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Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are disrupting traditional, higher education and redefining how learning takes place online. These open courses typically offer some form of recognition, such as a certificate of completion and/or digital badge, to recognize, validate, and in some cases even accredit learning. A general problem with MOOCs is the uncertainty regarding the use and goals of recognition,...
Engineers must be adept in finding, evaluating, and using information in order to create quality designs. Previous research has found first year engineering students frequently do not use sufficient sources to support their design decisions. To further understand what strategies engineering students use in seeking, evaluating, and using information, we interviewed 21 engineering students at a large...
Teaching assistants (TAs) are crucial for student learning, especially in large science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs with student-centered learning environments. To understand TAs' perspectives of their ability to facilitate learning in these environments, this research team conducted a mixed-methods study. This study was set in the First-Year Engineering Program at Purdue...
In order to realize the employment ambitions of graduates we can work with students to facilitate the construction of their identity as members of a global engineering profession. Of particular interest is whether (and, if so, how) students reconstruct their identity through the delivery of modules specifically designed to increase students' employability attributes and widen their horizons. In preparing...
We present a synopsis of instructor experience on the mastery learning approach as implemented in our school for key fundamental engineering courses. The mastery learning approach revolves around the idea of dividing the course into modules, each module culminates in an exam comprised of 2 or 3 problems where each problem tests one important concept. For each exam, a student can make up to 3 attempts,...
As a result of the growth of formal and informal pre-college engineering opportunities, many students are enrolling in university engineering programs with significant prior exposure to engineering ideas and practices. This study explores how participation in pre-college engineering programs and activities affects the experiences of students in a first-year engineering program. Twenty-three students...
In this study, we report on the student experience at Olin College, a small undergraduate university in the United States with an explicit mission to transform engineering education. We employ a highly narrative approach to situate students' individual experiences within their larger learning trajectories and use them as a lens through which we view the accounts of their time at college. We highlight...
To overcome MOOC shortcomings such as low completion rate, low level of interactions, and building on our previous team-based MOOC model, in this work-in-progress paper we propose a new model to create MOOC learning modules as learning objects based on a single learning objective to enable use of MOOC learning modules in blended settings. This model utilizes project-based learning and has benefits...
In the current educational landscape of shrinking public budgets and increasing costs, MOOCs have become one of the most dominant discourses in higher education (HE). However, due to their short history, they are only just beginning to be systematically investigated. In an attempt to shed more light on the MOOC phenomenon, this study complements other approaches by eliciting institutional attitudes...
While epistemologies have long been of interest in other fields, they have only recently begun to receive attention within engineering education. In particular, engineers' personal epistemologies (PEs) are a significant but understudied facet of engineering and engineering education. PEs are individuals' beliefs and attitudes that consciously and subconsciously affect the ways they think about knowledge,...
Many higher education institutes and universities are involved in beyond borders decision making processes. These activities accelerated after Bologna process agreement. E-participation not only covers the general participation of citizens, but also enables higher education decision makers to communicate with each other and with all stakeholders within the university. During more than ten years the...
In engineering ethics, the traditional approach views engineers as individual moral agents who are capable of making autonomous decisions. However, the broader context in which engineers work and make their ethical decisions is often overlooked. In teaching engineering students, institutional climates help define how educational programs, curricula, and pedagogical modules are designed with some values...
Engineering education has a retention problem resulting in the largest proportion of students leaving the major during their second year. Most frequently citing poor academic performance stemming from a combination of course difficulty, poor teaching, and a lack of a sense of belonging, the second year has shown itself to be an important focal point for intervention efforts aimed at addressing these...
This study explores the opinions and experiences of five Mac-using students in a first-year engineering program where Windows-based personal computers (PCs) are requisite. These students have circumvented the restrictive departmental policies which solely support Windows-based PC systems and which (as of this writing) clearly identify the lack of technical support for Mac users. Tablet PCs were the...
Teamwork is a very important attribute for future engineers. China graduates a large number of engineering graduates every year, so it is necessary to investigate the teamwork knowledge and performance level of the Chinese engineering students, and work out a better mechanism of teamwork teaching for them. This work investigates the team knowledge and team performance of the Chinese engineering students...
Research on retaining students in computer science is clear: pedagogical and curricular interventions that are experienced by all students are the most effective. Yet understanding what brings faculty to modify their teaching practices is scant. This study presents findings from a study based on interviews with 66 computer science professors and instructors in the U.S. Faculty described various sources...
Over the past decade, underrepresentation of minority students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) at the undergraduate and graduate level have been reported. However, little is known about the internal and external factors/experiences causing students to decide to drop-out. This study considers the gateway experiences (B.S. to M.S.) that led six STEM college students to continue...
Non-traditional students older than traditional college age (18–24) face particular challenges in the demanding engineering curriculum. In this qualitative study we explore the unique aspects of their motivation for studying engineering, prior experiences, and impact of family life on these students. We find that job opportunities were the primary motivation for most of the students to pursue an engineering...
The second largest attrition rate during an undergraduate engineering degree occurs during the second (sophomore) year. Students who persist past the first year of engineering school find themselves at a transitional, stressful, and competitive turning point as they enter the final math and physics requirements for their degrees. We adopt an ethnographic approach to investigate the environments of...
Many engineering programs have recently seen a significant increase in enrollment and educators have turned to alternative teaching strategies to help cope with this increase. One such approach is to incorporate Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) led studios to complement lectures. We studied a chemical engineering department that has implemented a studio approach that provides students an interactive...
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