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This paper presents the design and evaluation of a portable course to teach introductory digital logic. The goals of this course are to simultaneously meet existing accreditation criteria while providing a course that has the potential of being administered completely online. The online characteristic of the course gives the instructor the ability to teach the class in numerous delivery modes. These include an asynchronous online delivery or as supplementary resources for a synchronous face-to-face delivery. The inclusion of a low-cost portable lab kit provides additional flexibility by supporting either the traditional 2-hour on-campus lab section or a more asynchronous lab-anywhere mode. This paper will describe the design of the course, the corresponding learning objectives, the supporting learning activities, and the learning assessment. This paper will present student performance comparisons for different delivery modes collected over the past 4 years at a medium-sized land grant university. This paper will also provide data on the impact of an adaptive learning component of the course that was implemented for the more difficult course concepts. The adaptive learning component allows the student to receive additional computer instruction on a topic that varies the level of difficulty based on automated formative assessment. The adaptive learning component of the course was shown to have a significant impact on students with GPAs between 2.5 – 3.0 on one of the outcomes without needing instructor interaction. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) program, thus all resources for the course are open to the engineering education community. This paper will be of interest to any engineering educator that teaches digital logic or anyone that has interest in augmenting their current course with online resources or switching to a portable lab kit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the current status of a research project investigating the use of a novel web-based adaptive learning system to improve student mastery of digital logic concepts while considering the demographics of the individual student. Adaptive learning is a pedagogical approach that dynamically alters the difficulty of content based on an ongoing assessment of the student's capability. This technique is becoming more popular with the advancement of webbased learning solutions and increased student enrollment. Using this type of e-learning environment has the potential to address background deficiencies of students who lack the necessary prerequisite skills coming out of high school. This three-year project is currently in its second year through funding from the National Science Foundation's Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE). During the first year of this project our team developed a set of course materials and assessment instruments for the area of digital logic. This is content found in all accredited undergraduate electrical and computer engineering curriculums. In year two, our team used the material in a variety of course delivery formats including live, online to on-campus students, online to off-campus students, and online to remote community college students. Data was collected on student performance while also tracking student demographics such as gender, ethnicity, GPA, credits earned, ACT scores, and transfer credits. The data was analyzed to determine if there were any learning outcomes that had significantly lower student performance overall, and if there were any specific student sub-groups that performed lower on any of the outcomes. In year three of the project our team is deploying adaptive learning modules on targeted outcomes to measure their impact. This paper will present the course materials developed during year one, the data and the baseline results collected during year two, and the initial results of the adaptive learning modules. This paper will benefit engineering educators teaching logic circuits/design and are interested in using an online learning environment to either supplement or replace in-class instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electric circuit analysis is often the first calculus-based and discipline-related course for students in electrical and computer engineering and is therefore a gateway course to the discipline. Gateway courses are often plagued by significant student failure rates. This paper outlines the key features of a web-based system that is being developed to help promote student success in a low-cost, easily scaled and transferable manner. In short, the system is intended to identify student misconceptions with regard to basic concepts in electric circuit analysis, to help foster improved metacognitive skill and to provide the student with resources to address their difficulties. While it is expected that all students using the system will benefit, the focus population for the system are at-risk students as identified through a validated electric circuits pre-test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This poster describes initial research into effectively integrating sustainability within engineering programs as well as efforts to build engineering education research (EER) capacity. Initial research focused on potential barriers to and opportunities for integration. This included a survey of engineering faculty and administrator attitudes toward integrating sustainability within engineering, as well as their attitudes toward engineering education research conducted by engineering faculty. Engineering student attitudes and dispositions toward engineering professional responsibility were also assessed via validated survey. An engineering course intervention, which integrates sustainability issues while covering fundamental engineering aspects of a contemporary issue, e.g., hydraulic oil well stimulation (fracking), was demonstrated and evaluated. Additionally, both local and international collaborative research opportunities were explored for multicultural K-5 education and integrating sustainability within higher education. EER capacity was also expanded through professional development activities and the creation of an institutionalized EER center, which organizes a local interdisciplinary community of scholars focused on engineering education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports that the College of Engineering (COE) and Montana Space Grant Consortium (MSGC) Peer Mentoring Program at Montana State University started a pilot program in 2013 with two upper-division female peer mentors. They were assigned about 35 freshman female engineering, computer science or physics students. The program was a success and indicated that 90% of the freshmen women felt they had benefitted from the program

The overall aim of this research is to promote engineering graduate success in complex, interdisciplinary environments relevant to sustainability. In this study, two unique engineering courses were compared in terms of individual student responses to multiple-choice questions before and after in-class online research, in addition to active discussions. The two courses, both focused on "sustainable energy," were a 90-student 1st year science-core course with primarily non-science majors, and a 33-student 4th year technical elective course with primarily senior- level engineering majors. The in-class online research and discussions were structured in a manner to focus on five issues (science/engineering, environmental, social, economic, and political) related to hydraulic fractured oil/gas well stimulation, or "fracking." This topic was chosen as a contemporary societal issue with significant engineering considerations. Eight (8) multiple-choice questions were aimed at identifying students' understanding of basic science and engineering concepts, as well as gauging opinions on the practices and policies related to fracking. Following initial questions, students were presented basic fracking science, engineering, impacts and policy information in video format. Students, pre-assembled into equal-sized groups, then conducted individual online research focusing on the specific issue to which their group was assigned. Student scribes were self-identified within the groups to compile and distill information collected during online research, which they subsequently shared in open discussion. Students were then asked identical questions following the discussion, in addition to rating the effectiveness of the class format on their individual learning. In general, students' basic understanding of fracking improved significantly, their opinions on the topic shifted from neutrality, and the majority agreed that the format was effective in their learning. Additional results from comparing the two courses, as well as examples of student-generated materials are presented and discussed in context of the overall research aim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]