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1. STEMAmbassadors: Developing Communications, Teamwork, and Leadership Skills for Graduate Students

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--35207  

   Briliyanti, Astri; Rojewski, Julie; Colbry, Dirk; Luchini-Colbry, Katy (January 2020, Proceedings of the 2020 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   null (Ed.)

   STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) graduate programs excel at developing students’ technical expertise and research skills. The interdisciplinary nature of many STEM research projects means that graduate students often find themselves paired with experts from other fields and asked to work together to solve complex problems. At Michigan State University, the College of Engineering has developed a graduate level course that helps students build professional skills (communications, teamwork, leadership) to enhance their participation in these types of interdisciplinary projects. This semester-long course also includes training on research mentoring, helping students work more effectively with their current faculty mentors and build skills to serve as mentors themselves. Discussions of research ethics are integrated throughout the course, which allows participants to partially fulfill graduate training requirements in the responsible conduct of research. This paper will discuss the development of this course, which is based in part on curriculum developed as part of an ongoing training grant from the National Science Foundation. 18 graduate students from Engineering and other STEM disciplines completed the course in Spring 2019, and we will present data gathered from these participants along with lessons learned and suggestions for institutions interested in adapting these open-source curriculum materials for their own use. Students completed pre- and post-course evaluations, which asked about their expectations and reasons for participating in the course at the outset and examined their experiences and learning at the end. Overall, students reported that the course content was highly relevant to their daily work and that they were highly satisfied with the content of all three major focus areas (communications, teamwork, leadership). Participants also reported that the structure and the pacing of the course were appropriate, and that the experience had met their expectations. The results related to changes in students’ knowledge indicate that the course was effective in increasing participants understanding of and ability to employ professional skills for communications, teamwork and leadership. Statistical analyses were conducted by creating latent constructs for each item as applicable and then running paired t-tests. The evaluation also demonstrated increases in students’ interest, knowledge and confidence of the professional skills offered in the course. 

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2. Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) for Promoting Reflection in Engineering Education: Graduate Student Perceptions

   Campbell, R.C.; Nguyen, N.T.T.; Kim, J.H.; Duke, L.A.; Taraban, R.; Reible D.D. (July 2022, 2021 ASEE Annual Conference Proceedings)

   Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), an educational technique that uses art to foster visual literacy through facilitated group discussion, has been shown to promote the development of skills that transfer to other domains. In this paper, we report findings from our use of VTS in an experimental graduate course in environmental engineering that aims to foster students’ capacities for reflection. Using data from writing samples with methods of thematic analysis, we explore students’ perceptions of their own learning from the VTS portion of this semester-long course called Developing Reflective Engineers through Artful Methods. One significant theme identified was “Knowledge/Skills”, in which students identified specific knowledge gained or skills developed through their VTS experience, including skills of group discussion, listening/paraphrasing, observation, imagination/creativity, and critical thinking. Another key theme identified was “Appreciating Others’ Perspectives”, in which students expressed appreciation of the differences in perspective that VTS discussions tend naturally to draw out. This finding highlights the potential of VTS as a tool for promoting and supporting diversity in engineering. Based on these data and a brief, associated survey, we learned that students found VTS to be highly effective at helping them become more reflective and was one of the most effective methods we have attempted for the development of reflective thinking in graduate engineering. 

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3. Intersections of Design Thinking and Perceptions of Success for Electrical, Computer, and Software Engineering Students

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--33010  

   Rodriguez, Sarah; Doran, Erin; Hengesteg, Paul (June 2019, 2019 ASEE Annual Conference)

   Engineering design thinking has become an important part of the educational discussion for both researchers and practitioners. Colleges and universities seek to graduate engineering students who can engage in the complex nature of combining both technical performance with design thinking skills. Prior research has shown that design thinking can be a solution for solving complicated technical and social issues in a holistic, adaptive way. However, little is known about how students make sense of their design thinking experiences and reconcile that into their perceptions of what it means to be a successful engineer. As part of a five-year National Science Foundation REvolutionizing Engineering and Computer Science Departments (NSF-RED) grant, this study highlights the experiences of students engaged in a course which has been redesigned to enhance student development through design thinking pedagogy. This case study sought to understand how electrical, computer, and software engineering students engage with design thinking and how that engagement shapes their perceptions of what success looks like. The case study was informed through observations of lecture and lab classroom contexts, interviews with students, and a review of relevant course documents. Participants met the following criteria: (a) were over the age of 18, (b) majoring in CES engineering, and (c) were currently enrolled in one of two courses currently undergoing redesign: a second-year electrical engineering course called Circuits or a second-year computer engineering course called Embedded Systems. Preliminary findings reveal that students engaged in the design thinking course described a disconnect between design thinking elements of the course and their perceptions of what it meant to be a successful electrical, computer, or software engineer. Although design thinking concepts focused on empathy-building and customer needs, it was often difficult for engineering students to see beyond the technical content of their course and conceptualize elements of design thinking as essential to their successful performance as engineers. This study bears significance to practitioners and researchers interested in (re)designing curriculum to meet the growing needs of innovation for today’s customer’s. Implications for policy and practice will be discussed to enhance the way that engineering programs, curricula, and workforce training are created. 

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4. Impact of Nanoscale Science and Engineering Course on Undergraduate Engineering Education

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--34756  

   Yasar-Inceoglu, Ozgul (June 2020, 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings)

   null (Ed.)

   Nanoscience and nanotechnology play a significant role in every field of our society. Nanotechnology is the backbone of high-tech industries and widely used in consumer products and industrial applications. Therefore, it is essential to highlight the importance of nanoscience and nanotechnology to undergraduate students and explain the science behind nanotechnology. For this purpose, an upper-level elective mechanical engineering course, Nanoscale Science and Engineering, is designed and added to the mechanical and mechatronic engineering curriculum. This course introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of nanoscience and engineering including the areas of engineering, materials science, chemistry, and physics. The topics covered include advanced materials, synthesis, and modification of nanomaterials, properties of nanomaterials, materials characterization, nanofabrication methods, and applications. It has three modules, which are formal lectures, guest speakers, and projects. Projects will help students learn to conduct a literature search, critically review scientific articles, and learn advanced materials characterization techniques on a given topic. They will further have a chance to propose their own ideas for potential applications and asked to give a detailed methodology to execute the project. In this work-in-progress study, we present the impact of the Nanoscale Science and Engineering course on undergraduate mechanical and mechatronic engineering students. Students were invited to complete a survey at the beginning of the semester, which will be also given to the students, at the end of the semester. The survey consists of 15 questions, which are aimed to analyze the pre-existing knowledge of students in nanotechnology-related topics and their interest level to increase their knowledge and advance their career in a nanotechnology-related field. In order to assess the impact of the course on students, the results of the survey will be compared. Student demographics will be included in the results. Possible changes in course content to improve student engagement in nanotechnology will be discussed. The purpose of this course is to introduce undergraduate engineering students to nanotechnology. The inclusion of Nanoscale Science and Engineering course to the undergraduate engineering curriculum has a significant role in the advancement of nanotechnology. Students graduating with a solid understanding of broad applications of nanotechnology and advanced material fabrication and characterization techniques will have a focused start in their graduate research and education or faster adaptation to nanotechnology-related industrial job positions. 

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5. Piloting A Personalized Learning Model for Chemical Engineering Graduate Education – Lessons Learned from Creating a Chemical Engineering Body of Knowledge

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--54106  

   Dukes, April; Besterfield-Sacre, Mary; Fullerton_Shirey, Susan (February 2025, ASEE Conferences)

   Despite calls over the past twenty years to develop graduate STEM education models that prepare students for the new post-graduate workforce, few innovations in graduate STEM education have been disseminated. Given the diversity of graduate candidates’ prior skills, preparation, and individual career aspirations, modernizing STEM graduate programs is needed to support and empower student success in graduate programs and beyond. In this session, participants will learn about new research into the development and implementation of a personalized learning model (PLM) for graduate STEM education employed in a chemical engineering department at an R1 university. Our PLM integrates student-centered approaches in coursework, research, and professional development in multiple programmatic components. The key components of our PLM include guided student creation of independent development plans (IDPs), modularization of graduate courses and professional development streams, scaffolding curricular instruction to prioritize independence and mastery, using IDPs for directed research and career discussions and assessment of student performance and learning, and evaluation of the program from current students, alumni, faculty, and industry partners. Our comprehensive PLM plan is designed to maximize impact through personalized learning touchpoints throughout all aspects of graduate training. This presentation will focus on one element of our PLM, the modularization of the chemical engineering core graduate courses. To ensure the learning in core graduate courses reflects the diverse needs of chemical engineers, we generated a body of knowledge (BOK) for graduate chemical engineering in collaboration with our technical advisory board (TAB), which included chemical engineers and people that work with chemical engineers from industry, national labs, academia, and entrepreneurial representatives. We started by collecting the learning objectives (LO’s) from all core chemical engineering courses: Thermodynamics, Kinetics and Reactor Design, Transport Phenomena, Mathematical Methods, and Issues in Research and Teaching. The LO’s were refined by alignment with course assignments and activities and re-written using the most accurate Bloom’s Taxonomy verbs in collaboration with an instructional designer. We utilized GroupWisdomTM for group concept mapping of the new LO’s and provided an opportunity for the TAB to add new LO’s, identified by the individuals in the TAB to be critical for success in each member’s occupation. LO’s for the chemical engineering core courses were sorted on the level of knowledge (undergraduate, graduate, and specialized) and rated for importance by the TAB. Using GroupWisdom’sTM analytic tool for creating a similarity matrix for sorting the level of LO’s, multidimensional scaling, and hierarchical cluster analysis, all core course LO’s have been grouped into 6 clusters. These clusters, along with the current course list and the LO importance ratings, helped us visualize converting chemical engineering core courses into 1-credit hour modules. This restructured curriculum offers opportunities for ensuring that students have learned the requisite prior knowledge by review of essential undergraduate principles, streamlining essential graduate-level material, and supporting self-directed learning through the selection of specialized modules that align with students’ research and career goals. This proposed approach shifts core graduate chemical engineering education to an asset-based system, addressing knowledge gaps and ensuring rigorous, tailored learning experiences. 

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