More Like this

1. Exploring the Relationships between Artistic Creativity and Innovation Attitudes in Engineering Students

   Bolhari, Azadeh; Bielefeldt, Angela; Gowrishankar, Anvie; Leizerovich, Maya; Gavney, Shane; Saxton, Richard (June 2024, ASEE PEER)

   This research explored potential relationships between the innovation self-efficacy (ISE) of engineering students and their artistic creativity and life experiences revealed on an ice-breaker assignment. In a community-building assignment, students were directed to introduce themselves through cartoon monster drawings that communicated various personal attributes (such as the number of languages they speak, and the number of states visited). Previous research has found that multicultural experiences can shape feelings of self-efficacy concerning innovation and creativity. This pilot study was conducted in a single junior-level course for environmental engineering students. The innovation self-efficacy of participants was measured using a survey that included items from the Very Brief Innovation Self-Efficacy scale (ISE.6), the Innovation Interests scale (INI), and the Career Goals: Innovative Work scale (IW). The drawings were analyzed for Artistic Effort (AE) and Creative Work (CW) by engineering and art evaluators, respectively. The ISE survey results were compared with the AE and CW scores and the correlations with travel, gender, and multilingualism on creativity attributes were explored. A strong correlation between CW scores and AE scores was observed. A negative correlation between CW and ISE.6 was found. The CW scores were significantly different between female and male students, except for black/white shading in the cartoon drawings. There were no significant differences between the AE scores for female versus male students. Our results do not support the existence of a correlation between multilingualism and travel with artistic creativity and innovation self-efficacy attributes. Overall, we did not find that the students’ artistic creativity or life experiences revealed through the self-portrait activity provided insights into innovation attitudes. 

   more » « less
2. Experiences during the implementation of two different project-based learning assignments in a fluid mechanics course.

   Ayala, O. (August 2022, Zone 1 Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education)

   There is growing evidence of the effectiveness of project-based learning (PBL) in preparing students to solve complex problems. In PBL implementations in engineering, students are treated as professional engineers facing projects centered around real-world problems, including the complexity and uncertainty that influence such problems. Not only does this help students to analyze and solve an authentic real-world task, promoting critical thinking, but also students learn from each other, learning valuable communication and teamwork skills. Faculty play an important part by assuming non-conventional roles (e.g., client, senior professional engineer, consultant) to help students throughout this instructional and learning approach. Typically in PBLs, students work on projects over extended periods of time that culminate in realistic products or presentations. In order to be successful, students need to learn how to frame a problem, identify stakeholders and their requirements, design and select concepts, test them, and so on. Two different implementations of PBL projects in a fluid mechanics course are presented in this paper. This required, junior-level course has been taught since 2014 by the same instructor. The first PBL project presented is a complete design of pumped pipeline systems for a hypothetical plant. In the second project, engineering students partnered with pre-service teachers to design and teach an elementary school lesson on fluid mechanics concepts. With the PBL implementations, it is expected that students: 1) engage in a deeper learning process where concepts can be reemphasized, and students can realize applicability; 2) develop and practice teamwork skills; 3) learn and practice how to communicate effectively to peers and to those from other fields; and 4) increase their confidence working on open-ended situations and problems. The goal of this paper is to present the experiences of the authors with both PBL implementations. It explains how the projects were scaffolded through the entire semester, including how the sequence of course content was modified, how team dynamics were monitored, the faculty roles, and the end products and presentations. Students' experiences are also presented. To evaluate and compare students’ learning and satisfaction with the team experience between the two PBL implementations, a shortened version of the NCEES FE exam and the Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness (CATME) survey were utilized. Students completed the FE exam during the first week and then again during the last week of the semester in order to assess students’ growth in fluid mechanics knowledge. The CATME survey was completed mid-semester to help faculty identify and address problems within team dynamics, and at the end of the semester to evaluate individual students’ teamwork performance. The results showed that no major differences were observed in terms of the learned fluid mechanics content, however, the data showed interesting preliminary observations regarding teamwork satisfaction. Through reflective assignments (e.g., short answer reflections, focus groups), student perceptions of the PBL implementations are discussed in the paper. Finally, some of the challenges and lessons learned from implementing both projects multiple times, as well as access to some of the PBL course materials and assignments will be provided. 

   more » « less
3. Work in Progress: Formation of an engineering identity in first-year students through an intervention centered on senior design projects

   Richards, Abigail M; Anderson, Ryan; Myers, Carrie B (July 2020, ASEE annual conference exposition)

   Abstract This “work in progress” paper describes a multiyear project to study the development of engineering identity in a chemical and biological engineering program at Montana State University. The project focuses on how engineering identity may be impacted by a series of interventions utilizing subject material in a senior-level capstone design course and has the senior capstone design students serve as peer-mentors to first- and second-year students. A more rapid development of an engineering identity by first- and second-year students is suspected to increase retention and persistence in this engineering program. Through a series of timed interventions scheduled to take place in the first and second year, which includes cohorts that will serve as negative controls (no intervention), we hope to ascertain the following: (1) the extent to which, relative to a control group, exposure to a peer mentor increases a students’ engineering identity development over time compared to those who do not receive peer mentoring and (2) if the quantity and/or timing of the peer interactions impact engineering identity development. While the project includes interventions for both first- and second-year students, this work in progress paper focuses on the experiences of first year freshman as a result of the interventions and their development of an engineering identity over the course of the semester. Early in the fall semester, freshman chemical engineering students enrolled in an introductory chemical engineering course and senior students in a capstone design course were administered a survey which contained a validated instrument to assess engineering identity. The first-year course has 107 students and the senior-level course has 92 students and approximately 50% of the students in both cohorts completed the survey. Mid-semester, after the first-year students were introduced to the concepts of process flow diagrams and material balances in their course, senior design student teams gave presentations about their capstone design projects in the introductory course. The presentations focused on the project goals, design process and highlighted the process flow diagrams. After the presentations, freshman and senior students attended small group dinners as part of a homework assignment wherein the senior students were directed to communicate information about their design projects as well as share their experiences in the chemical engineering program. Dinners occurred overall several days, with up to ten freshman and five seniors attending each event. Freshman students were encouraged to use this time to discover more about the major, inquire about future course work, and learn about ways to enrich their educational experience through extracurricular and co-curricular activities. Several weeks after the dinner experience, senior students returned to give additional presentations to the freshman students to focus on the environmental and societal impacts of their design projects. We report baseline engineering identity in this paper. 

   more » « less
4. WiP: Metacognitive and social-emotional-learning interventions in first-year Calculus

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--57431  

   Tang, Maureen; Atchison, Jennifer (June 2025, ASEE Conferences)

   Student performance and retention in STEM majors is a major concern in higher education. Individual attention and coaching are effective at improving the retention of under-performing students, but these tools are too labor-intensive for faculty to apply in large introductory courses. Additionally, many struggling students are limited by non-cognitive factors such as fear of failure, social anxiety, and general overwhelm. There is a need for large-format, scalable instructional tools that both engage students in course material and address non-cognitive factors in an appropriate way. This Work In Progress will present the effects of a remedial intervention, the “reflective knowledge inventory”, at improving student outcomes in Calculus 1. This intervention was developed over several years in sophomore through senior-level engineering classes post-pandemic. In the intervention, students improve their exam score by submitting a “reflective knowledge inventory”. Expert learners know that new skills are best built on existing knowledge, and that big problems should be broken into smaller tasks. Novice learners are more likely to feel overwhelmed and panicked, especially when they know they are underperforming. We attempted to design a remedial assignment that scaffolds students through the process of identifying technical strengths to build on and breaking weaknesses into manageable chunks. Briefly, students create a glossary of terms and concepts from the class and rank them by their level of understanding. Importantly, the assignment also includes reflections on emotions, barriers, and support networks. This work will combine quantitative analysis of student grades with thematic analysis of student submissions to determine the effectiveness of the intervention. 

   more » « less
5. Engaging Civil Engineering Students by Exposing them to a “Capstone-like” Experience in their Sophomore Year: A Case Study

   Sarasua, Wayne; Kaye, Nigel B.; Ogle, Jennifer H.; Benaissa, Mehdi N.; Benson, Lisa; Putman, Bradley J.; and Pfirman, Aubrie L. (June 2020, 2020 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   As part of a National Science Foundation-funded initiative to completely transform the civil engineering undergraduate program at Clemson University, a capstone-like course sequence is being incorporated into the curriculum during the sophomore year. Clemson’s NSF Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) program is called the Arch Initiative. Just as springers serve as the foundation stones of an arch, the new courses are called “Springers” because they serve as the foundations of the transformed curriculum. Through a project-based learning approach, Springer courses mimic the senior capstone experience by immersing students in a semester-long practical application of civil engineering, exposing them to concepts and tools in a way that challenges students to develop new knowledge that they will build on and use during their junior and senior years. In the 2019 spring semester, a pilot of the first Springer course introduced students to three civil engineering sub-disciplines: construction management, water resources, and transportation. The remaining sub-disciplines are covered in a follow-on Springer 2 pilot. The purpose of this paper is to describe all aspects of the Springer 1 course, including course content, teaching methods, faculty resources, and the design and results of a Student Assessment of Learning Gains (SALG) survey to assess students’ learning outcomes. The feedback from the SALG indicated positive attitudes towards course activities and content. Challenges for full-scale implementation of the Springer course sequence as a requirement in the transformed curriculum are also discussed. 

   more » « less