach to developing teamwork skills among novice students as part of a sophomore-level systems analysis and design course. In this evidence-based practice paper, we report on students’ reflections regarding their perceptions of teamwork. This study approaches the following research questions: What are students' reflections about the role of communication while working in teams in a cooperative project-based learning environment? The guiding pedagogical framework for this course is cooperative learning. The course requires the students to work in teams in a semester-long software development project. To elicit reflection on action about their teamwork experience. Specifically, we exposed students to concrete experiences as part of their teamwork interactions, which became the basis for observations and reflections. For this, the semester-long project was complemented with one reflection-on-action activity. In the activity, students were asked to watch a video of secrets of successful teamwork and were asked to reflect on their perceptions about the role of communication within teams. The students’ reflections on the activity were analyzed using qualitative inductive thematic analysis to understand the students’ perceptions regarding teamwork and communication within teams. 

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