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Background: Although engineering practice occurs in social contexts, such contexts often remain obscure in engineering education. Since engineering sciences courses are crucial in shaping engineering students' knowledge and conceptions of problem-solving in engineering, students in both an augmented and a traditional section of a feedback control systems course were interviewed to explore perceptions of the social justice dimensions of engineering. Purpose: This study sought to understand student perceptions of social justice in the context of control systems courses. Design/Method: This study used a qualitative, case study methodology. Inductive analysis was used to analyze focus groups and interviews conducted over 3 years. Findings: Through inductive analysis, we identified three primary interrelated domains: (1) varied descriptions of social justice emerged; (2) diverse perceptions surfaced on how the social and technical dimensions of engineering problems interrelate; and (3) students' conceptions of engineers yielded insight into their perspectives on social justice. Conclusions: That students did not vary substantively in perceptions of social justice across course sections suggests that prior knowledge of social justice shaped student perceptions. The findings also indicate that what students value shapes what they are learning and that student perceptions were informed by students' understanding of ethics and of engineering ideologies. These findings imply a need for distributed curricular integration of social justice concepts and for presenting social justice in the context of engineering problem-solving. Such presentation could reinforce sociotechnical considerations inherent in engineering practice, clearly rendering visible inherent social justice considerations in engineering problems.

Describes the constructs of referents, relationships, and modes and illustrates how these constructs may be reflected in students' written responses to a decimal task that requests an explanation. Examines sets of responses from two classrooms using the proposed framework to illustrate the type of information that teachers may acquire through the application of this framework. (Author/MM)

Abstract The purpose of this article is to discuss the assessment component of the Competency and Confidence Project (C^2). C^2 was a collaborative effort between the Colorado School of Mines [...]

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to share the development and the design of a mathematics reform project, Confidence and Competence ([C.sup.2]). [C.sup.2] was a series of workshops that [...]

Provides clear definitions of the terms "validity" and "reliability" in the context of developing scoring rubrics and illustrates these definitions through examples. Also clarifies how validity and reliability may be addressed in the development of scoring rubrics, defined as descriptive scoring schemes developed to guide the analysis of the products and processes of students' efforts. (SLD)

Describes the different types of scoring rubrics, explains why scoring rubrics are useful, and presents a process for developing scoring rubrics. Concludes with a description of resources that contain examples of the types of scoring rubrics and additional guidance for the scoring rubric development process. (SLD)

Abstract This article explains one school's efforts at redesigning student evaluations of courses and suggests appropriate uses of student evaluations for improvement of instruction. Introduction In many colleges and universities, [...]

The author discusses the voluntary survey conducted by the "Journal of Engineering Education" (JEE) wherein e-mail invitations were sent to individual JEE subscribers, authors and reviewers in the JEE database. The respondents were primarily made up of tenured or tenure-track engineering faculty, administrators and teaching faculty in science, engineering or mathematics. Respondents were asked about their purpose for reading JEE, rejected manuscripts, and concerns on page charges.

Engineering Cultures is a course that was developed primarily to prepare United States' engineering students to effectively collaborate and communicate with engineers from other countries. In order to reach a broad audience, two versions of this course have been developed and offered." an online and an in-class version. The schools participating are Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VT) and the Colorado School of Mines (CSM). In this article, the results of an investigation that compares the learning outcomes and student perceived usefulness of the two designs are reported The assessment instruments used in this investigation were multiple-choice content pre and post tests, essay pre and post tests, and a self-report end of semester survey. Differences in learning between the two courses were not detected on the pre to post multiple-choice content test; however, differences were detected, with in-class students displaying greater increases, between the pre and post essay exam. This indicates that the learning outcomes measured through the essay exam, which included analysis and synthesis, were better supported through classroom based instruction than the online instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Humanitarian Engineering program at the Colorado School of Mines seeks to prepare engineering students for careers that will interface with and benefit the underserved global community. Through an interdisciplinary collaboration, a sequence of courses has been designed and implemented to support engineering students in developing an understanding of the ethical, cultural, historical and technical dimensions of engineering work applied to community development in the United States and abroad. This article discusses the analysis of several indicators of the local and global impacts of the program and the sustainability of this project beyond the period of funding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]