September 2006

Welcome to the September issue of Connections, the American Society for Engineering Education's free e-newsletter.

Spotlight On Our Sponsors:

• LabVIEW 8.20 – 20th Anniversary Edition
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LabVIEW 8.20 – 20th Anniversary Edition

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Welcome to the World of K–12 Engineering!

Introducing engineering into the K–12 classroom connects science and math concepts to the everyday engineering that surrounds us. TeachEngineering.com helps teachers enhance learning, excite students and stimulate interest in science and math through the use of hands–on engineering. With a fully searchable, digital library of standards–based lesson plans, and a myriad of “Living Laboratories” that bring real–world engineering principles into the classroom, TeachEngineering's comprehensive curricula are hands–on, inexpensive, and relevant to children's daily lives.

TeachEngineering.com is a joint effort of the University of Colorado, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Colorado School of Mines, Duke University, Oregon State University, and the American Society for Engineering Education, and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation.

Bring the world of engineering into the K–12 classroom with TeachEngineering.com. You don’t need knowledge of engineering to use these curricula!

Search TeachEngineering.com’s digital library at
www.teachengineering.com.

New and Improved Journal of Engineering Education!

The Journal of Engineering Education is a peer-reviewed international journal published quarterly by the American Society for Engineering Education. It serves as an archival record of the leading scholarly research in engineering education. Visit www.asee.org/about/publications/jee/ to read it online.

In this Issue:

I. Databytes

• Engineering Bachelor's Degrees Awarded by School, 2005
• Engineering Master's Degrees Awarded by School, 2005
• Engineering Doctoral Degrees Awarded by School, 2005

II. Congressional Hotline

• Fiscal Year 2007 Fast Approaching
• Senate Approves FY 2007 Defense Spending Bill
• Homeland Security to Spend More on Border Security Research

III. Teaching Toolbox

• A Push for Participation - Active learning makes lectures a more powerful classroom technique.

IV. Fellowship Programs

• The National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program
• The Office of Naval Research (ONR) Summer Faculty Research and Sabbatical Leave Program
• The Air Force Summer Faculty Fellowship Program (SFFP)

• The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Postdoctoral Fellowship Program

I. Databytes

  Back to the index.
 

II. Congressional Hotline

Fiscal Year 2007 Fast Approaching

Fiscal Year (FY) 2007 begins on October 1.  None of the annual appropriations bills that fund the federal government have been sent to the White House for the President’s signature.  The House of Representatives has passed all of its bills except the FY2007 Labor-Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations Bill.  The Senate has passed the Department of Defense Appropriations Bill and the Homeland Security bill.  The other appropriations bills have been reported out of committee, but the Senate has not debated and passed them.  None of the appropriations bills have been considered in a House-Senate conference.  The bills that the President does not sign into law before October 1 will be combined in one or more continuing appropriations resolutions (CRs) until Congress meets after the November 7 election to complete work on them.

Senate Approves FY 2007 Defense Spending Bill 

On September 7 the Senate passed its version of HR 5631, the FY 2007 Department of Defense Approrpiations Bill.  The bill provides $469.7B in new discretionary spending authority for DOD, including $65.5 B in supplemental appropriations. This bill provides an increase of $14.7B above the funds provided in the FY 2006 Defense Appropriations Law, excluding supplemental appropriations.   The Senate bill does not include the amendment authored by Senators Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) that would have added $45M to the DOD’s basic research account (6.1) to increase appropriations for the University Research Initiatives (URI) in the Army, Air Force, and the Navy, the university research program in cybersecurity and computer science in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and  the National Defense Education Program/Science, Math, and Research for Transformation(SMART) Defense Scholarship Program.

For more information, visit: http://appropriations.senate.gov/hearmarkups/DefensePRSenate07.mht

Homeland Security to Spend More on Border Security Research

Admiral Jay Cohen, the new Under Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for Science and Technology, testified before the House Science Committee September 13  that the Department would increase its investments in longer-term research that could augment border security.

Cohen was responding to concerns expressed by witnesses and by Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) that the DHS Science and Technology Directorate had been neglecting longer-range research. 

The non-governmental witnesses at the hearing were G. Daniel Tyler, head of the National Security Technology Division at the Applied Physics Laboratory at the Johns Hopkins University; Dr. Peter Worch, an independent consultant who is a member of the Air Force Science Advisory Board; Dr. Gervasio Prado, President of Sentech, Inc.; and Dr. Gregory Pottie, Associate Dean for Research and Physical Resources at UCLA.

All of the witnesses emphasized the need to develop and deploy the technology in a way that took into account the border patrol personnel who would use and respond to it. 

In his opening statement Boehlert expressed concern about the adequacy of DHS investment in border security research, saying, “My sense is that we haven’t done a very good job of that so far.  We haven’t methodically thought through what technology to deploy, how to deploy it, and how to integrate it with the people who will actually be apprehending those trying to cross the border illegally.  We haven’t come up with a clear, adequately funded plan to conduct the research needed to improve existing technologies and create new ones.  And in Congress, we haven’t thought comprehensively about border security, instead focusing on massive public works projects, like border fences.”

Boehlert also reminded Cohen that the legislation establishing the Science and Technology Directorate at DHS was written by the Science Committee.

Cohen testified that he was reorganizing the Directorate along the lines of ongoing themes rather than individual, short-term projects.   

Source: House Committee on Science

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III. Teaching Toolbox

A Push for Participation

You’ve surely heard about active learning, cooperative groups, personalized systems of instruction and problem-based learning. But you were probably taught through lectures. What is best? Is a well-presented lecture or one of these other techniques the best learning tool?

It depends on your goals. If all you want to do is transmit information and assess the results with a multiple- choice test, then lectures do the job. The only teaching methods that statistically show that students learn better are the closely related techniques of mastery learning and the personalized system of instruction. But how many practicing engineers do you know who are paid to take multiple-choice tests? As soon as higher-order skills (designing, problem solving, communicating, working with people) are included in the assessment, teaching methods involving active learning and cooperative groups show a significant increase in student learning.

Still, lecturing does have advantages. Quite simply, it doesn’t rock the boat. The professor stays in control and only has to be 50 minutes ahead of the students. And since lectures are face-to-face, developing rapport can be easier, although this advantage is lost in large classes. If the lecture format enabled students to learn higher-order skills, it would be quite a good technique.

We don’t have to completely abandon lectures to gain many of the advantages that active learning and cooperative groups offer. If lecture classes are interactive so that students are not passive for long periods of time, they can be good learning experiences.

Since the attention span of almost all students is between 10 and 20 minutes, you can expect to lose most of your students if you lecture for 50 minutes straight. Even professionals fall victim to the “my eyes glaze over” syndrome. Not only do students tune out once that “dead” period is reached, the energy level of the class also flags. The solution might be to structure a 50-minute class something like this: a mini-lecture including an introduction, an activity break, a second mini-lecture, an activity break and finally a third mini-lecture, including a wrap-up. The mini-lectures contain an introduction, a body and a closing, similar to a straight lecture except they are shorter.

Activity breaks should incorporate active learning and the formation of cooperative groups. Both techniques practically force students to become involved. They can be very simple, like turning to a peer and comparing lecture notes. Alternatively, ask the student groups to solve a short problem. If the problem is part of the homework assignment, they will be more motivated to do it. Or use technology to involve your students, such as student response systems like “clickers” to obtain immediate responses to multiple choice questions. Clickers, which allow students to respond anonymously to a multiple-choice question and allow the professor to display the responses in real time, involve the students and give the professor immediate feedback on student learning. After answering the questions, you might allow students to compare their answers with one another and change them if necessary.

Ensuring that all of the courses in the curriculum are lecture/active learning classes is not sufficient—students still need laboratory, design and computer simulation courses. However, it will go a long way toward satisfying the conditions necessary to becoming an engineer.

Phillip Wankat is director of undergraduate degree programs in the department of engineering education and the Clifton L. Lovell Distinguished Professor of chemical engineering at Purdue University. Frank Oreovicz is an education communications specialist at Purdue’s chemical engineering school. They can be reached by e-mail at purdue@asee.org.

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IV. Fellowship Programs

The National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program, 2006-2007.  This program provides students with three years of financial support including a $30,000 annual stipend and $10,500 cost-of-education allowance.  U.S. citizens, nationals, or permanent residents at or near the beginning of research-based graduate studies in the Chemistry, Computer and Information Science and Engineering, Engineering, Geosciences, Life Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, Physics and Astronomy, Psychology, and Social Sciences fields are eligible to apply. Competition is open for applications.  For additional information and deadlines, please go to https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/grfp/

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) Summer Faculty Research and Sabbatical Leave Program.  This program is intended for U.S. citizens who hold teaching or research appointments relating to science and/or engineering at U.S. academic institutions. A competitive stipend, relocation and travel allowances, and a pre-program site visit are offered. Application deadline is December 1, 2006. Go to: http://www.asee.org/summer.

The Air Force Summer Faculty Fellowship Program (SFFP).  This program is intended for U.S. citizens or permanent residents who have an earned doctorate in science or engineering and who hold full-time science or engineering faculty positions at U.S. colleges, community colleges and universities.  The duration of this summer fellowship is from eight to 12 continuous weeks and research is performed on-site.  There is a competitive weekly stipend and relocation and daily expense allowances are available.  The application is open now and the application deadline is November 1, 2006.  Go to: www.asee.org/sffp or email sffp@asee.org.

 The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Postdoctoral Fellowship Program.  This program is open to U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents and offers a competitive stipend as well as insurance, relocation, and travel allowances.  The program offers one to three-year postdoctoral fellowships designed to increase the involvement of scientists and engineers from academia and industry to scientific and technical areas of interest and relevance to the Navy.  The program has a rolling admission.  Go to: http://www.asee.org/resources/nrl/ .

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ASEE Announces New User Interface for K-12 Outreach Program Database

Regular users of the EngineeringK12 Center’s outreach program database will now find the collection of K-12 and pre-college engineering, math, science, and technology programs easier to use and convenient to update.  By simply registering with the database, outreach program providers will now have access to the new user interface, allowing them to add, edit, and manage listings at anytime.  This feature will ensure that the most current information on engineering outreach programs is available to database searchers.

Home to hundreds of listings, the EngineeringK12 Center’s outreach program database is a great resource for parents, teachers, and students to search nationwide for an outreach program that matches their needs.  From lesson plans for teachers, to engineering summer camps for students, the database offers a wide variety of programs offered by universities, industry, and government.  Registration is only required to add and manage an outreach program in the database.  Registration is not required simply to search.

You can register to be an outreach program database user at: http://www.engineeringk12.org/educators/making_engineers_cool/search.cfm

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Over 12,000 engineering and engineering technology faculty members and administrators enjoy the many benefits and services that ASEE offers. The Society's award-winning magazine ASEE Prism and academic publications (Journal of Engineering Education and Profiles of Engineering Colleges) keep members up to date with the best and latest in engineering education, engineering research trends, and academic issues, while 47 professional interest groups and a varied selection of meetings provide professional development and networking opportunities that no other society can offer within the engineering education community. Members also receive reduced rates at local and national conferences, discounts on ASEE products, money-saving members-only discounts on financial, insurance, and travel programs, plus an ever growing variety of online services. Our goal is to focus on issues that matter the most to you in our publications, meetings, and on-line services, and to enable you to interact with others who share your specific engineering and educational interests. To join online, just go to www.asee.org/membership, or contact our member services department at 202-331-3520 for further information.

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