2008 38th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference最新文献

{"title":"Work in progress: A STEM educational outreach day for young females","authors":"Victoria Weston, Aubrey Bonhivert, Allison R. Elia, Heileen Hsu-Kim, Gary Ybarra","doi":"10.1109/FIE.2008.4720570","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2008.4720570","url":null,"abstract":"The existing gender disparities in the sciences, especially in the field of engineering, underscore the need for outreach programs to engage young women in such areas. Many programs exist for high school students, but girls may be turned away from engineering at an earlier age. FEMMES (females excelling more in math, engineering, and science) is an annual free, one-day event, which provides an exciting, hands-on experience for 4th-6th grade girls from Durham, North Carolina, to encourage them to further explore their potential in these fields. Over 150 participants come to Duke to attend interactive activities designed and led by female faculty. To assess the programpsilas effectiveness, surveys were completed by participants before and after the event. Each participant assessed her own interest, knowledge, and confidence in math, science, and engineering on a scale of 1 to 10. With respect to engineering, the mean post-event values were significantly higher than pre-event values in all three categories (p < .001). The increase value (plusmn 95% confidence interval) for each category was the following: interest 1.32 (plusmn 0.57); knowledge 1.94 (plusmn 0.58); confidence 1.66 (plusmn 0.63). The increases for engineering were also notably larger than the math and science values, indicating that this type of event especially influences attitudes toward engineering.","PeriodicalId":342595,"journal":{"name":"2008 38th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128800184","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Six sigma quality improvement methods for creating and revising computer science degree programs and curricula","authors":"J. Chookittikul, W. Chookittikul","doi":"10.1109/FIE.2008.4720541","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2008.4720541","url":null,"abstract":"The first Bachelor of Science in computer science program was offered by our department 25 years ago. Today, as a School of Information Technology, we offer six computer science undergraduate degree programs, two graduate degree programs, and one doctoral degree program. In this paper, we report how our existing undergraduate degree programs have been revised using the six sigma DMAIC methodology to guarantee the continuous quality improvement of the programs and the quality of the graduates. We report on how two new unique undergraduate degree programs (B.Sc. in Computer and Cyber Security and B.Sc. in Office Computer Technology) were created by applying the DFSS six sigma concept. This not only guarantees the quality of the program and our graduates, but also ensures that we can meet the future demands of employers. We also report DFSS results on our two unique graduate programs: the M.Sc. in Computer Education Technology, a multi-disciplinary program combining computing, learning psychology, education, computer business, and ethics, and the M.Sc. in Information Technology Strategy which has derived from a combination of information technology, management, ethics, and strategies. Our doctoral program called Quality Information Technology, opened in 2005, is also briefly reported as our newest curriculum resulting from our six sigma-based research and development project.","PeriodicalId":342595,"journal":{"name":"2008 38th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126764260","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Work in progress - impact of research technologies on service learning","authors":"Saurabh Bagchi, C. Zoltowski, W. Oakes","doi":"10.1109/FIE.2008.4720480","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2008.4720480","url":null,"abstract":"While the effect of service learning in technology-based curriculum has been documented, it is as yet unknown what benefits or challenges are felt by the students when the technologies being applied in their service learning course lie in the research domain. We investigate these questions through a study carried out in the context of a service learning program called EPICS, in which teams of undergraduates develop real systems to address engineering and computing-based needs for a local community partner. Through a questionnaire, we study the studentspsila perception of the availability of resources and skills for their project, and their perception of the value add of the project to their curriculum. The experimental group consists of teams that use cutting-edge research technologies in their projects. The control group consists of teams that develop prototypes using mature technologies. The study uncovered that neither group of students felt hampered by a lack of resources or skills. However, the control group felt greater ease in dealing with the community partner. It is hoped that this effort will serve to increase the viability of integrating research and service learning activities.","PeriodicalId":342595,"journal":{"name":"2008 38th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference","volume":"229 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123303645","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Re-engineering the Electrical Engineering education for an innovative diploma curriculum at Universiti Teknologi MARA","authors":"Y.K. Lee, W. Mansor, M. M. Md Zan, Y. M. Salleh, N. Khadri, B. Hisham, M. Tahir, K. Salam, R. Kassim, W. Abdullah","doi":"10.1109/FIE.2008.4720269","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2008.4720269","url":null,"abstract":"The revolution looks to ensue after the ICT revolution will be the knowledge revolution, as such human capital development becomes ever more important. Recently, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of University Teknologi MARA has been revising its Diploma curriculum to realign with the effort of the Malaysian government to standardize the total credit hours and regulate the composition of Humanity-Skill-Theory learning. The revised curriculum is built upon past experience, peer comparison, feedback from users and recipients, and literature on future of Electrical Engineering education. It synergizes disciplines in Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, Science, Computing, Language, Entrepreneurship and Religion/Humanity Science. Curricular innovation are featured by seven key elements - modular program structure, continuity in education, commitment to experiential learning, integration of technology and education, integration of research and education, a compromise of general and specialized education, and disciplinary diversity. This paper addresses the research, design and implementation of these seven elements to bring curricular innovation and improvement. The consequence is a curriculum that optimizes the compromise between the accelerating rate of change in technology innovation and the realistic rate of change of curricular content and scope, and challenges the delivery of engineers with the attributes of adaptability, flexibility and autonomous capability to learn.","PeriodicalId":342595,"journal":{"name":"2008 38th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123327515","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The effects of emphasizing computational thinking in an introductory programming course","authors":"S. Davies","doi":"10.1109/FIE.2008.4720362","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2008.4720362","url":null,"abstract":"In many introductory programming courses, the surface features of the programming language can distract and intimidate students so much that they fail to concentrate on what is really the ldquobrainyrdquo task: solving the problem conceptually. To counter this, we devised a form of structured pseudocode, designed to highlight and facilitate algorithmic construction so that the complexities of the programming language can be deferred until proficiency in design has been reached. Students taught with this experimental approach are not introduced to the language itself, or the compiler, until the last few weeks of the semester. A controlled experiment comparing this approach with a traditional language-based pedagogy has revealed that by the end of the course, studentspsila programming skills, even on language-specific tasks, is every bit as strong as students taught traditionally, and that their comfort level with modularity (writing functions) is increased. Additionally, we found that students appear to strongly prefer such an approach, citing mostly emotive benefits, and that these effects may be particularly strong among women.","PeriodicalId":342595,"journal":{"name":"2008 38th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference","volume":"102 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121290320","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A biosignal acquisition and conditioning board as a cross-course senior design project","authors":"S. Warren, J. DeVault","doi":"10.1109/FIE.2008.4720558","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2008.4720558","url":null,"abstract":"In a single-semester course that incorporates both lecture and design, time constraints make it difficult to provide students with a substantive design experience that addresses multiple system elements. This paper presents a design experience that addressed numerous facets of a biomedical signal acquisition system by merging design credits for two undergraduate, senior-level courses: EECE 773 - Bioinstrumentation Design Laboratory and EECE 628 - Electronic Instrumentation. The innovative effort joined the sensor circuitry and signal display elements of a bioinstrumentation course with the data acquisition and serial communication topics often taught in electronic instrumentation courses. The overall goals of this project were to (a) create a substantial, design-driven learning experience for electrical engineering seniors and (b) increase student interest by attaching a biomedical context to an instrumentation project that would otherwise be generic. These goals were supported by 11 learning objectives that address clinical context, project planning, project roles, signal conditioning, signal management, printed circuit board development, biomedical data display, and written communication. In the initial project offering, 18 students were divided into three teams, each of which designed and built a system to acquire, process, and display data from multiple biomedical sensors, where the signal conditioning functionality for each sensor was remotely programmable. Each acquisition board communicated with a custom Lab VIEW interface via a Universal Serial Bus link. Development foci for each team changed over time as technical choices led to unexpected design complexities. Assessment of the experience was provided via a post- project survey that addressed the 11 learning objectives, learning in 16 technical areas, interpersonal team dynamics, and project administration. Survey results mirrored informal student comments: while this effort required a substantial time commitment relative to a typical course project, the learning and satisfaction derived were worth the investment.","PeriodicalId":342595,"journal":{"name":"2008 38th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121520714","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Work in progress - enhancing student-learning through state-of-the-art systems level design and implementation","authors":"A. Liddicoat, J. Pan, J. G. Harris, D. Dal Bello, L. Slivovsky","doi":"10.1109/FIE.2008.4720616","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2008.4720616","url":null,"abstract":"The curriculum for undergraduate engineering programs is often partitioned into several courses that are taught in isolation followed by a single culminating senior design or capstone project experience. In the senior design class students begin to synthesize the knowledge and skills that they acquired through the engineering curriculum. This paper presents lower and upper division course and curricular changes made to accommodate learning objectives that better prepare students for project-based learning. These learning experiences and skills include: systems level design, experience with state-of-the art computer aided design (CAD) tools, printed circuit board (PBC) design, design for manufacturability, electronics assembly, project management, engineering ethics, and communication skills. Three upper division project based learning courses have been developed and are being offered this year. In addition, the development of laboratory tutorials and learning modules for the lower division engineering curriculum will introduce all engineering majors to current electronic manufacturing technology, and allow them to design electronic systems using PCBs. The courses and tutorial learning modules are currently being classroom tested and assessed.","PeriodicalId":342595,"journal":{"name":"2008 38th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122561448","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Hands-on projects to introduce Electrical and Computer Engineering","authors":"Frank J. Mercede","doi":"10.1109/FIE.2008.4720322","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2008.4720322","url":null,"abstract":"Microcontrollers are low-cost, dedicated computer chips that are found in a wide variety of consumer products and commercial applications. With the availability of low-cost development kits with easy-to-use programming interfaces, projects were developed to provide a hands-on introduction to the hardware interfacing and software development of microcontrollers for simple applications. The intended audience of the projects is first- or second- year students with little or no experience with microcontrollers, programming, or electronics. Students construct the electronic interfaces and drivers of basic I/O devices and program a simple 8-pin microcontroller in the C programming language to control the I/O of various projects. The projects involve sequencing of lights, synthesis of sound, motor speed control, and sensor interfacing. The projects have been successfully tested over the last two years in our one-credit Introduction to Electrical and Computer Engineering course, taken by all first-semester Electrical and Computer Engineering sophomores; and, more recently, they are serving as the laboratory-component of our freshmen year Engineering and Programming Applications course.","PeriodicalId":342595,"journal":{"name":"2008 38th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122956294","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Information design: A curriculum for the 21st century","authors":"James C. McKim, Gerry Derksen, Hemant Patwardhan, Cara Peters, Marilyn Sarow Winthrop","doi":"10.1109/FIE.2008.4720358","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2008.4720358","url":null,"abstract":"In Fall, 2007, Winthrop University began accepting students to a new degree program entitled information design. This is an intensely interdisciplinary program spanning four departments and three colleges. The four departments are computer science and marketing from the college of business, design from the college of visual and performing arts and mass communication from the college of arts and sciences. The program consists of four specialties and a set of core courses and seminars. The specialties are: Web application design, offered by computer science; interactive media, offered by design; digital commerce, offered by marketing; and digital mass media, offered by mass communications. Each student takes all the core courses and seminars, and selects a specialty. The core courses consist of one or two introductory courses from each specialty. In addition, a freshman seminar helps students understand the different specialties, a later seminar introduces cutting edge topics in the field, and a senior seminar requires synthesis across the disciplines. In the latter students will work in teams to solve a problem for a local company or nonprofit. The ideal team will be four students, one from each specialty. The core courses are highly integrated, with each (except the first, of course) requiring one or more of the others as prerequisites or corequisites. There is also substantial overlap among the specialties. We expect assessment criteria will ensure that this degree of integration is maintained over time. This paper includes a detailed description of the program, a summary of its origins (largely industry driven) and a description of the assessment criteria.","PeriodicalId":342595,"journal":{"name":"2008 38th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122315460","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Work in progress - student-driven extended mini-cases for EE service courses","authors":"J. Rowland","doi":"10.1109/FIE.2008.4720584","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2008.4720584","url":null,"abstract":"Modern electrical engineering services courses for the other engineering majors have expanded beyond simply providing coverage of basic electrical topics to prepare students for the FE exam. These junior and senior students soon afterwards will also be applying electrical concepts for instrumentation and measurement within their other engineering courses. In Fall 07, 65 civil and architectural students in an EE service course identified the need for mini-cases in the areas of resistance strain gauges, transducers involving capacitors, power systems, and amplifiers. In Spring 08, 125 mechanical and aerospace engineering students in another EE service course focused on force measurements using Wheatstone bridges, digital position encoders, EPROM-based lookup tables, and electronic controllers. A block of material on electrical circuits is common between the two courses. Student-driven mini-cases are being prepared during the summer for class testing during Fall 08, and others will be developed in the fall for Spring 09. Results including student assessments for several of these mini-cases will be reported at FIE 08. Preliminary mini-case details on distinct materials covered in the separate service courses will also be available at FIE 08.","PeriodicalId":342595,"journal":{"name":"2008 38th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114210456","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}