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| October 2008 | Subscribe |
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In This Issue:
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II. Congressional Hotline |
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BAILOUT´S COSTS COULD HIT HIGHER EDUCATION SPENDINGCongress´ recent approval of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout has dominated events on the Hill. Just how will this costly package affect spending for universities? The jury is still out for long-term funding, but things look mighty grim in the short term SPENDING BILL GIVES DOD RESEARCH A BOOSTPresident Bush signed the FY09 continuing resolution (CR), a short-term budget bill. Lasting through March 6th, 2009, it freezes funding at the current levels for most federal Agencies, without taking into consideration the FY08 supplemental budget that Congress already passed. The Department of Defense is the clear winner, along with Homeland Security and Veteran Affairs. Basic science funding for the DOD actually increases to $1.842 billion, a 12 percent jump. Funding for student aid and research remains flat through March, however. CRITICAL PRESIDENTIAL SCIENCE APPOINTEESThe National Academies released a new report: Science and Technology for America's Progress: Ensuring the Best Presidential Appointments in the New Administration. It discusses which presidential science appointments are most critical and also suggests ways to streamline the appointment process. |
III. Teaching Toolbox |
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Getting to the CoreBy Mary Lord Engineering educators team up with social scientists to find out what matters most in teachingEngineers are practical, hands-on problem-solvers for whom nothing is beyond improvement. Except, perhaps, when it comes to engineering education. And that frustrates civil engineering professor and education researcher Karl Smith. “We´re continually trying to find better, cheaper, safer, less harmful, more energy-efficient ways to do things,” observes Smith, a professor at Purdue University and the University of Minnesota. “Yet we don´t use an engineering approach to engineering education!” As a result, too many classes “look like they did 100 years ago.” Smith and his research partner Ruth Streveler, assistant professor of engineering education at Purdue, are working to alter that mindset with hard evidence from the social sciences. Dubbed Rigorous Research in Engineering Education, or RREE, this new paradigm pairs number-crunching engineering faculty with peers in education, psychology or other qualitative-friendly fields on robust, interdisciplinary research projects. The goal: system-wide reforms that will improve curricula and teaching methods while fostering skills that engineers need to succeed, including the ability to work in teams, think creatively, communicate ideas and become self-directed learners. Funded by the National Science Foundation, RREE has evolved rapidly from workshop sessions to pioneering practice involving some 150 scholars from 72 institutions. Open-ended Questions
Unlike much engineering education scholarship, which focuses on individual classrooms or a particular curriculum, RREE asks broader questions, probing how students think about and learn engineering. What do they find difficult? If they decide to drop engineering, why? Partnering with educational psychologists or other “mentors” enables engineering faculty to develop open-ended surveys and assessments that tease out answers. In 2004, Smith and Streveler approached their first RREE workshop for educators with some trepidation, anticipating that it would be difficult to attract engineering instructors. For one thing, education research doesn´t count toward tenure on most engineering faculties. Moreover, engineers tend to dismiss educational research because “it isn´t real engineering,” notes Smith. Their worry proved misplaced. Two hours after posting a notice on the deans´ list-service of ASEE, a co-principal investigator, they had 85 applicants for 20 slots. The workshop was held in Golden, Colo., home of the Colorado School of Mines, where Streveler was the founding director of the Center for Engineering Education. Over five intense days, participants got a crash course in the science and principles of how students learn — particularly how they learn engineering. Led by three facilitators, one each from ASEE, the American Educational Research Association, and the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education, engineering faculty explored the psychological and cognitive science of learning and its impact on curriculum design. They learned how to parse educational research articles, link theory to practice, and investigate ideas and trends in engineering education. For their capstone project, participants and their assigned collaborators had to come up with a big-picture question then design a small research study to answer it. One indication RREE had struck a chord: even after an exhausting first day, the engineers remained in the room to brainstorm ideas with their colleagues and mentors. There was some skepticism at first. Alan Cheville, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, took to “reading all the literature with an eye to proving it wrong.” Instead, his “whole thinking started changing.” Together with an education specialist at Michigan State University, he dramatically reconfigured his capstone design course around a new taxonomy of design skills and “authentic experiences.” Along with core content, his students now also must learn to communicate — by winning approval for their projects, then creating posters or another form of advertisement to “sell” them. Cheville modifies the course each semester based on student feedback. “We can´t, without a huge amount of work, change the students we get,” he concludes. “We have to change the way we teach.” A Trove of DataHaving an educational psychologist help frame questions and guide the research was one of the biggest workshop benefits for Donna Reese, associate dean of academics and professor of computer science and engineering at Mississippi State University´s Bagley College of Engineering. Instead of finding out what students learn, participants were guided to probe how and why they learned. Reese´s project sought to investigate why students abandoned engineering. She surveyed those who had left but were still enrolled at Mississippi State. “I wasn´t big on these open-ended questions,” recalls Reese. “As any engineer, I wanted something I could average.” Her mentor, however, encouraged her to solicit comments that went beyond answers to specific questions. Following this advice yielded “a lot of rich data” Reese wouldn´t have obtained had the queries been narrowly focused. While the findings were “nothing earth-shattering,” Reese says, “the fact that I could say these are our students, these are Mississippi State students who left, and this is what they´re telling us about our engineering program, was very powerful.” Among other things, the responses highlighted the leavers´ sense of not belonging, prompting Reese to create a special “living/learning community” for engineering undergraduates in an old dormitory, replete with pizza parties with professors, older student mentors to commiserate with over calculus, and bowling parties. For Julie Trenor, RREE has been nothing short of a “career-changing experience.” While in a non-tenure track position at the University of Houston´s Cullen College of Engineering, the then-director of undergraduate recruitment worked on a number of projects with mentor Shirley Yu, an associate professor of educational psychology there. Their study of female engineering students´ experiences led Trenor to reorganize her introductory engineering course, including giving students more time in class to work on projects and hosting a “get involved” fair so freshmen could easily learn about and join engineering organizations. The RREE training helped Trenor land two major National Science Foundation grants, write several studies for publication — and catch the eye of Clemson University, where she became an assistant professor in the department of engineering and science education in August.
Fledgling RREE-sponsored collaborations have inspired other changes, as well. In researching what concepts students found difficult in an introductory electrical circuits course, CSM lecturer Ravel Ammerman discovered “robust misconceptions” about voltage and current. Students thought of them as substances rather than processes involving electric charge, failing to grasp the risk of shock and other hazards. So he revamped his curriculum, cutting back lectures, adding a safety segment, and giving students more time to practice what they learned. Stephanie Ivey, an assistant professor of civil engineering at the University of Memphis, researched learning styles and found that students had a strong preference for visual as well as hands-on learning. She and her collaborators seized on geographic information systems as offering both a good visual tool and a way to develop students´ analytical skills. They developed a GIS lab, complete with global positioning satellite equipment and software, and found ways to work in GIS/GPS applications throughout the civil engineering experience. Participants are also publishing studies — and attracting funding. Meanwhile, engineering education centers have sprouted at schools across the country, from Virginia Tech to Utah State. “We´re growing a new field,” explains Leah H. Jamieson, dean of Purdue´s college of engineering, whose school is the first in the nation to elevate engineering education to a department. She feels strongly that scholars must translate their research “into impact beyond publishing a paper.” Curriculum ReshapedAt Purdue, this philosophy is apparent, with RREE helping to reshape what and how engineering gets taught. To prepare engineers for leadership roles in the 21st century global economy, the college´s new 2020 curriculum stresses hands-on, multidisciplinary learning experiences designed to foster teamwork and communication alongside science and math knowledge. “The ultimate test” of RREE, says Jamieson, is “how to take the results of this rigorous research and put it into practice.” Streveler and Smith intend to do just that. They are studying 50-page pre- and post-workshop surveys to gauge the program´s impact. “We tried to practice what we are preaching,” says Smith. Early analysis reveals that participants had changed how they taught in order to improve student outcomes. Several have published papers. And all intended either to continue working with their collaborator or to find a collaborator on campus or at another university. “It´s not the actual results of the research that are the most valuable,” explains Trenor, “It´s the collaborations that I´ve been able to develop and the understanding of how rigorous research is done.” She calls the improvements to her introductory engineering course “a pleasant by-product” of the new lens she has gained on education. Transforming engineering education is a journey, not a destination, and Streveler and Smith hope more faculty members will join them for the ride. Their next phase includes building a more active online presence for RREE, including social networks and Web-based seminars, plus a long-term evaluation of the program. In the meantime, they have been recommended for NSF funding for a follow-up project. Interested engineering educators are welcome to contact them and explore the RREE frontier.
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IV. JEE Selects |
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What Students Can Teach UsBy Sheri D. Sheppard, James W. Pellegrino & Barbara M. Olds Engineering design work demands a deep understanding of a client´s needs. So too, designs for engineering education require an understanding of our students — who they are, how they learn and how to reach them. Many instructors rely for this understanding on the insights they gain from working with students, both inside and outside the classroom. But a growing body of knowledge is becoming available from broader and more comprehensive studies of engineering students, offering educators a powerful and useful basis from which to devise instructional approaches that improve student learning.
A special issue of the Journal of Engineering Education (July 2008) is devoted to providing the results of this research to a wide audience of engineering educators. These 9 papers, involving a total of 31 authors, provide a range of findings about engineering students, telling us what attracts them to the field and why some succeed and others get discouraged. The papers also reflect on how these results can guide instructors. Some of the findings run contrary to conventional wisdom. For instance, the widespread concern about retention of students in engineering may be misplaced. It turns out that engineering retains more matriculating students than any other major. In addition, students who matriculated in engineering were more likely to graduate from college than students in other majors. What distinguishes engineering is a low rate of students switching from other majors into engineering. The only major from which engineering attracts a noticeable fraction of students is computer science. There are engineering schools, however, that have found innovative ways to defy this trend and attract a significant number of students who started their college studies in a non-engineering field. This finding implies that admissions policies, introductory engineering courses and the balance of technical and non-technical coursework may all affect how attractive (and accessible) engineering is to today´s students. Scholars have suggested ways that the culture of engineering might change to become more welcoming. If retention is less of a problem than attracting students, researchers have nevertheless sought to understand why up to 40 percent of matriculating engineering students abandon the field for other majors. The frequently cited rigors of the required science courses are not the only reason. We now understand that the ease with which a student develops “an identity as an engineer” can have a significant influence. A study described how one student succeeded, despite discouraging early grades, after gaining practical experience by working at an engineering lab and having a faculty sponsor. The officially sanctioned route into engineering is not the only path. Nor is engineering knowledge acquired in just one way. These research findings suggest that much more attention should be paid to features of university programs that help or hinder students in dealing successfully with the multiple dimensions that influence “becoming” engineers. The influence of college faculty on students is complex and poorly understood. Instructors may have little to do with a student´s initial motivation to enter engineering, since many students — both men and women — make this choice for social and financial reasons. But faculty-student interaction is important in helping students develop confidence in their professional and interpersonal relationships and in their problem-solving skills. One thing that is known is that undergraduate involvement in faculty research both increases student-faculty interaction and is a key factor in a student´s educational development. In the K-12 years, it is now clear, teachers can have a strong influence on students´ interest in engineering. Yet teachers are typically uncomfortable teaching subjects they do not understand well, and thus they will often shy away from such content. Despite this reluctance, studies of how children fare in design classes show them to be natural engineers and technologists, with an incredible adeptness and creative ability to conceive, construct, test and refine a product for a specific goal. More research is needed, therefore, into the kind of teacher preparation that is necessary for K-12 engineering instruction. Sheri D. Sheppard is a professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford University; James W. Pellegrino is a professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Barbara M. Olds is associate vice president for educational innovation at the Colorado School of Mines. |
V. Fellowship/Scholarship Programs |
SMARTScience, Mathematics and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship for Service Program. The purpose is to promote the education, recruitment and retention of outstanding undergraduate and graduate students in science, mathematics, and engineering studies; the DoD is also interested in supporting the education of future scientists and engineers in a number of interdisciplinary areas. Scholarships awarded include a cash award, full tuition, required fees, and a book allowance. The SMART Program will allow individuals to acquire an education in exchange for a period of employment with the Department of Defense. The program is intended for citizens of the United States; students must be at least 18 years of age to be eligible for an award. Application opens August 15, 2008 and the deadline is December 15, 2008. For information and to apply online, go to http://www.asee.org/smart NDSEGThe National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship Program (NDSEG). The fellowship program is sponsored by the Army Research Office, Office of Naval Research, Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the DoD High Performance Computing Modernization Program. This program is intended for U.S. citizens at or near the beginning of their doctoral studies in science or engineering programs. The fellowships are for three year tenures and include full tuition and fees, a competitive stipend, and a health insurance allowance. The application deadline is January 5, 2009. Go to: http://www.asee.org/ndseg for applications and detailed program information. NSF-GRFPThe National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). For U.S. citizens, nationals, or permanent resident aliens at or near the beginning of their graduate studies, this program offers a stipend of $30,000 a year for three years and a $10,500 cost of education allowance and a one-time $1,000 travel allowance. For application and deadline information, go to: http://www.fastlane.nsf.gov. For additional program information, go to: www.nsf.gov/grfp . Application opens late August, and is expected to close early November. NSF-EAPSIThe National Science Foundation East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes (NSF-EAPSI) Program. The East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes provide U.S. graduate students in science and engineering first-hand research experience in Australia, China, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Singapore or Taiwan. Students receive a $5000.00 stipend and international roundtrip airfare. The primary goals of EAPSI are to introduce students to East Asia and Pacific science and engineering in the context of a research setting, and to help students initiate scientific relationships that will better enable future collaboration with foreign counterparts. The institutes last approximately eight weeks from June to August. Application opens online in September and closes December 9, 2008. For additional program information, go to http://www.nsf.gov/eapsi. ONRThe 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 opens September 2, 2008 and closes December 5, 2008. Go to: http://www.asee.org/summer. SFFPThe Air Force Summer Faculty Fellowship Program (SFFP). This program is intended for US citizens or permanent residents who have an earned doctorate in science or engineering and who hold full-time science or engineering faculty positions at US colleges, community colleges and universities. The duration of this summer fellowship is from 8 to 12 continuous weeks and research is performed on-site at Air Force laboratories. There is a competitive weekly stipend, and relocation and daily expense allowances are available for those who qualify. The application opens on August 1, 2008 and closes November 21, 2008. To apply online, go to: http://www.asee.org/sffp . Navy Postdoctoral Fellowship ProgramThe Navy Postdoctoral Fellowship Programs. This program is open to US citizens and legal permanent residents and offers a competitive stipend as well as insurance, relocation, and travel allowances. Locations include Navy Research Lab (NRL) and Naval Surface Warfare Center/ Indian Head. This 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. This program has a rolling admission. Go to: http://www.asee.org/nrl/ . NREIPThe Naval Research Enterprise Intern Program (NREIP). NREIP is a ten week summer research opportunity for undergraduate Juniors & Seniors, and Graduate students, under the guidance of a mentor, at a participating Navy Laboratory. The stipend amounts for the program are $5,500 for undergraduate students and $6,500 for graduate students. U.S. citizenship required; Permanent residents accepted at certain labs (Please see website for details.) The application opens October 15, 2008 and must be completed by January 12, 2009. Go to: http://www.asee.org/nreip. SEAPThe Science and Engineering Apprenticeship Program (SEAP). SEAP is an eight week summer research opportunity at participating ONR laboratories for high school student who have completed at least grade 9, must be 16 years of age for most Laboratories, and a U.S. citizen. A graduating Senior is eligible to apply. The stipend for the summer program is $1,500 for new students; $1,550 for returning students. The application opens October 15, 2008 and must be completed by January 26, 2009. Go to http://www.asee.org/seap. NASA Aeronautics Scholarship ProgramNASA Aeronautics Scholarship Program. The purpose of this NASA program is to help advance the nation’s aeronautics enterprise by investing in the educational development of the future aeronautics workforce and to provide opportunities to attract highly motivated undergraduate and graduate students to aeronautics and related fields. Scholarships awarded include competitive stipend payments anticipated amount for undergrad up to $15,000 and up to $35,000 for graduate. There is an option to attend a summer internship (up to $10,000 per summer) at a participating NASA Research Center. The undergraduate program is open to U.S. citizens, and applicants should have completed their sophomore year of college by fall of 2009, and should be in good standing at an accredited college or university. The graduate program is open to U.S. citizens, the applicants should be accepted or enrolled in an accredited program, and remain in good academic standing at their respected college or university. Application opens September 5, 2008 and closes January 2009. For more information, contact nasa.asp@asee.org . |
VI. Professional Opportunities |
Tenure track faculty positions – Embry-Riddle UniversityThe Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Embry-Riddle University in Prescott, AZ has two tenure track faculty positions available in Electrical/Computer Engineering. Candidates interested in the first position must have a BS in Electrical or Computer Engineering and an earned doctorate in Computer Engineering or a closely related field. For the second position, candidates should have a BS in Electrical or Computer Engineering and either an earned doctorate in Electrical or Computer Engineering, or extensive industrial experience with embedded computer systems. Candidates should send vita and contacts for three references to: john.post@erau.edu or apply online at www.erau.edu/jobs. EOE Executive Director of Engineering Institute – University of Nebraska at OmahaThe University of Nebraska seeks a leader with outstanding credentials in science/technology and an impressive record of collaboration to serve as Executive Director of the Peter Kiewit Institute of Information Science, Technology and Engineering. The Institute consists of the College of Information Science and Technology of the University of Nebraska at Omaha and the Omaha-based programs of the College of Engineering of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. |
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