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This paper examines a portfolio of community-engaged capstone projects with teams of interdisciplinary undergraduate engineering students and how they applied engineering economics methods to make decisions during the engineering design process. The paper attempts to distill from faculty observations and review of final team reports and student presentations a set of lessons learned applicable to improving engineering economics education and preparing students to be successful in community-engaged projects. The portfolio of capstone projects addressed an engineering design need to improve the control of excess water in a watershed encompassing a national wildlife refuge within a rural, coastal community increasingly subject to flooding attributed to several factors, including sea-level rise. The capstone teams were assigned individual projects to address how to improve water control and flood management within specific regions of the watershed. Each project required capital investment with ongoing operational and maintenance requirements. This paper examines the challenges project teams experienced specifically related to their use of engineering economics methods in making decisions during the engineering design process and formulates a series of lessons learned that may guide future instructors in planning community-engaged projects with their students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper details the development, implementation, and assessment process for the achievement of specific learning outcomes in the Summer Engineering Experience program implemented at a college in the Northeastern region of the United States. This five week summer program is designed to prepare first-year students for engineering curriculums. The development and implementation of this program is supported by the Department of Education federal fund as part of Title III, Part F, HSI-STEM and Articulation grant. This program is designed with the objective to enhance students' hands-on, computational, programming, communication, and problem solving skills. Since 2016, the SEE-STEM program has been offered during the summer to engineering and engineering technology students as a bridge program from freshman to sophomore year. It is offered Monday through Thursday (8:00 am to 4:00 pm) with lectures and hands-on classes covering topics related to engineering computation using MATLAB and C++, aerodynamics, bridge truss design & analysis, technical writing and presentation. The Friday session of the SEE program is designated for educational seminars and technical workshops. The development and implementation process of the SEE program was presented to the 2016 ASEE annual conference. In this paper a set of learning outcomes was introduced based on specific class topics and students' group reports and project presentations. A rubric score was used to assess the attainment of those learning outcomes in the preparation of freshman students for engineering programs. As part of this study, students in the SEE program are monitored through their core courses in sophomore and junior years, and their performance in those classes is to be compared with the performance of other students who did not participate in the SEE program. Students' group projects are presented on the last day of the summer session, and their performance is evaluated by faculty members, based on their attainment of specific learning outcomes. Also, as an indirect measure, a rubric survey based on the contents of the SEE program is distributed to students to assess the effectiveness of this program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the development and implementation of a sophomore level laboratory course entitled "Experimental Design and Technical Writing." The course was created to meet multiple objectives for a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSE) program at the University of Southern Indiana. First, stakeholders from the program advisory board identified the importance and need for improvement in the communication skills of graduates. In particular, they expressed a desire for employees to excel with various forms of written memoranda and reports, and the ability to comfortably deliver formal and informal oral presentations. Furthermore, the importance of writing within one's discipline was affirmed at the university level with a 2014 rewrite of the general education requirements for all bachelor degree programs. The new requirements include two "Writing Intensive" experience courses to be 'embedded' within a disciplinary topic. In addition to addressing the need for instruction in technical communication, the new course adds experiential learning and ethics to the sophomore engineering curriculum. The format of this course is a 3 hour per week, combined lecture + laboratory, worth 2 credit hours. The syllabus has four content modules and an oral presentation module. Content includes experimental methods, design, and technical writing. The experimental methods component includes measurement error, calibration, experimental uncertainty propagation, and statistical analysis of data. Writing and oral presentation assignments are tailored to each module and call for an array of both formal and informal formats. Small section sizes (16 students) allow the instructor ample time to provide detailed reviews of student writing on assignments. The modular design of the syllabus can accommodate any number of potential experiments as long as they meet the course outcomes. Current content modules include truss design & analysis, measurement uncertainty quantification, ethics case studies, and a pendulum air rocket experiment. The final module is a group presentation on an experiment conducted during the semester. This paper will include additional details on the course modules, student perceptions of the course, and an assessment of student learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on multifunctional educational space development for engineering programs, especially for mechanical and manufacturing engineering. The author has been designing and developing new instructional spaces in his school for the last ten years. Most of these spaces originally was aimed for a single function, laboratory or classroom. Due to limitations in space and growing research needs, this engineering program requires development of multipurpose learning and research spaces. Recent efforts included design and development of facilities in limited square footage for a combination of physical laboratories, teaching and computing spaces, in varying areas ranging from 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing to Engineering Mechanics. Additional laboratory design activities have also been carried out for creative and innovative design spaces including some for integrated capstone and cross-disciplinary projects, along with off-campus development. This paper will summarize educational learning and research facility development trends in academia including selection of educational equipment, digital tools, flexible furniture, and utilization of white board paint or magnetic boards. Safety and environmental issues are covered. The trends in K-12 education and their applicability to college level efforts are also included within the scope of this paper, together with multiple design and development cases and their impact on the capabilities of programs. The development cases will also encompass reconfiguration of laboratories through lean principles and reuse purposes. The paper will be concluded with an assessment component and future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lessons learned. In this paper we present the lessons learned while implementing three strategies to promote faculty engagement in continuous improvement. These strategies were devised within the continuous improvement process that was established in the School of Engineering at Universidad Icesi. In this paper we will refer to full-time faculty members from two academic departments which serve three undergraduate programs, all of which were accredited by ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) in 2017. At the beginning of the 2018 academic year, faculty members were asked about their perceptions of the devised strategies; their perceptions are presented as a new ABET assessment cycle is beginning. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it discusses the strategies designed by the School of Engineering at Universidad Icesi to effectively engage faculty members in the implementation of a sustainable and continuous improvement process. Second, it presents early results obtained from the implementation of these strategies, including the perceptions of faculty members about these changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critiques how engineering students experience two key academic transition points in UK Higher Education, foundation (pre-freshman) and graduate level study. Set within an era whereby the dominant ideology is that of marketization, the paper considers whether student expectations of the academic side university are similar at foundation and graduate level. Descriptive statistics are used to compare and contrast the student perspective and a number of key differences between the expectations of both cohorts critiqued. The paper concludes by emphasing the need for Synergetic Configuration across the curriculum [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper investigates how Hispanic engineering undergraduate students develop their identity as engineers. Identity is emerging as a potential lens for predicting student persistence in engineering. Hispanic engineering students are of particular interest due to their underrepresentation in the field and prior engineering identity studies. In particular, we seek to understand which factors may influence Hispanic students' engineering identity development. We begin by answering the following research questions: 1. How do the engineering identity, extracurricular experiences, post-graduation career plans, and familial influence of Hispanic students attending a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) differ from those of Hispanic students attending a Predominantly White Institution (PWI)? 2. How do the same measures differ for Hispanic students attending a PWI from those of non-Hispanic white students at that PWI? 3. How do the same measures differ for Hispanic students attending an HSI from those of non-Hispanic white students at that HSI?. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For engineering community-engagement to realize its potential, a diverse set of models that can be scaled need to be developed and disseminated. The EPICS Program, founded at Purdue University, is a curricular approach that has proven to be scalable. EPICS involves undergraduates in the development, design, delivery and support of technology-based solutions to meet needs in the local and global communities. It co-develops and implements solutions with community partners using a human-centered design approach, actively engaging stakeholders in every stage. Since the creation of the program in 1995, over 400 projects have been delivered to a wide range of local and global community partners. This paper highlights strategies that have allowed EPICS to grow to over 1100 students from an average of 45 majors per year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the impact of the Engineering Ambassador Program (EAP), which engages undergraduate engineering students as Ambassadors in K-12 outreach activities, on the stimulation of interest in STEM, self-efficacy, and actual academic attainment of Ambassadors is presented. The collected data over several years reveals that over 2/3 of activity leaders and project coordinators of the EAP at Howard University (HU) expressed higher confidence in their ability in understanding and succeeding in engineering because of their EAP experience. Also, the activity leaders and project coordinators achieved higher major and overall grade point averages (GPAs). Furthermore, improved academic performance in the courses related to the projects that Ambassadors were exposed to such as hands-on earthquake and coastal engineering projects was attained. Lastly, the Ambassadors exhibited a shorter time to degree completion with their peers who did not participate in the EAP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]