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As part of being named one of ten emerging leaders in engineering education, Arizona State University (ASU) was invited to participate in the MIT-Olin Colloquium on the "Global State of the Art in Engineering Education" held in Boston in April 2019. As a group we shared innovations at our respective institutions and identified opportunities to collaborate to continue to advance the state of engineering education. In response to the guidelines for this special issue, this paper provides details on a few representative ASU achievements to date, and identifies opportunities for the continued evolution of the Fulton Schools of Engineering.

The increasing presence of entrepreneurship within many engineering curricula requires a complementary tool to assess the impact on learners. An instrument was developed based on the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network's 3Cs - Curiosity, Connections, and Creation of Value - framework to assess entrepreneurial mindset. The instrument was designed to target twelve total mindsets. Items were pilot tested four times with undergraduate students at a large southwestern public institution. Results in this paper are given for the last of four pilots in Spring 2017. Exploratory factor analysis was utilized to identify the number of emergent factors and overall importance of each item. The ensuing instrument contained 34 items within seven factors. The developed instrument and results of this study provide a foundation to support the accurate assessment of engineering student entrepreneurial mindsets before, during, and after an entrepreneurial experience.

The increasing interest in cultivating the entrepreneurial mindset among engineering students necessitates a shared language around what this looks like in terms of attitudes and behaviors, and frameworks provide this. A framework was developed to characterize the entrepreneurial mindset in light of the Kern Family Foundation's 3C's: curiosity, connections, and creating value. The framework was developed based on three rounds of reviewing the literature for relevant frameworks and assessment tools. The resulting framework that is presented in this paper includes twelve attitudes and seventeen behaviors that map to the 3Cs. This framework can serve as the basis for assessments and experiences designed to cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset among engineering students.

Background: There is clear consensus among influential education reports that an expansive range of intrapersonal (e.g., self-regulation) and interpersonal competencies (e.g., empathy) highly influence educational and career success. Research on teaching and learning these competencies is limited in engineering education. Purpose/Hypothesis: This study explores the impacts of a mindfulness training program on first-year engineering students and aims to understand potential impacts on the development of intrapersonal and interpersonal competencies. Design/Method: A four-session mindfulness-based program was designed, developed, and facilitated to cultivate intrapersonal and interpersonal competencies. Qualitative data were collected from a total of 35 students through a post-survey (n = 32), 3-month follow-up survey (n = 24), and interviews (n = 18). A thematic analysis process accompanied by validity and trustworthiness checks was employed to analyze the data. Results: The results suggest that the majority of students became more mindful, which led to improved intrapersonal competencies (e.g., self-regulation, focus, resilience, and well-being) and interpersonal competencies (e.g., empathy, communication, teamwork, and leadership). Discussion/Conclusions: The study provides compelling evidence that mindfulness training can support the development of intrapersonal and interpersonal competencies among engineering students, which can support their overall academic experience, personal, and professional development. Future design and development work will be needed to evaluate the integration and scalability potential of mindfulness training within engineering programs.

Understanding the global, societal, environmental and economic (GSEE) context of a product, process or system is critical to an engineer's ability to design and innovate. The already packed curricula in engineering programs provide few occasions to offer meaningful experiences to address this issue, and most departments delegate this requirement to an early cornerstone or later capstone design experience as a result, making these courses an ineffective "catch all". To address this challenge, we utilize the paradigm of "product archaeology," to understand the decisions that led to a product's development. Product archaeology is defined as the process of reconstructing the lifecycle of a product--the customer requirements, design specifications, and manufacturing processes used to create it. By considering products, processes and systems as designed artifacts with a history rooted in their development, we embed GSEE context as a central component in developing design solutions. In the current work, students focus primarily on the useful life of products and their design solutions, rather than on product end-of-life issues. Specifically, in our work we have implemented several approaches to integrate contextual thinking related to GSEE dimensions into a senior level engineering design course. Following Kolb's model of experiential learning and an instructional framework adapted for product archaeology (inclusive of evaluate--explain--prepare--excavate activities) we have restructured the course to embed specific and targeted reflection, dissection, and analysis activities so that student teams effectively address the GSEE factors in their design solutions. This paper provides the theoretical framework of our instructional approach, describes the specific didactic activities we implemented, and summarizes results from our qualitative analysis. Overall, our results suggest that the use of product dissection and GSEE activities is an effective way to equip students with new tools to understand contextual, technical, and functional properties of their design projects.

Background: Little research exists on students' misconceptions about semiconductors, why they form, and what role educational resources like simulations play in misconception formation. Research on misconceptions can help enhance student learning about semiconductors. Purpose (Hypothesis): This project sought to identify students' misconceptions about three semiconductor phenomena -- diffusion, drift, and excitation -- and to determine if prior knowledge, knowledge acquired from watching animated simulations, or both were related to students' misconceptions. We hypothesized that students would hold misconceptions about those phenomena and that students' prior knowledge and knowledge acquired from watching animated simulations would be associated with their misconceptions. Design/Method: Forty-one engineering students completed an instrument that asked questions about three semiconductor phenomena after the students had observed the animated simulations. Responses were analyzed and coded using two frameworks: misconception and knowledge use. Results: Misconceptions were prevalent for all three phenomena. Misconceptions were associated with use of incorrect prior knowledge, a combination of correct or incorrect prior knowledge, and the knowledge acquired from watching the animated simulations alone or in combination with correct and incorrect prior knowledge. Misconceptions indicated a lack of understanding of chemistry and physics concepts. Conclusions: Findings indicate that students hold many misconceptions about semiconductor phenomena. These misconceptions were common among our participants. The knowledge acquired from the animated simulations alone or in combination with prior knowledge could reinforce or contribute to misconception formation. Our findings can guide instructors to use or create better simulations to aid student learning.

Communities of practice, which enable sustained collaboration among fellow practitioners, have potential for advancement of faculty development, but traditionally employ face-to-face meetings with inherent economic and geographical limitations. Our virtual community of practice (VCP) model exposes engineering instructors from across the country to research-based educational practice and engenders enduring community among the participants. This investigation examined the impact of VCP participation on awareness, attitudes, and adoption of research-based educational practice. Results indicated that participation improved the participants' awareness of, attitudes toward, and adoption of research-based educational approaches.

Product archaeology as an educational approach asks engineering students to consider and explore the broader societal and global impacts of a product's manufacturing, distribution, use, and disposal on people, economics, and the environment. This study examined the impact of product archaeology in a project-based engineering design course on student attitudes and perceptions about engineering and abilities to extend and refine knowledge about broader contexts. Two design scenarios were created: one related to dental hygiene and one related to vaccination delivery. Design scenarios were used to (1) assess knowledge of broader contexts, and (2) test variability of student responses across different contextual situations. Results from pre- to post-surveying revealed improved student perceptions of knowledge of broader contexts. Significant differences were observed between the two design scenarios. The findings support the assumption that different design scenarios elicit consideration of different contexts and design scenarios can be constructed to target specific contextual considerations.

Background: Modeling is a pervasive feature of engineering that is rarely taught explicitly to engineering students. The implicit inclusion of modeling often results in conceptions held by students of models based on the everyday use of the term that neglects important predictive types of models. Purpose: We studied the effectiveness of an explicit modeling module designed to broaden student understandings of various approaches to and applications of modeling. Design/Method: A two-phase analysis of student conceptions was undertaken. Phase I analyzed the conceptions of an experimental group before and after they were taught an explicit modeling module. Phase II added a comparison group at a second institution. Results: A significant shift was observed for engineering students who were explicitly taught a modeling module. Student-held conceptions were predominantly descriptive-centric (e.g., physical models) throughout the investigation with an added focus on predictive (e.g., mathematical) modeling after completing the modeling module. These results were consistent for a comparison group. Conclusions: Explicit learning experiences about models and the modeling process need to be embedded into the engineering curriculum, specifically in the teaching of engineering design. Teaching modeling will improve student use and understanding of modeling as an important and pervasive engineering tool.

In this paper, we identify several approaches engineering faculty use to teach engineering topics. We report results from an exploratory study, consisting of 16 faculty interviews from five diverse institutions of higher education. We focus specifically on engineering faculty because the engineering faculty teaching culture is not well explored, even though there are many ongoing projects to reform engineering education. The results from this study contribute to efforts currently underway to improve teaching and learning in engineering education, as well as in higher education. Results from this study highlight the disciplinary nature of teaching in the engineering domain. Furthermore, our results can serve as a foundation to compare teaching approaches in other disciplines, or to potential changes in engineering teaching practices. (Contains 1 table and 1 note.)

Transfer of knowledge is a common and ongoing area of investigation in many education studies. The topic is of central importance to the education community because it enables educators to understand how knowledge learned in one context can apply, or transfer, to new contexts. This is particularly important in the context of technological innovation and design education. That is, design often requires the generation of solutions that do not already exist. Generating unique solutions requires the ability to recognize when previous knowledge or learning is appropriate, and then to accurately apply previous learning to novel situations. Furthermore, focusing on transfer of knowledge brings a learner-centered approach to education such that learning experiences are designed to reinforce and to build on students' prior knowledge. This paper presents results from a study that measured the type of design process knowledge that gets transferred into and out of design-focused courses. The study included approximately 100 students in three different courses: one freshman and two upper-level design courses. Results from this study shed light on the nature of students' design process knowledge, as novice (freshman) as well as more experienced (junior and senior) student designers. In addition, study results show significant increases in pre- and post-measures of design process knowledge as students advance in the curriculum. Finally, we describe our findings in the context of an emerging framework for instruction and assessment: adaptive expertise. The concept of adaptive expertise is relevant to design education since it presents a model that guides the educational experience to have a balance of gaining technical proficiency with opportunities for applying one's knowledge in innovative ways. [DOI: 10.1115/1.2722316]

As part of being named one of ten emerging leaders in engineering education, Arizona State University (ASU) was invited to participate in the MIT-Olin Colloquium on the Global State of the Art in Engineering Education held in Boston in April 2019. As a group we shared innovations at our respective institutions and identified opportunities to collaborate to continue to advance the state of engineering education. In response to the guidelines for this special issue, this paper provides details on a few representative ASU achievements to date, and identifies opportunities for the continued evolution of the Fulton Schools of Engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing presence of entrepreneurship within many engineering curricula requires a complementary tool to assess the impact on learners. An instrument was developed based on the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network's 3Cs - Curiosity, Connections, and Creation of Value - framework to assess entrepreneurial mindset. The instrument was designed to target twelve total mindsets. Items were pilot tested four times with undergraduate students at a large southwestern public institution. Results in this paper are given for the last of four pilots in Spring 2017. Exploratory factor analysis was utilized to identify the number of emergent factors and overall importance of each item. The ensuing instrument contained 34 items within seven factors. The developed instrument and results of this study provide a foundation to support the accurate assessment of engineering student entrepreneurial mindsets before, during, and after an entrepreneurial experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides the framing and details of a two-part entrepreneurial mindset symposium that was organized with the following objectives: 1) build a community of entrepreneurial mindset researchers and practitioners, 2) define an entrepreneurial mindset framework, and 3) situate efforts to identify and measure dimensions of the entrepreneurial mindset within that framework. With these objectives, we invited several individuals from a range of institutions to collaborate on addressing the three objectives. As part of the symposium activities, participants created author teams, drafted concept papers, and revised their papers in response to reviewers enlisted as part of the typical review process followed by the Advances in Engineering Education journal. This special issue is comprised of ten, 2500-word concept papers that address topics related to what entrepreneurial mindset is, why an entrepreneurial mindset is important, and how to promote, instill, or assess an entrepreneurial mindset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing interest in cultivating the entrepreneurial mindset among engineering students necessitates a shared language around what this looks like in terms of attitudes and behaviors, and frameworks provide this. A framework was developed to characterize the entrepreneurial mindset in light of the Kern Family Foundation's 3C's: curiosity, connections, and creating value. The framework was developed based on three rounds of reviewing the literature for relevant frameworks and assessment tools. The resulting framework that is presented in this paper includes twelve attitudes and seventeen behaviors that map to the 3Cs. This framework can serve as the basis for assessments and experiences designed to cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset among engineering students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Product archaeology as an educational approach asks engineering students to consider and explore the broader societal and global impacts of a product's manufacturing, distribution, use, and disposal on people, economics, and the environment. This study examined the impact of product archaeology in a project-based engineering design course on student attitudes and perceptions about engineering and abilities to extend and refine knowledge about broader contexts. Two design scenarios were created: one related to dental hygiene and one related to vaccination delivery. Design scenarios were used to (1) assess knowledge of broader contexts, and (2) test variability of student responses across different contextual situations. Results from pre- to post-surveying revealed improved student perceptions of knowledge of broader contexts. Significant differences were observed between the two design scenarios. The findings support the assumption that different design scenarios elicit consideration of different contexts and design scenarios can be constructed to target specific contextual considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communities of practice, which enable sustained collaboration among fellow practitioners, have potential for advancement of faculty development, but traditionally employ face-to-face meetings with inherent economic and geographical limitations. Our virtual community of practice (VCP) model exposes engineering instructors from across the country to research-based educational practice and engenders enduring community among the participants. This investigation examined the impact of VCP participation on awareness, attitudes, and adoption of research-based educational practice. Results indicated that participation improved the participants' awareness of, attitudes toward, and adoption of research-based educational approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]