Engineering education

About: Engineering education is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 24293 publications have been published within this topic receiving 234621 citations.

An Intervention to Address Gender Issues in a Course on Design, Engineering, and Technology for Science Educators

Abstract: My interest in engineering education and engineering in the K-12 system began when I started to collaborate with engineers in a center housed in the College of Engineering on my campus. We were writing grants and thinking about ways to get engineering practices into the K-12 classroom.

Creativity in Engineering Education.

Abstract: There has been much discussion in recent years on the need for creative engineers in American industry and the associated need for engineering schools to foster creative thinking ability in their students. The first problem one encounters when thinking about how these needs might be addressed is that while creativity has been exhaustively studied, it has never been satisfactorily defined. There is general agreement, however, that creativity (whatever it is) involves the ability to put things (words, concepts, methods, devices) together in novel ways. Moreover, at least some types of creative ability are thought to involve skill at divergent production—generation of many possible solutions to a given problem—as opposed to convergent production, or generation of “the right answer.”

New Era in Engineering Experiments: an Integrated and Interactive Teaching/Learning Approach, and Real-Time Visualisations*

Abstract: A computer-based and interactive laboratory system is described, and the implementation details of the system are given in this paper. The work was designed and implemented for the undergraduate electrical machines and drives teaching laboratory. The changing status of the experimenting in engineering education are discussed, and the problems identified in the conventional method of delivering the experiments are studied together with the proposed solutions. It is shown here that the alternative and cost-effective solution can overcome most of the problems that academic institutions are facing in the area of experimental work, and prepare the academic institutions to the new era of computer-based teaching and learning. Some sample front panels of the experiments are also given and the planned major future developments are highlighted.

Faculty as undergraduate research mentors for students of color: Taking into account the costs

Abstract: This article is based on the findings of a 2-year study that examined the nature of effective faculty/student undergraduate research (UR) science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) relationships. The study site was a large urban public college where three fourths of all incoming freshmen receive need-based aid; and although not a historically Black college or university (HBCU), 85% are students of color. The college offers 2- and 4-year STEM degree programs. Utilizing cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) as both a theoretical and methodological framework, this phenomenological study employed semistructured interviews, written surveys, and member checking to understand four paired faculty/student UR mentoring relationships over 2 years. The findings not only concur with the bulk of UR research, indicating UR's promise for addressing the low enrollment and retention rates of students of color in the STEM disciplines but also raise issues around the emotional, financial, and professional costs to UR faculty. It is these costs that are the focus of this article that concludes with ideas, for university and college administrators and all others concerned, about on how we might support faculty in UR's crucial work toward the goal of retaining students of color in STEM. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 96:527–542, 2012