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Renaissance Engineering 1 is a first-year engineering course that is the “flagship course” of Lassonde School of Engineering, where students are introduced to essential concepts and practices in ethics, communication, and creative problem solving. It is a large course that impacts over 600 students per year. Since Fall 2020, partly as a response to the pandemic, we fundamentally transformed the content and delivery of the course. This year, we have continued this transformative journey with an emphasis on reinventing the assessment approach. The limitations of normative grading are wellknown in the education field. Specifically, to our situation, the appropriateness of this practice in professional education where the goal is to ensure every student acquires the necessary competence, is suspect. Specification grading bridges normative and competencybased grading paradigms and has been shown to be effective in the engineering education setting. We applied specification grading to Renaissance Engineering 1. In all assignments, including the final case study, students are asked to satisfy a number of requirements distributed across four levels of competencies: Level 1: Foundational requirements for being a well-adjusted citizen, Level 2: Foundational requirements for being a contributing engineer, Level 3: Advanced requirements for being a well adjusted citizen, and Level 4: Advanced requirements for being a contributing engineer. Students are assigned grades from D to A based on their requirement satisfaction. Students have a limited number of chances to revise and resubmit their work if they have failed to satisfy all requirements in order to demonstrate competency. If they fail to meet multiple level 1 requirements after resubmission, they will fail the course. During the Fall-2021 term, we faced a number of unexpected challenges and surprises. Compared to previous years, this cohort - having experienced tremendous difficulties through the pandemic - were more tentative and insecure and took to a new grading scheme with notable trepidation initially. Surprisingly, many students had notable difficulty following clear written instructions, which is likely another pandemic-induced abnormality. Nevertheless, the majority of the students became comfortable with the scheme by the end of the term and achieved satisfactory learning outcomes. Significantly, while the majority of the students (~58%) achieved A or B grades, a significant minority (~18%) of students had failed the course. The course is offered to a new cohort of students in Winter 2022. Following a system thinking approach, we adjusted the grading scheme implementation based on our experience and learnings from the Fall-2021 term through winter term that led us to new and consistent findings. However, the benefits of specification grading in ensuring students meet critical competencies is particularly relevant for a professional education program such as engineering. Indeed, the bimodal grade distribution calls into question the status quo of normbased grading and calls for further research on assessment schema in engineering.

First-year university is an ideal time for students to begin the development of critical thinking and self-directed learning skills. Structuring critical reflection with experiential learning activities can provide opportunities for students to develop and learn how to apply these skills in the future. Previous research has identified considerations for implementing critical reflection into the first-year engineering curricula in ways that students will meaningfully engage. The primary goal of this work was to integrate critical reflection learning outcomes, activities, and assessments into the first-year engineering curriculum connected to experiential learning activities. Critical reflection activities were scaffolded to a critical reflection framework, adapted to the first-year engineering context. Three critical reflection assessments were mapped to experiential learning activities to further the development of these skills in parallel, such as teamwork, problem solving, and communication. One assignment involved a peer review process, where students had the opportunity to learn from each other’s experiences, and give constructive feedback through learning of students’ shared university experiences. The benefits of developing student reflection skills are obvious, and the improvements witnessed are encouraging. However, there remain many challenges, particularly with respect to assessment methodologies, and student motivation. Meaningful integration of critical reflection remains an iterative learning experience for the instructors.

This article critically considers the work being done to bring Indigenous Peoples, Knowledges, and perspectives into the dominant structures of engineering education in Canada. We use Gaudry and Lo...

Educational innovations and just-in-time supports spread more quickly through social networks thanthrough traditional dissemination avenues. Therefore, in coordinating national level support efforts for the shift to online and remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the principal strategies of theEngineering Collaboration for Online and Remote Education (E-CORE/CIEL) Project was to developnational Communities of Practice (CoPs) to foster connections between instructors. Using an autoethnographic process, this reflective paper aims to synthesize the learnings from the team working to cultivate these CoPs. The analysis of the reflections provides insight on: the needs of the Canadian community of engineering educators during a year of remote education, the perceivedbenefits of engaging in CoPs, considerations for cultivating CoPs in different contexts, andrecommendations for future cross-institutional CoP efforts.

Background Preclinical spinal cord injury models do not represent the wide range of biomechanical factors seen in human injuries, such as spinal level, injury mechanism, velocity of spinal cord impact, and residual compression. These factors may be responsible for differences observed between experimental and clinical study results, especially related to the controversial issue of timing of surgical decompression. New method Somatosensory Evoked Potentials were used to: a) characterize residual compression depths in a dislocation model, and b) evaluate the physiological effect of whether or not the spinal cord was decompressed following the initial injury, prior to the application of residual compression. Modifications to vertebral clamps and the development of a novel surgical frame allowed us to conduct surgical and injury procedures in a controlled manner without the risk of additional damage to the spinal cord. Behavioural outcomes were evaluated following varying dislocation displacements, in addition to the survivability of 4 h of residual compression following a traumatic injury. Results Residual compression immediately following the initial dislocation demonstrated significantly different electrophysiological response compared to when the residual compression was delayed. Comparison with existing method There are currently no other residual compression models that utilize a dislocation injury mechanism. Many residual compression studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of early decompression, however the compression of the spinal cord is often not representative of clinical traumatic injuries. Preclinical studies typically model residual compression using a sustained force through quasi-static application, when human injuries often occur at high velocities, followed by a sustained displacement occlusion of the spinal canal. Conclusions This study has validated several novel procedural approaches and injury parameters, and provided critical details to implement in the development of a traumatic cervical dislocation SCI model with residual compression.

We investigate the ability of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to distinguish between three experimental rat models of spinal cord injury mechanism – contusion, dislocation, and distraction. Ex vivo DTI scans were performed on cord specimens that were preserved at different time points of the acute injury (3 hr, 24 hr, and 7 days post-injury) across all three injury mechanisms. White matter was classified as abnormal if their DTI metric was substantially different from regional values measured from a set of uninjured controls, thus allowing generation of binary “white matter damage maps” which categorizes each pixel in the DTI image as “normal” or “damaged”. Damage classification was most robust using thresholds in the longitudinal diffusivity, which supports previous studies that show that longitudinal diffusivity is the most robust DTI metric in depicting damage in SCI. Furthermore, the spatial damage patterns from all subjects in the same group were consolidated into a "damage occurrence ratio map", which illustrates an average damage shape that characterizes the injury mechanism. Our analysis has yielded a dataset which highlights the differences in injury pattern due to the initial mode of mechanical injury. For example, contusion produced an initial injury that emanated radially outward from the central canal, with subsequent damage along the caudal corticospinal tract and rostral gracile fasciculus; dislocation injuries showed a high level of involvement in the lateral and ventral white matter which became less apparent by 7 days post-injury, and distraction injuries were found to be less focal and more distributed rostrocaudally. This work represents a first step in adopting the use of the primary injury mechanism as a clinical prognostic factor in SCI, which may help to inform the trialing of existing neuroprotective treatment candidates, the development of new therapies as well as personalize the management of SCI for the individual patient.

Traumatic spinal cord injuries (SCIs) occur due to different spinal column injury patterns, including burst fracture, dislocation, and flexion-distraction. Pre-clinical studies modeling different SCI mechanisms have shown distinct histological differences between these injuries both acutely (3 h and less) and chronically (8 weeks), but there remains a temporal gap. Different rates of injury progression at specific regions of the spinal cord may provide insight into the pathologies that are initiated by specific SCI mechanisms. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the temporal progression of injury at specific tracts within the white matter, for time-points of 3 h, 24 h, and 7 days, for three distinct SCI mechanisms. In this study, 96 male Sprague Dawley rats underwent one of three SCI mechanisms: contusion, dislocation, or distraction. Animals were sacrificed at one of three times post-injury: 3 h, 24 h, or 7 days. Histological analysis using eriochrome cyanide and immunostaining for MBP, SMI-312, neurofilament-H (NF-H), and β-III tubulin were used to characterize white matter sparing and axon and myelinated axon counts. The regions analyzed were the gracile fasciculus, cuneate fasciculus, dorsal corticospinal tract, and ventrolateral white matter. Contusion, dislocation, and distraction SCIs demonstrated distinct damage patterns that progressed differently over time. Myelinated axon counts were significantly reduced after dislocation and contusion injuries in most locations and time-points analyzed (compared with sham). This indicates early myelin damage often within 3 h. Myelinated axon counts after distraction dropped early and did not demonstrate any significant progression over the next 7 days. Important differences in white matter degeneration were identified between injury types, with distraction injuries showing the least variability across time-points These findings and the observation that white matter injury occurs early, and in many cases, without much dynamic change, highlight the importance of injury type in SCI research-both clinically and pre-clinically.

Reimagined curriculum models offer new possibilities for embedding durable competencies into the curriculum, including critical reflection, which promotes the development of self-directed learning skills. However, students often perceive these skills as unimportant with pre-existing biases focusing on technical content as the core of engineering. The primary goal of this work was to identify key considerations when integrating critical reflection into engineering curricula, specifically in the context of first-year engineering, to promote the development of student self-directed learning skills. This work was framed within the Students-as-Partners (SaP) approach, where two undergraduate students worked in collaboration with the instructor. To gather information regarding student perceptions of critical reflection, focus groups were conducted for first-year engineering students and students familiar with reflection. Qualitative thematic analysis was performed on the focus group data and key insights were identified and categorized into five themes: approaches, supporting students, evaluation and framing, development pathway and value, and reflection for engineers. Suggested learning outcomes, student activities, and evaluation methods are proposed. These findings are applicable to implementing reflection across a variety of academic settings, as they highlight main considerations and challenges faced with reflection from the perspective of students in multiple programs.

Students often have significant learning experiences outside of the classroom, and in particular through their involvement in extracurricular activities. McMaster University has a strong student culture rooted in this type of involvement, and wanted to recognize this experiential learning. These students are often learning a variety of durable skills such as leadership, teamwork, conflict management, and communication. This paper describes the development of a course for students to earn complementary credit for a variety of diverse roles in extracurricular settings across campus. The development approach was informed by principles of student ownership and self-directed learning, and implemented by a diverse team including the instructor, staff, and students. Several focus groups conducted with actively involved students provided insight on both the structure and content of the course: workshop-style classes, with active learning modules, and opportunities for students to learn from each other. Critical reflection was the primary assessment to encourage students to derive learning from their extracurricular experiences. Preliminary observations from the first offering of the course are promising, in that students are deriving significant value from the course, and their related extracurricular experiential learning.

The implementation of Students-as-Partners (SaP) with instructors in the co-development of curriculum is becoming an increasingly popular pedagogical model. Enhanced learning outcomes, student satisfaction, and skill development have been demonstrated as a result of SaP work. Engineering educators stand to benefit from this approach, however further investigation is needed to better understand the implications of SaP work on curriculum development processes. Thus, the primary goal of this paper is to provide an analysis of the complexities of the Students-as-Partners approach from an experiential lens of curriculum design in first-year engineering. This study uses a collaborative auto-ethnographic approach to draw from instructor and student written reflections on the process and experiences of working within the SaP model on a first-year engineering curriculum development project. Common themes were identified and synthesized from individual reflections. Important considerations of a partnership include creating a positive climate, pre-existing perceptions of power, framing the project with intention, and taking advantage of niche areas of expertise. Various forms of motivation were also found to influence the partnership dynamics and outcomes. Restraints of partnerships in general were identified in the unequal student representation and the difficult balance of providing guidance and instilling ownership. These findings provide key considerations to engineering educators who may find the SaP approach a viable option in curriculum development processes.

Early decompression of the traumatically injured and persistently compressed spinal cord is intuitively beneficial for neurological outcome. Despite considerable pre-clinical evidence of a neurological benefit to early decompression, the effect of early surgical decompression in clinical spinal cord injury (SCI) remains less clear. The discrepancy between pre-clinical and clinical results may be due to differences between the biomechanical variables used in pre-clinical animal models and the biomechanical conditions occurring in clinical injuries. These pre-clinical variables include region of spinal cord, velocity of impact, and injury mechanism. In this study, the effect of velocity and duration of residual compression on injury severity were evaluated using a novel, rodent model of cervical dislocation SCI. Fifty-two male Sprague-Dawley rats were included in five groups: two timings of decompression (24 min, 240 min), two velocities (10 mm/sec, 500 mm/sec), and a sham group. All injuries involved a 1.45-mm dorsal dislocation of the C6 vertebra relative to C5 with subsequent residual compression of 0.8 mm. Animals were evaluated for motor function using the Martinez open field, grip strength, and grooming tests for 6 weeks post-injury. Immunohistochemistry and histology following sacrifice were conducted with counts for NeuN- and choline acetyltransferase (ChAT)-positive neurons, and length of cavitation. Behavioral testing and histological analysis revealed that injuries induced by the high velocity were consistently more severe than those induced by the low velocity, with behavioral correlations ranging between 0.46 and 0.58 (

The Canadian Engineering Education Challenge (CEEC) is an initiative with the goal of ‘developing a national collaboration to target engineering curriculum to graduate students who will be eminently prepared to take on the challenges of the future’. The National Coordinator performed a scan of the education system across Canadian engineering programs to determine existing initiatives, and common challenges. The objectives of this work are: 1. Identify needs and challenges of the Canadian Engineering Education system, and 2. Identify challenges and opportunities in providing support to curricular change initiatives. This work is conceptually framed and driven through the Coordinator’s perspectives, assumptions and goals, using an action research framework. A qualitative inductive thematic analysis is used to identify common themes and trends from across visits and conversations with over 60 individuals from 14 institutions. A secondary goal of this work is to share the process, lessons learned, and personal reflections, with those who have contributed to generating the data, and others entering into the field of Engineering Education. Several trends emerged from the data, which elucidate needs and challenges. These include: distinct roles in the system, curricular initiatives relating to non-technical skills and design spine, challenges associated with Engineering Education Research and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, the impact and inertia of culture, modeling and instructor training related to non-technical skills, funding promotes change, and the importance of terminology and shared understanding. Considerations became apparent which may inform how to best support individuals and the system. These include: the need to align with the existing priorities of others, the desire for engineering educators to learn from each other, the power of culture, and incentives to promote engagement. This work will serve to identify potential opportunities for the CEEC to leverage collaboration between institutions with common alignment, as well as important considerations to be incorporated for the CEEC to maximize impact. Finally, this work hopes to provide valuable insight to others who wish to engage more deeply in Engineering Education.

Industry engagement in undergraduate engineering education is a community-centred approach to learning that is hands-on and links the engineering theory to practice. This paper provides a review of existing Engineer-in-Residence (EIR) programs in Canada, including the University of Manitoba, Dalhousie University, University of Calgary, Ryerson University, University of Ottawa, and the University of Waterloo, as well as a brief international scan. We consider the motivations behind the institutions’ initiative to introduce EIR programs, different types of engagements, challenges, and opportunities. Programs are also examined externally relative to professional residency programs in business schools, among others, and relative to other forms of industry engagement in undergraduate engineering education. A brief overview of the history and role of EIRs within engineering programs is also presented. The paper will be of interest to those exploring a similar industry engagement framework at their institution, and offers a forward-looking perspective on ways to leverage the skills and experience of practicing engineers in preparing students to tackle the challenges of the future.

This paper presents a literature review of social laboratory and network approaches to change, and describes a collaborative approach being implemented in some Canadian engineering programs to rethink the engineering curriculum. As part of the Canadian Engineering Education Challenge in the Engineering Change Lab, the institutions present some proposed curriculum interventions and proposed research activities.

– Giving and receiving feedback is a necessary, but often difficult skill for young engineers to acquire. We developed and piloted the delivery of a feedback model as part of the first-year engineering experience at the University of British Columbia. The approach is based on recognizing feedback as a form of professional communication, and that it requires practice to improve. We wove different aspects of communication skill development through two large newly-designed first-year introduction to engineering courses, building towards face-to-face feedback through a staged series of communication experiences. The full feedback model highlighted the nuances of face-to-face communication, and was called the "3×3", since it includes the three components involved in face-to-face feedback (sender, message, and receiver), each with three associated aspects. The sender uses appropriate words and body language, ensures proper interpretation, and is empathetic; the message is objective and non-judgmental, sufficiently detailed, and contains suggestions for improvement; and the receiver remains open and listening, acknowledges to the sender that they are listening, and clarifies to ensure understanding. Students applied what they had learned through an activity reviewing poster presentations from a major course design project. In the activity, they each had an opportunity to craft a feedback message before delivering the message face-to-face to a peer. Students then reflected on the feedback they received by summarizing the message, recognizing how the sender delivered the feedback, and identifying why the feedback was helpful. Student reflections were analyzed for themes from the 3×3 model. Students found feedback from peers particularly helpful when it was delivered in an appropriate and courteous manner, checked for proper interpretation, provided clear suggestions for improvement, and was coupled with praise of something that was done well. Providing students with a structured model allows them to follow a process in both providing effective face-to-face feedback, but also better appreciate why receiving feedback is beneficial in helping them improve.

The wide variability, or heterogeneity, in human spinal cord injury is due partially to biomechanical factors. This review summarizes our current knowledge surrounding the patterns of human spinal column injury and the biomechanical factors affecting injury. The biomechanics of human spinal injury is studied most frequently with human cadaveric models and the features of the two most common injury patterns, burst fracture and fracture dislocation, are outlined. The biology of spinal cord injury is typically studied with animal models and the effects of the most relevant biomechanical factors - injury mechanism, injury velocity, and residual compression, are described. Tissue damage patterns and behavioural outcomes following dislocation or distraction injury mechanisms differ from the more commonly used contusion mechanism. The velocity of injury affects spinal cord damage, principally in the white matter. Ongoing, or residual compression after the initial impact does affect spinal cord damage, but few models exist that replicate the clinical scenario. Future research should focus on the effects of these biomechanical factors in different preclinical animal models as recent data suggests that treatment outcomes may vary between models.

Dislocation is the most common, and severe, spinal cord injury (SCI) mechanism in humans, yet there are few preclinical models. While dislocation in the rat model has been shown to produce unique outcomes, like other closed column models it exhibits higher outcome variability. Refinement of the dislocation model will enhance the testing of neuroprotective strategies, further biomechanical understanding, and guide therapeutic decisions. The overall objective of this study is to improve biomechanical repeatability of a dislocation SCI model in the rat, through the following specific aims: (i) design new injury clamps that pivot and self-align to the vertebrae; (ii) measure intervertebral kinematics during injury using the existing and redesigned clamps; and (iii) compare relative motion at the vertebrae–clamp interface to determine which clamps provide the most rigid connection. Novel clamps that pivot and self-align were developed based on the quantitative rat vertebral anatomy. A dislocation injury was produced in 34 rats at C4/C5 using either the existing or redesigned clamps, and a high-speed X-ray device recorded the kinematics. Relative motion between the caudal clamp and C5 was significantly greater in the existing clamps compared to the redesigned clamps in dorsoventral translation and sagittal rotation. This study demonstrates that relative motions can be of magnitudes that likely affect injury outcomes. We recommend such biomechanical analyses be applied to other SCI models when repeatability is an issue. For this dislocation model, the results show the importance of using clamps that pivot and self-align to the vertebrae.

Spinal cord injuries are frequently accompanied by persisting residual compression of the spinal cord; however, it remains controversial as to what effect the sustained compression has on neurological damage. The objective of this study was to determine the influence of post-traumatic residual spinal cord compression on the extent and progression of tissue damage within a dynamic thoracic contusion rat model. Twenty-nine male Wistar rats were distributed into one of four groups: spinal cord contusion only, contusion with 40% residual compression, contusion with 90% residual compression, and a surgical control group. A moderate injury was performed (1 mm, 700 mm/sec) with our custom University of British Columbia (UBC) multimechanism apparatus, and the residual compression groups had the impactor tip maintained at 40% or 90% of the initial impact depth (1.0 mm) for 60 min post-injury. All animals were killed at 3 h post-injury, when the spinal cord was harvested and stained for hemorrhage, neuronal damage in the gray matter, and axonal disruption in the white matter. The initial contusion injury immediately damaged tissue beneath the impactor as evidenced by rapid relaxation of the reaction force on the spinal cord during the subsequent compression. Importantly, the rostral-caudal extent of intramedullary hemorrhage was 66% larger after 90% residual spinal cord compression compared to the 40% group (p=0.016). Similarly, the extent of neuronal nuclei lost in different gray matter regions was 60-86% greater after 90% residual compression compared with 40% (p0.001). Thus, a high level of residual compression of the spinal cord following a moderate contusion injury has the potential to adversely increase the extent of tissue damage, whereas a lower level of residual compression may have little to no effect.

Factors affecting student self-perception in the context of engineering design team work are examined in this paper. Specifically, how students of different gender and personality type rank their own contributions to their team relative to how their teammates rank their contributions is considered. Gender- and personalitybased differences in self-serving bias – an individual’s tendency to attribute positive outcomes to their own actions and negative outcomes to external factors – are known to exist. This two-part study examines these factors in the context of self-evaluation and peer evaluation scores received in a second year mechanical engineering design project course. Four evaluation events were conducted in January, 2015 (Part 1), and followed by an in-class intervention (presentation) and three more evaluation events in April, 2015 (Part 2). In Part 1, self-serving biases were measured by examining the difference between self-evaluation scores and average peer evaluation scores received from teammates. Separate ttests and mixed-linear model statistical analysis were used to compare the average self-peer bias in evaluation scores versus gender and each of the four MBTI domain scales. Data showed a statistically significant increase in selfserving bias as the course progressed. Differences were also noted for gender (males initially had a higher selfserving bias than females, but this difference disappeared in time), and MBTI domains of Introversion/Extraversion and Thinking/Feeling (students with a preference for Extraversion and Thinking had higher self-serving bias). The differences for gender and personality type were statistically significant with t-tests but not with mixedlinear models, suggesting the observed effects were driven by a small number of individuals with large self-serving bias. Following the intervention – consisting of a short in-class presentation describing the observed effects from Part 1 – reduced self-serving bias was observed in Part 2, but it is unclear if the change was due to the intervention or due to other factors.

This study examines factors influencing student conflict management styles in a team-based second year mechanical engineering design course. Maddux described conflict management along the dimensions of assertiveness (seeking to meet one’s own needs) and cooperativeness (seeking to meet the other party’s needs). The key research questions in this study were how conflict management styles changed as a result of participation in an intense team-based course and whether gender or personality type influenced students’ conflict management styles. Students completed a pre-course team formation survey that included prompts on how they would deal with different scenarios representing common team conflicts; students responded to the same prompts again in a project exit survey. Students’ responses in these surveys were used to code their preferred approach for dealing with conflicts. Two independent reviewers worked from randomized, anonymous survey data and coded students’ responses along the two dimensions of Maddux’ model. The results indicate conflict management style is context dependent (the distribution of responses changed for the different survey prompts). The most commonly used conflict management style was Compromising, in which parties find a middle ground but neither fully achieves their goals. A statistically significant reduction in assertiveness was found between pre- and post-surveys. Statistically significant differences in assertiveness were also noted with a number of Myers-Briggs personality type pairs in the pre-survey. The fact that similar differences were not observed in the post-survey suggests that the project experience has a normalizing effect on conflict management style. Meaningful statistically significant differences in conflict management style based on gender were not observed.