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1. Effect of a Concept Review Intervention on the Student’s Knowledge Retention and Demonstration of Pre-requisite Fundamental Concepts

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--37006  

   Chauda, Gaurav; Recktenwald, Geoffrey (July 2021, ASEE Conferences)

   Students achieve functional knowledge retention through active, spaced repetition of concepts through homework, quizzes, and lectures. True knowledge retention is best achieved through proper comprehension of the concept. In the engineering curriculum, courses are sequenced into prerequisite chains of three to five courses per subfield –- a design aimed at developing and reinforcing core concepts over time. Knowledge retention of these prerequisite concepts is important for the next course. In this project, concept review quizzes were used to identify the gaps and deficiencies in students' prerequisite knowledge and measure improvement after a concept review intervention. Two quizzes (pre-intervention and post-intervention) drew inspiration from the standard concept inventories for fundamental concepts and include concepts such as Free Body Diagrams, Contact and Reaction Forces, Equilibrium Equations, and Calculation of the Moment. Concept inventories are typically multiple-choice, in this evaluation the concept questions were open-ended. A clear rubric was created to identify the missing prerequisite concepts in the students' knowledge. These quizzes were deployed in Mechanics of Materials, a second-level course in the engineering mechanics curriculum (the second in a sequence of four courses: Statics, Mechanics of Materials, Mechanical Design, and Kinematic Design). The pre-quiz was administered (unannounced) at the beginning of the class. The class then actively participated in a 30-minute concept review. A different post-quiz was administered in the same class period after the review. Quizzes were graded with a rubric to measure the effect of the concept review intervention on the students’ knowledge demonstration and calculations. The study evaluated four major concepts: free body diagrams, boundary reaction forces (fixed, pin, and contact), equilibrium, and moment calculation. Students showed improvements of up to 39\% in the case of drawing a free body diagram with fixed boundary condition, but continued to struggle with free body diagram involving contact forces. This study was performed at a large public institution in a class size of 240 students. A total of 224 students consented to the use of their data for this study (and attended class on the day of the intervention). The pre-quiz is used to determine the gaps (or deficiencies) in conceptual understanding among students. The post-quiz measures the response to the review and is used to determine which concept deficiencies were significantly improved by the review, and which concept deficiencies were not significantly improved by the concept review. This study presents a concept quiz and associated rubric for measuring student improvement resulting from an in-class intervention (concept review). It quantifies a significant improvement in the students’ retrieval of their prerequisite knowledge after a concept review session. This approach, therefore, has utility for improving knowledge retention in programs with a similar, sequenced course design. 

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2. Investigating Collaborative Problem Solving Behaviors during STEM+C Learning in Groups with Different Prior Knowledge Distributions

   https://doi.org/10.22318/cscl2024.231933  

   Snyder, Caitlin; Wen, Cai-Ting; Hutchins, Nicole M; Vatral, Caleb; Liu, Chen-Chung; Biswas, Gautam (June 2024, International Society for the Learning Sciences (ISLS))

   Clarke-Midura, J; Kollar, I; Gu, X; D’Angelo, C (Ed.)

   In collaborative problem-solving (CPS), students work together to solve problems using their collective knowledge and social interactions to understand the problem and progress towards a solution. This study focuses on how students engage in CPS while working in pairs in a STEM+C (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Computing) environment that involves open-ended computational modeling tasks. Specifically, we study how groups with different prior knowledge in physics and computing concepts differ in their information pooling and consensus-building behaviors. In addition, we examine how these differences impact the development of their shared understanding and learning. Our study consisted of a high school kinematics curriculum with 1D and 2D modeling tasks. Using an exploratory approach, we performed in-depth case studies to analyze the behaviors of groups with different prior knowledge distributions across these tasks. We identify effective information pooling and consensus-building behaviors in addition to difficulties students faced when developing a shared understanding of physics and computing concepts. 

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3. Implementation of the High-Performance Computing Summer Institute at Jackson State University

   https://doi.org/10.46328/ijonest.200  

   Tu, Shuang Z; Jiang, Chao (June 2024, International Journal on Engineering, Science and Technology)

   Between May 25, 2023 and June 21, 2023, we hosted the inaugural four-week High-Performance Computing Summer Institute at Jackson State University. This endeavor was made possible through the support of a three-year NSF CISE-MSI grant. The primary objective of this Summer Institute revolved around the engagement, education, and empowerment of minority and underrepresented students in the realm of High-Performance Computing (HPC) within the field of engineering. Nine undergraduate students with diverse background were recruited to participate in this program.  Throughout the program, we immersed these students in a comprehensive curriculum that covered various critical facets of HPC. This curriculum encompassed hands-on instruction in Linux operating system command-line operations, C programming within the Linux environment, fundamental HPC concepts, parallel computing utilizing the Message Passing Interface (MPI) library, and GPU computing through OpenCL. Additionally, we delved into foundational aspects of fluid mechanics, geometric modeling, mesh generation, flow simulation via our in-house flow solvers, and the visualization of solutions. At the end of the program, every participant was tasked with delivering an oral presentation and submitting a written report encapsulating their acquired knowledge and experiences during the program. We are excited to share a detailed overview of our program's implementation with our audience. This includes insights into our utilization of ChatGPT to enhance C programming learning and our suggestion of the NSF ACCESS resources to gain access to HPC systems. We are proud to announce that the program has achieved remarkable success, as evidenced by the positive feedback we received from the participants. 

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4. 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. 

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5. Engaging Students in Exploring Computer Hardware Fundamentals Using FPGA Board Games.

   Ramirez-Salgado, A.; Hossain, T.; Hoque, T.; Bhunia, S.; Koroly, M. J.; Davey, B.; Antonenko, P. (June 2023, 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   Electronic devices have become indispensable in everyone’s life and so the computer hardware industry is demanding skilled professionals to design and physically implement devices to satisfy the market. However, misconceptions surrounding manufacturing jobs and the increasing initiatives to motivate students with engineering majors to focus on software-related topics such as artificial intelligence and blockchain are hindering students’ interest in hardware computing. Our project, funded by the NSF’s Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) program, addresses the need to engage more students in explorations (and, eventually, design) of computer hardware by developing a set of games played on an easy-to-use hardware platform to understand and implement the fundamental concepts that are essential to modern computing systems (Figure 1). To encourage flexible and broad adoption, the games are conceived as standalone units within a curriculum design that leverages equitable pedagogical practices, experiential learning, and inquiry-based learning to cultivate engineering identity and persistence using situational interest and self-efficacy theories. We aim to offer the curriculum as an elective undergraduate course for all engineering majors at two US institutions and also research and evaluate the feasibility of implementing it as a summer program with high school students. Each module in the curriculum is divided into 5 phases: activation of prior knowledge, mini-lesson, gameplay, student-led work time, and debriefing. The games support collaboration rather than competition, and each lesson is tagged with equity spotlights, including Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies (CSP) principles. Finally, informed by the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework, each lesson includes a teacher implementation guide and teacher educative materials to facilitate implementation (Figure 2). We have tested the first two games in the curriculum for usability and feasibility with a group of high school students. The topics of these games include binary arithmetic and Boolean logic gates. Participants were challenged to solve tasks using the hardware tools at their disposal. This usability and feasibility testing study provided us with important design and implementation implications. 

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