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We implemented a project to create transformative changes in the STEM Education at a Hispanic-serving institution by revamping mathematics curriculum and building a system of support in mathematics learning. The project accomplished three main areas of curriculum development: (1) Restructuring the first-year mathematics courses at the college algebra level using a corequisite model; (2) designing and implementing active learning and problem-solving oriented curriculum in Calculus; (3) building a student support system of peer-tutoring and mentoring through peer-led team learning. High impact strategies were used for increasing and sustaining the participation of women and underrepresented minority students in computing. Strategies included hands-on active and collaborative learning pedagogy, experiential learning with real world relevance and applications, and curriculum that incorporates data analysis, data visualization and computational thinking. The support targeted introductory courses to provide early exposure and engagement. This paper describes the curriculum restructuring and development, which led to the institutional implementation and transformation of mathematics curriculum. The paper also reports on the success of the redesigned courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides details of a teacher professional development workshop on an authentic learning environment incorporating lessons based on hands-on activities on a flight simulator. The workshop design was based on best practices for teacher Professional Development (PD). The attitudes of teachers towards the use of technology were measured during the PD and are shared in this paper. Subsequently, a summer camp using the same learning environment was conducted for middle school students to learn selected math and science concepts. The results of the impact on the student participants of the summer camp are also presented in this paper. The participants learned the use of spreadsheets to analyze and plot data collected during the hands-on activities with the flight simulator. A within-subject quasi-experimental design (pre-post) was used to measure changes in attitudes towards Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). The changes in content knowledge of the selected math and science concepts were also measured. Analysis of the pre-post responses to a 65-item STEM-attitudes survey provided interesting insight into the differences between males and females in their attitudes. Analysis of the pretest and posttest results of the math and science concepts instrument indicated the effectiveness of the intervention on math concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the use of daily real-life experiences to explain concepts in Digital Signal Processing (DSP). These concepts are presented in an intuitive and engaging manner through the use of visual examples, stories, interactive activities, animations, and puzzles. The paper focuses on the concept of sampling. Additional work on other DSP topics is ongoing. Students are often times overwhelmed with the equations used to explain concepts in electrical engineering. Although it is important and valuable to understand the mathematics behind these concepts, many students comprehend ideas more effectively (at least initially) when presented with examples that relate to everyday life. DSP is clearly one topic that involves a great deal of mathematics. Unfortunately it is typically taught in a conventional lecture-focused theoretical manner, with a very few visual and intuitive examples. This paper shares examples using a multi-modal visual approach. It focuses on the teaching and learning of sampling including under sampling, over sampling, and multi-rate sampling. The emphasis of this approach is on introducing the material in a way that allows students to easily grasp concepts by providing many daily experience-based,, real-world examples, images (and stories), animations, experiments, games, and puzzles. Specific examples in the paper are related to experiences such as driving, talking over the mobile phone, and entertainment. In addition, STEM-based examples, e.g., from medicine and physics are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will share the design of a learning environment that uses flight simulator-based activities designed to cognitively engage middle school students. The flight simulator provides an exciting, realistic, and engaging learning experience. It allows students to recognize the linkage between the concepts and application in real-world. Lesson plans were developed for several math and physics concepts integrating the flight simulator activities. To ensure buy-in for classroom implementation, the topics of these lessons were identified in consultation with the local middle school STEM teachers. Professional development on using the pedagogical approach was then provided to teachers from the middle schools that serve primarily underrepresented populations. Middle school students experienced the learning environment as part of a summer camp to deeply understand some science and math concepts. A quasi experimental between-subjects research design was used. Pre-post content and attitude instruments were utilized to collect data for determining the effectiveness of the approach. This paper provides an updated analysis (N = 50) combining the previously reported data from the 2017 camp and the implementation results of the summer 2018 camp. Results indicated statistically significant gains in students' content knowledge and positive changes in attitudes of mainly female students towards science, technology, engineering and math. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will provide the first-year results of the impact of implementing the flipped approach in lower level math and aerospace engineering courses. A quasi-experimental between-groups research design was used for assessing the effectiveness of this methodology. The control group consisted of students who were in the same course but in sections with traditional teaching delivery while the intervention group consisted of students who were registered in the sections with the flipped approach. All students were from underrepresented groups. A positive impact on the students' attitudes and learning strategies was observed as a result of the flipped classroom with active learning. Data pertaining to the effectiveness of the flipped classroom pedagogy is shared in this paper. Analysis of students' cognitive engagement and their attitudes towards flipped classroom is discussed. The paper also includes best practices, their impact on student performance, and challenges in implementing a flipped classroom pedagogy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding institutional leaders' perspectives on ethics frameworks can help us better conceptualize where, how, and for whom ethics is made explicit across and within STEM related disciplines and, in turn, to better understand the ways developing professionals are enculturated toward responsibility within their disciplines. As part of an NSF-funded institutional transformation project, our research team conducted interviews with academic leaders about the frameworks of ethics in their home departments, programs, and fields. This paper reports on a series of eleven (11) interviews whose content describes the perspectives of disciplinary leaders from biology, chemistry, computer science, mathematics, mechanical and aerospace engineering, optics, philosophy, physics, psychology, STEM education, and writing and rhetoric. Contextualizing frameworks through the participants' identification of experience, content, and audience allows us to better understand the landscape of ethics practices and procedures that act as the explicit training and education STEM learners receive in their disciplines. If ethics is an important educational focus for engineering, and the work of engineering relies on interdisciplinary connections, then understanding how ethics is taken up both within and across those collaborating disciplines is an important means of supporting ethics in engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2012 University of Detroit Mercy, an urban institution, launched a new engineering major in Robotics and Mechatronic Systems Engineering. This multidisciplinary engineering program evolved out of collaborative efforts of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering faculty members in this institution around the theme of Mechatronics and Robotics. Several NSF grants helped develop a lot of these prior work in the early 2000s. These efforts served as the platform that enabled the launching of the program in 2011 [1,2]. In 2016 the program received ABET accreditation with the graduation of the first cohort of Students. In 2016 more NSF funding, in the form of an NSF S-STEM (Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) grant, was received to help recruit needy Students in the program and offer them scholarships for four years so that they can successfully complete the new degree. Seven Students were recruited in the first year of the grant and nine more in the subsequent years to fill the total promised number of sixteen. Between the scholarships received from the institution and the NSF scholarship 100% of the tuition was covered. The group recruited was a diverse one consisting of 11 first generation Students whose parents do not have college degrees, five Hispanic Students, three African Americans, and six female Students. The S-STEM grant is going to officially end at the end of this academic year. Seven Students have already graduated and are employed in their disciplinary area. Two more Students are scheduled to graduate this year. The rest will graduate at the end of next year. Research by Sara Goldrick-Rab [3] has demonstrated that the needs of today's Students in the US is far beyond just the cost of tuition. Poverty, food insecurity, and other societal challenges play major roles in the lives of the modern Student. This paper is about the journey of some of the Students in this NSF-supported cohort. Most of these Students are closer to the end of their undergraduate program rather than the beginning. Instead of providing only statistics we have delved into the details of these Students' backgrounds, their high school experience, college preparedness or lack thereof, their college experience, their family needs, demands on their time, demands and support from the educational ecosystem, internship experiences, work experiences, and their overall feeling about the entire experience. Overall, by exploring the journey of these Students we will also gage the level of success (and failure) of the work done with this NSF S-STEM grant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Wright State Model (WSM) for Engineering Mathematics Education is a meaningful shift from the traditional required engineering calculus sequence as it offers a one-semester laboratory-based immersion into the ways mathematical concepts-including trigonometry, vectors, derivatives, integrals, and differential equations-are actually used by engineers. As administrators and instructors of the WSM course pilot at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU), we are interested in understanding and analyzing the change processes wherein the WSM becomes legitimized and integrated into the official course pathways of our large public engineering college. At CU, the status of the WSM pilot class changed from optional in Year 1 to mandatory in Year 2 for all students entering the engineering college at a Pre-Calculus level. This change from optional to mandatory resulted in a significant increase to the size of the class and a fundamental change in the ways students were informed of and enrolled in the class. In this paper, we identify the implicit assumptions and narratives invoked to justify this change in the course status, and identify the various ways our story of change both aligns and mismatches with the models of change as discussed in the engineering education literature. Data sources including student academic performance metrics, course evaluation questionnaires, and pre-/post Survey results are combined with qualitative data from individual student interviews to inform our interpretation of how the course policy changes were initially motivated, advocated for, and decided upon, as well as consequences to student learning and motivation in the course from Year 1 to Year 2. Overall we find resonance across several change models that enables hindsight interpretation of the course as a story of institutional change as lived through students, instructors, and administrators, and as seen through curriculum, structures, and policies. Lessons learned from this story will assist decision-making for Year 3 of the pilot course, while also offering insights into power dynamics and consequences of policy decisions for engineering educators interested in effecting meaningful and long lasting change within any institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars within computing and engineering education have broadly explored how students understand computing-related disciplines. Existing studies have led to publications on promising practices for teaching computing, such as evidence-based strategies for teaching computer science principles and programming languages like C++ and Java. However, other education research on computer-based technologies that students in engineering disciplines often use, such as MATLAB, Mathematica, Mathcad, Excel, and Aspen Plus, is limited. Initial analysis reveals that most of the published work on numerical and computational methods (NCM) in engineering education is in the form of textbooks used to introduce these software packages. However, a gap in the literature exists between understanding the technical content that these textbooks provide, and the degree to which effective pedagogy is used to teach this content. In other words, while textbooks exist to introduce these concepts, few studies have been done to measure the effectiveness of teaching these concepts. Understanding how to effectively teach these computing resources is important because it provides a foundation to allow engineering students to tackle their day-to-day calculations and be prepared with essential tools in the 21st century to tackle modern projects. Literature indicates that very little has been done to understand the impact of these computational technologies both on students as well as the perspective of faculty who teach these courses. As part of this literature review, we will review published scholarship to understand ways in which scholars have investigated the way that computational and numerical methods have been taught so far. This is a work in progress that will serve as a foundation for a broader study to understand effective pedagogies in computational and numerical methods in computing and engineering education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It can be challenging to effectively teach a first course in communication systems to electrical engineering technology (EET) undergraduates. One reason for the difficulty is that complex mathematical and signal-processing concepts must be introduced without the mathematical rigor expected in a traditional electrical engineering course. To make life easier for both the instructor and student, the EET Communication Simulator was developed. This is a software simulator that can run via any of the modern web browsers. The primary hypothesis of the research and development project was that students would learn communication principles better if they were presented with visual representations of the complex mathematical functions and corresponding signal representations. There were two objectives of the project: (i) create a software communication systems simulator that an instructor can utilize in a pedagogically effective manner, and ii) create a user-friendly learning tool for communication systems students. Several groups of students worked to improve the simulator over a period of two years. The other students, who were not directly involved in the project, participated in the testing and evaluation of the simulator. Their feedbacks were obtained through a survey. The results of the survey, shedding light on students' attitudes and perception with regards to the simulator, are presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Spring 2013 semester, the Sophomore level probability and statistics class ISYE 330 at the University of San Diego was taught using the Flipped Classroom strategy. Most lectures were delivered in short online videos. Each class began with a brief review lecture and students spent most of the remaining class time solving problems in groups. Compared to the Spring 2012 offering, the same material was covered in less time and test scores on a common final exam increased. This paper summarizes the lessons-learned by teaching ISYE 330 as a flipped class. Class organization is contrasted with earlier versions of the course. The preparation of online and supplementary materials is described including a discussion of the evolution of the materials as the semester progressed. Student performance is analyzed and compared to previous offerings. Course evaluations are examined to gain insight into student attitudes to flipped classes. Finally, the advantages and disadvantages of using the flipped strategy are summarized along with suggestions for how class could be changed in the future to make even more effective use of class time and enhance student learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the effects of using Model Eliciting Activities that build representational fluency on the cognitive processing of selected cryptography concepts. The study used an experimental design where in the control group the cryptography concepts were taught to 5 participants using two representational forms (language and mathematics) and in the treatment group the same concepts were taught to 5 participant using four representational forms (language, mathematics, graphic and concrete). Cognitive processing was measured using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to determine where in the brain cryptography concepts are processed and whether the use of MEAs focused on representational fluency impacted cognitive processing of cryptography concepts. fMRI image data were gathered from five volunteers by presenting multiple choice questions to the students visually and recording their responses while they were undergoing fMRI scanning. fMRI image analysis from the postcourse scans showed common areas of brain activation among the ten fMRI participants that differed based on whether the questions were presented using language, math, or graphical representational forms. This paper discusses the differences in brain activation patterns resulting from each representation, as well as a direction for future work measuring cognitive processing of cryptography concepts in multiple representational forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Preliminary Investigation into Mathematics for Undergraduate Engineering Education to Improve Student Competence in Important Mathematic Skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many female undergraduate Engineering students struggle during their first and second years of college with finding their place and questioning whether they belong in Engineering. It has been shown that mentoring programs can help encourage women to stay in engineering fields and we want to create a program at the University in the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) program to retain more female engineering students. The purpose of this study is to apply Lean Six Sigma tools and methods to design an engineering undergraduate mentoring program to enhance retention of underrepresented females. As part of an engineering management graduate research project, the research assistant leveraged a team of students in the Industrial Engineering Technology program's undergraduate Lean Six Sigma course to design an engineering mentoring program. The course incorporates real-world lean six sigma experiential learning opportunities so that the students can better learn and apply lean six sigma tools and the DMAIC (Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control) methodology. The team applied Voice of Customer to engage students and faculty to identify the pilot program's requirements. They used the lean six sigma process design tools and root cause analysis to identify the critical to satisfaction characteristics and the factors that will positively impact success of the mentoring program. This is a work in progress and constitutes the first step in designing and piloting an engineering mentoring program. The program will be piloted in Fall 2019, based on the findings from the Lean Six Sigma project. This program will provide mentorship to women engineers throughout their college career as well as support them for a career in engineering in the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many incoming college freshman struggle with learning to study and prepare for college examinations in mathematics. High performing high school students often easily succeeded in their mathematics courses while spending minimal time studying the subject. The strategies they used do not always transfer well to the university environment, and they must learn to prepare for assessments over larger amounts of material in a shorter time period. A bridge program was implemented to support incoming freshmen whose mathematics understanding and skills were weak, based on their Mathematics Placement Exam (MPE). Surveys were conducted each week of the three-week intervention to determine student beliefs about what study strategies they believed served them well in high school mathematics, what strategies they expected to use in college, and how much time they anticipated spending on their mathematics studies in the bridge program and in college calculus courses. Students spent 36 hours during the 3-week period in small groups with an online tutor. In addition, they had online practice quizzes, instructional videos, and an online textbook. They were given the MPE again at the end of the program. If they increased their scores to meet the cut score of 22 out 33 correct, they were permitted to enroll in engineering calculus I. This study examines their responses to the surveys during the bridge program and their grades, including any correlations that exist among the variables [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BridgeValley Community and Technical College (BridgeValley CTC) located in south-central West Virginia, was awarded a NSF S-STEM (NSF Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) 5-year grant in 2013 to establish a STEM Scholars program to increase: the annual, full-time enrollment of engineering technology and applied technology majors, the retention of and degree completion rates of participating STEM majors, and the number of graduated STEM Scholars who become employed in their field or continue their education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Additional teaching/learning resources were prepared for chemical engineering students and faculty and made available directly on www.LearnChemE.com or linked to from the website. These resources include ConcepTests, screencasts, interactive Mathematica simulations, an interactive tutorial module, and a thermodynamics course package that uses active learning methods. In addition to preparing new screencasts, some screencasts were replaced based on feedback, interactive screencasts were prepared, links were created between related screencasts, more channels were added to YouTube, and screencasts were prepared that demonstrate how to use the interactive simulations. The screencasts were played/downloaded more than 2.4 million times in the last twelve months. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our industry partners often voice a complaint that our newly graduated electrical engineering (EE) students do not have sufficient programming skills. This is not a new concern. In a traditional undergraduate EE curriculum, one or two programming courses compose the entirety of the student's training in programming. The courses may be taught by the computer science department without significant emphasis on engineering fundamentals. While the principles of computer science may be well covered, the ability to apply the knowledge to practical engineering problems is frequently lacking. To compound the problem, teaching novices the basics of programming can be very challenging due to poor preparedness in mathematics, logical and abstract thinking, and problem solving. Students may lack the motivation to program because of a perceived disconnect between practice exercises and real-world applications. As a remedy, it is possible to incorporate inexpensive microcontrollers into programming courses. These units have digital and analog ports for interfacing sensors and other circuitry, which are controlled by user-written programs. Adding a hardware component offers an opportunity to increase student engagement by reinforcing programming concepts with relevant and fun hardware projects. Other approaches involve working with robots, whose popularity has spread from K-12 to higher education. Some schools have opted to develop their own platforms, which are reused within their curriculum. Even this cursory introduction illustrates the wide variety of hardware options already available. There is also an extensive choice of programming languages that can be taught to freshman engineering students. These range from standard languages such as C, C++, and Java to scripting languages such as Python and MATLAB. The latter has over the years become a large platform for many simulation tasks. In the following sections, we will give our rationale for pursuing our path of using a LabJack data acquisition device for introducing programming to EE students, discussing why it was chosen over other alternatives, and how it has affected our students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Chilean universities, a large proportion of engineering students abandon their studies within the first year. There is a variety of reasons for this phenomenon. It is also a fact that a high number of students fail their first year physics and/or math courses. We believe that the high dropout rate is related to failing physics and math courses (sometimes more than once); however, that relation has not been studied in Chile. In general, there is a consensus in the literature that these two phenomena (failing a course and dropping out) are caused in some degree by the limited preparation on these sciences that students receive in precollege education, as well as by the traditional teaching strategies (lecturing being a quite common teaching strategy in physics and math courses). However, this study takes a different approach. We believe that another strong reason for failing courses and dropping out of school might be related to students' perception of the relevance of physics and mathematics to their professional career, which is, in this case, engineering. In this study 232 students taking first and second year physics and math courses at a large private university in Chile participated. We used a Likert-scale instrument in which students chose from a "Totally agree" to "Totally disagree" scale of statements related to relevance of science and mathematics for future career and study. The results of this study discuss four aspects: 1) the students' perceptions of the relevance of physics and mathematics of scholar engineering and professional engineering practices, 2) the comparison of students' perceptions of the relevance of physics to that of mathematics, 3) gender differences on those perceptions and 4) the relation of those perceptions to their performance in the course. As conclusions, we present the consequences for that practice and some recommendations for instructors and course designers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have developed an introduction to continuum mechanics for sophomore students without any prior knowledge of mechanics. The essence of continuum mechanics, the internal response of materials to external loading, is often obscured by the complex mathematics of its formulation. By building gradually from one- to higher-dimensional formulations, and integrating multiple case studies, we are able to make this subject more accessible to undergraduates. Students develop both physical intuition for, and the mathematical techniques to describe, solid and fluid behavior. At the same time they gain a unique appreciation for the connections between solid and fluid mechanics. These connections are often only revealed to advanced undergraduates and graduate students who elect to study continuum mechanics, when a curtain is pulled back to reveal the a-ha - the similarities between solids' and fluids' governing equations, and the connections between their constitutive laws. In our approach, we start with this a-ha. Through this approach, students appreciate the behavior of engineering materials as a spectrum with Hookean solids at one extreme, and Newtonian fluids at another, with many complex behaviors (for example, that of biomaterials) in between. Our approach demonstrates the connections between solid and fluid mechanics, as well as the larger mathematical issues shared by both fields, to students who have not yet taken courses in fluid mechanics and/or strength of materials. The context and foundation provided by this educational strategy effectively prepare students to continue to study either solid or fluid mechanics, apply computational methods, or specialize in the connections themselves by returning to a deeper study of the overarching field of continuum mechanics. The continuum approach permits students to synthesize and analyze knowledge, and our use of case studies integrates cultural, political, and ethical issues into a sociotechnical understanding of engineering mechanics. We describe the development and implementation of this approach at one institution, and how we resolved the challenges involved in transferring the approach to a second institution. We discuss several refinements to our methodology that resulted from broadening our audience. Assessment results from over 10 years, at two institutions, are evaluated and interpreted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the impact of mathematics course along with calculus for undergraduate engineering students in engineering education of engineering school in U.S.. The legitimacy of students in a diversity promoting program was contested, both by the students themselves and by the institutions.

The article focuses on STEM education system impact on engineering students competency in mathematical knowledge including calculus course during engineering education. Topics include transition challenge from secondary to college education in mathematics and its impact on college carriers of college students.

High quality formative feedback is an integral component of a fruitful learning experience. Pedagogical approaches are needed to increase the quality of instructor feedback and train students to interpret and appropriately respond to feedback. To develop research-informed approaches, students' thinking from receipt of feedback to action can be explored through an analysis of documented works, such as written feedback and students' iterative solutions. However, such approaches do not reveal the whole story of their interactions with feedback. The purpose of this study is to explore student team responses to teaching assistants' (TAs') written feedback while revising their mathematical model. The research question that guides this study is: How do student teams respond to feedback and convey their ideas from their team discussions in their documented works? We report case findings from two first-year engineering student teams' responses to TA feedback on a Model-Eliciting Activity (MEA). The teams were videotaped while working to revise their draft. The findings from this data are supported by documented works (written feedback and students' iterative solutions) along with student interviews. In trying to understand the complexity of students' learning experience, this study provides insights into how students respond to TA feedback, specifically how they interpret feedback, budget time, and effectively report the outcomes of team discussion. Moreover, findings imply that TAs need to better identify misconceptions and target feedback appropriately. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]