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This paper describes the "AIChE Concept Warehouse," a recently developed web-based instructional tool that enables faculty within the discipline of chemical engineering to better provide their students concept-based instruction. It currently houses over 2,000 concept questions and 10 concept inventories pertinent to courses throughout the core chemical engineering curriculum. These questions are available for faculty use both as in-class concept-based clicker questions (or ConcepTests) and stand-alone concept inventories, and can be accessed in various formats (online or offline) for use in class and on assignments and exams. The design philosophy is to make the tool versatile so that it can be used in the way that best fits with the instructor's teaching philosophy and the program's educational environment. Instructors and students perceive it to catalyze engagement and promote learning. While domain specificity is critical to the targeted development of tools like the one we describe, we argue that the computer-based approach is generic and could be applied to any engineering discipline. One objective in describing this tool and characterizing our experiences using it is to contribute to such wider adaptation.

This paper summarizes the past, present, and future of Eurodisney in France from cultural awareness and cultural business ethics viewpoints, suggesting that although the French have not bought into the American dream that is Disney, they are so heavily involved in Eurodisney from a financial angle that they can do naught but continue to provide financial support. Eurodisney is a European business in trouble; it had tremendous national and local backing and continues to receive local financial support as a matter of cultural obligation to local business and banks. Even though it was 5 billion francs in debt, Eurodisney received renewed financial support from European, and especially French, businesses and banks. It is suggested that Eurodisney brings a conflict between the French and European and the American cultures to the forefront. This is a conflict between the old and the new in an age where the service industries are growing at an unprecedented rate. Entertainment is now a product that must be marketed and sold on a world-wide basis, American style, despite France's desire to control it in a more European business style. (Contains ten references.) (NAV)

Background: We investigated student responses to multiple-choice concept questions during active learning activities where students write justifications for their answer choices. Purpose: We selected two questions that asked students to apply the same concept in the same way but that have different surface features. We characterized students' responses to reveal how question attributes influence student thinking. Design/Method: In Study 1, we compared responses from students who wrote justifications with those who did not. In Study 2, we modified one of the questions so the cues of the two questions better align. Data included the students' answers and their written justifications. We applied open coding to the written justifications to develop hierarchical categories common to both questions. Results: For the Expanding Piston question, students who wrote justifications chose the correct answer more often; in the Balloon Rising question, less often. Analyses of justifications indicate that in the latter question, students activated more sophisticated reasoning processes, but did not choose the correct answer. We attribute half the difference between percentage correct in Study 1 to question cues and the remaining difference to an unfamiliar context. Conclusions: We encourage instructors to solicit written justifications to multiple-choice concept questions and to look for cases where students choose the correct answer using incorrect reasoning, ask students to construct graphics as they respond to text-only concept questions, and seek ways to help students recognize how core concepts apply to a broad range of contexts.

Increasingly, instructors of large, introductory STEM courses are having students actively engage during class by answering multiple-choice concept questions individually and in groups. This study investigates the use of a technology-based tool that allows students to answer such questions during class. The tool also allows the instructor to prompt students to provide written responses to justify the selection of the multiple-choice answer that they have chosen. We hypothesize that prompting students to explain and elaborate on their answer choices leads to greater focus and use of normative scientific reasoning processes, and will allow them to answer questions correctly more often. The study contains two parts. First, a crossover quasi-experimental design is employed to determine the influence of asking students to individually provide written explanations (treatment condition) of their answer choices to 39 concept questions as compared to students who do not. Second, we analyze a subset of the questions to see whether students identify the salient concepts and use appropriate reasoning in their explanations. Results show that soliciting written explanations can have a significant influence on answer choice and, when it does, that influence is usually positive. However, students are not always able to articulate the correct reason for their answer.