Teachable Moments and the Tyranny of the Syllabus: September 11 Case

The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon presented unique teachable moments to engineering educators but with the competing demand to complete the course as designed and as dictated by the tyranny of the syllabus. A questionnaire was administered to undergraduate students enrolled in three professional ethics courses in 2001 and 2002 to ascertain the extent to which their instructors used the events as teachable moments. For comparison, the questionnaire was administered 1 year after the attacks to students enrolled in courses of an academic enrichment program at Duke University and environmental science students at North Carolina Central University. The percentage of courses addressing the events was highest in the Fall 2001 semester, when the attacks occurred, falling in the Spring 2002 semester, but increasing in Fall 2002. Most respondents supported the use of the events as teachable moments even if the syllabus and course outline had to be adjusted. The results indicate that engineering education must be open to opportunities to teach physical science and engineering concepts and to introduce the students to the social sciences and humanities.     

Educating Students via Distance Learning for Civil Engineering Design

Two structural engineering courses were taught using distance-learning technology. One course was a graduate level, steel design course and the other was an undergraduate, elective, timber design course. Two-way live video and audio connections linked classrooms at San Jose State University and San Francisco State University. The interaction between student and teacher is discussed. These courses were the first time the California State University system offered students academic credit at either of two universities for a course taught via distance education from a single location. The challenges of teaching engineering design concepts via distance learning are discussed. Assessment of the teaching method was performed using student surveys and review of student grades. The assessment survey revealed that the students’ overall impression was positive. Grades received by the students at the Remote Site were lower than those at the Home Site, but this discrepancy may not have been a result of the distance-learning environment.     

Use of Outdoor Living Spaces and Fink’s Taxonomy of Significant Learning in Sustainability Engineering Education

Previous sustainability engineering education studies have suggested the importance of problem-based learning, project-based learning, team-based learning, and interdisciplinary learning. Place-based learning, interacting with outdoors, and building sustainable communities are also important aspects of sustainability education, yet relatively little has been published on how to use these pedagogical approaches in engineering education. The goal of this paper was to illustrate the implementation of all these pedagogical approaches in a graduate-level sustainability engineering education class. Fink’s taxonomy of significant learning and the University of Toledo’s Outdoor Classroom Garden provided the framework for this implementation. Throughout the semester, sustainability engineering students worked toward an engineering solution for how to water the University of Toledo’s outdoor classroom garden. They also estimated the life-cycle cost and environmental impacts of their proposed solutions. The garden project and the design of the course provided many different learning opportunities that might be absent in a traditional civil engineering class.     

Architectural Engineering Curriculum at Missouri University of Science and Technology

Missouri University of Science and Technology (formerly, the University of Missouri-Rolla) began a Bachelor of Science degree program in architectural engineering in the fall of 2002. The 4-year academic program’s curriculum at Missouri S&T requires the students to complete 128 semester credit hours during a period of eight semesters, with options for technical electives in one of four focus areas: structural engineering, construction engineering and project management, environmental systems for buildings, and construction materials. This paper presents the architectural engineering curriculum at Missouri S&T. It discusses the objectives of the curriculum, the constraints upon its structure, along with challenges that faced the establishment of an architectural engineering program.     

Hands-On Engineering Experiments for Secondary School Students

A program entitled T4MS∕E, “Teaching Teachers to Teach Mathematics and Science via Engineering Activities” was initiated at the University of Toledo to attract secondary students (grades 6–12) to start along the academic path toward careers in engineering. T4MS∕E is a collaborative effort between several engineering and education professors, which targets secondary mathematics and science teachers and students. The core of T4MS∕E is a set of hands-on experiments that the teachers learned, practiced, and then took back to their classrooms, in order to excite their students about the engineering applications of basic mathematical and physical concepts and to start their students along the path towards engineering careers. Many of these teachers taught in schools with large minority populations.     

Trends in staffing an academic department of surgery in a tropical hospital: past, present, and future?

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effect of staff mobility on student teaching, the training of young surgeons, and the volume of research in an academic department of surgery of a tropical teaching hospital. DESIGN: Retrospective study of academic staffing in the department of surgery of the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital between 1975 and 1993. SETTING: Zaria, Nigeria. SUBJECTS: 42 academic staff, 1190 medical students, and 110 registrars (trainee surgeons). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Number of academic staff in post, medical students, and registrars; number of research papers in latter years of the study. RESULTS: In 19 years, 42 academic staff worked for varying periods (1-15 years) in the university department of surgery in Zaria. These included six professors, 12 senior lecturers, and 24 lecturers. Although staff numbers diminished, numbers of students and registrars increased year by year. Average number of publications dropped from a peak of 14.4 to 7.4 a year. CONCLUSION: Staffing of the department has fallen steadily over the years and has adversely affected the department's primary responsibility of teaching students and training young surgeons.     

Influence of asthma or allergies on the utilization of health care resources and quality of life of college students

The objectives of this study were to describe the treatment regimens of college students with asthma or allergies, to determine how asthma or allergies affect the lives of college students, and to evaluate the health care resources utilized by college students with asthma or allergies. A mail survey was sent to 275 students who received treatment for asthma or allergies at the Thomson Student Health Center at The University of South Carolina (TSHC-USC) during the fall 1991 semester. This survey, consisting of 46 questions, covered three key areas: current asthma or allergy management, class and work days missed, and utilization of health care resources. Students with "asthma and allergy" missed on average 2.4 days of class during the fall semester, whereas those with "asthma only" and "allergy only" missed on average 0.8 day and 1.5 days of class, respectively. Students with "allergy only" appeared to have a greater interference in their daily class and academic activities than students with "asthma and allergy" and "asthma only." In conclusion, students reported interference in their college activities and reported missing days of work and school because of asthma or allergies. This study also showed that a majority of these college students have not received asthma or allergy patient education nor utilized appropriate asthma or allergy management skills.     

Preparedness of Engineering Freshman to Inquiry-Based Learning

Educational experts, past and present, urge engineering colleges nationwide to transform their pedagogical paradigm from a predominantly lecture- to an inquiry-based teaching approach. Written comments by two seniors, deploring having to read and write in a required course of an ABET accredited program, highlight a common expectation of today’s students. Presented are the disturbing results of a survey that assessed the level of learning skills exhibited by 1,020 engineering freshmen. Time management not only surfaced as needing drastic remediation but it also correlated with the level of students’ motivation to succeed in college. Problems with poor time management were listed by 25% of the freshman cohort at the end of the first semester. From monitoring the submittals of online homework it was learned that timeliness corresponded with the final grade achieved in a course. The work presented in this paper indicates that universities need not only to address the students’ learning preferences but also equip them with the skills necessary to engage actively in the knowledge-building process, a necessary sea-change in engineering education.     

Implementing an Inclusive Curriculum for Women in Engineering Education

Engineering faculty are urged to be “inclusive” when teaching classes of diverse students. Research has shown that an inclusive approach not only assists the progress of socially and culturally underrepresented students, but it will also broaden the perspectives of all students, and thus improve the overall quality of an engineering program. The writers of this paper have collaborated over a number of years at the University of South Australia to make engineering education more inclusive. This process commenced with an institutionwide project to develop inclusive curricula by improving the understanding and practice of faculty, and developing guidelines to assist them in restructuring their courses to become more inclusive. In the engineering departments, the process was further developed through staff workshops to assist faculty with the redevelopment of course curricula using the university guidelines, as well as the collection and dissemination of material and examples appropriate for engineering programs. This paper describes some of these methods in more detail, as well as the obstacles the writers have encountered and the devices they have used to overcome objections and impediments. Specific examples from civil engineering are included.     

Psychopathology and college grades.

The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI; A. T. Beck & R. A. Steer, 1987) and a computerized version of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (A. G. Blouin, E. L. Perez, & J. H. Blouin, 1998), which was scored according to the criteria of the revised, 3rd edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM—III—R; American Psychiatric Association, 1987), were administered to 412 university students. After statistical adjustment for academic potential reflected in college admission test scores was made, semester grades were found to be weakly associated with overall levels of DSM—III—R-defined psychopathology, but not with BDI-defined depression. Substance use disorders were associated with lower semester grade-point averages, whereas anxiety disorders were associated with increased grades. Results suggest psychopathology has a varied and weak association with academic performance. More dynamic models are required to capture the complex interplay between academic success and emotional and behavioral maladjustment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interview with: Donna Vidam, CPM. Interview by Ina May Gaskin

The application of Leininger's Theory of Culture Care Diversity and Universality to the dialogue between students and faculty regarding nursing education and practice provides the theoretical framework for evaluating a transcultural nursing curriculum in a transcultural, transnational setting on the Texas-Mexico border. In evaluating the first semester of this cultural encounter between the nurse-patient-community system and baccalaureate nursing education, faculty and students at Texas A&M International University School of Nursing in Laredo identified some particular challenges and assessed the effectiveness of approaches to meeting these challenges within the context of Leininger's Culture Care Theory and its three modes of action: culture care preservation, accommodation, and repatterning.     

Improving Engineering Education Outreach in Rural Counties through Engineering Risk Analysis

Hands-on engineering education is an upcoming trend among K-12 schools throughout the United States to stimulate interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This study used unconventional methods to stimulate interest in STEM fields among high school students in a rural county of Tennessee. First, the study began by assessing enrollment data from each of Tennessee’s 95 counties to determine the factors that influenced the decision by high school applicants to choose engineering at Tennessee Technological University (TTU). The findings revealed that, while there were no significant differences between the aptitude scores of applicants from rural and urban counties, TTU had a higher representation of freshmen from urban areas. This indicated that motivational programs targeted at counties with low population, income level, and education level were needed to boost enrollment from rural counties. As a response, we introduced next a hands-on engineering class at Jackson County High School (JCHS) that was tied to the national-level program called “Project Lead the Way.” With JCHS lying in a rural setting right along the Cumberland River, an engineering risk study was completed in front of the class to demonstrate the risk of failure of the Wolf Creek Dam (in Kentucky), which lies upstream. The idea was to leverage a real-world engineering infrastructure and a natural hazard phenomenon (overflooding) that had direct and visible implications on the lives of the county, as a way to promote the societal value of STEM disciplines to students at JCHS. These efforts were monitored through a series of pre- and posttests to determine the effectiveness of the hands-on teaching methods and engineering risk analysis of a real-world infrastructure. The testing efforts showed a significantly positive impact on student perception of STEM fields in pursuit of engineering innovation. Student assessment of perceptions of engineering proved that the use of real-world water risk analysis of a nearby infrastructure as a motivational tool in a rural high school setting is very effective to boost awareness of STEM fields and engineering.     

Surgery in medical education. Division of surgical oncology

Medical education is being required to make a big change over the last 10 years due to the rapidly expanding knowledge of medicine and socioeconomical demands from the public. The education system is now focusing on teaching medical students how to learn individual subjects by themselves leading to understand the concept of self learning and adult learning. It is also required for students and residents to improve clinical competence as early as possible. The purpose of this change in medical education is to produce better doctors for the future. In order to achieve our aim it is essential to have continuous education system during the pre and postgraduate periods and also to realize the importance of education. Standardized education program is also essential to be established. Evaluation system for teaching is needed to attract young doctors to teaching, otherwise enough staffs for education would not be obtained. Teaching experiences should be counted as a career pass at the time of promotion. For a surgeon clinical competence is most important task to achieve but experience of research is also important for young surgeons to become a research minded surgeon or academic surgeon who will make a breakthrough in the field of surgery in the future. It should be emphasized that dean and professors are most responsible in the development of medical education.     

Innovation in Construction Engineering Education Using Two Applications of Internet-Based Information Technology to Provide Real-Time Project Observations

Improvements in construction engineering education result when innovative information technologies are incorporated into academic curricula. Through the use of internet-based communication technologies, no longer must students physically travel to a construction project site to observe and hear construction operations. This paper discusses two applications of internet-based, audio and video technologies currently being piloted at Iowa State University (ISU) and at the University of Calgary (UC) for the purpose of bringing live construction projects into the university classroom. Virtual Project Tours have been piloted at Iowa State University in which real-time video and audio are delivered from active construction projects to a remote classroom through the internet. The second application discussed in this paper, Virtual Supervision, is being piloted at the University of Calgary and consists of the monitoring and analysis of construction projects by using imagery gathered by web-enabled, digital cameras of fixed location transmitting video through the internet. This paper also presents a vision of a globally networked organization of engineering and construction education institutions each sharing the unique engineering and building techniques of their respective part of the globe with design and construction students located around the world. This exchange of construction project observations among the institutions will be enabled by the internet-based applications of virtual project tours and virtual supervision systems described in this paper.     

Predicting the Academic Performance of Construction Engineering Students by Teaching and Learning Approaches: Case Study

There are various teaching approaches that instructors may adopt in their quest to teach effectively, and students can choose from a range of learning approaches to help them achieve good grades. This study investigates the effectiveness of personal learning approaches adopted by undergraduates and the teaching approaches employed by instructors in the context of construction engineering courses. The research questions are as follows. (1)?What are the students’ learning approaches that lead to better academic achievement? (2)?What are the instructors’ teaching approaches that give rise to better academic achievement? The study also aims to construct a model to predict a student’s likely academic performance in a construction engineering course. The research design is a self-administered survey. Using a structured questionnaire consisting of questions relating to learning strategies and teaching approaches, data were collected from undergraduates who majored in construction engineering. Statistical analyses undertaken include Pearson correlation and multiple linear regression modeling. Pearson correlation analysis shows that both the Growing Teaching approach and the students’ Achieving Motive learning approach are significantly correlated with academic performance. A robust grade prediction model was developed, whereby a student’s grade in a construction engineering course may be predicted using one teaching approach (Growing Teaching) and three learning approaches (Achieving Motive, Achieving Strategy, and Deep Motive). To help students obtain higher grades in a construction engineering course, instructors should adopt the Growing Teaching approach, and students should adopt the Achieving Motive learning approach. Because students who adopt the Deep Motive learning approach are penalized with lower grades, it is recommended that instructors modify their teaching methods and approaches so that students do not take shortcuts in their learning without deeper regard for higher-order learning outcomes.     

Issues of internship supply and demand: A survey of academic counseling and clinical programs.

This article reviews internship placement rates since 1992 and provides comparative data from a survey of academic training directors in the Council of University Directors of Clinical Training Programs, their student applicants, and academic training director members in the Council of Counseling Psychology Training Programs. Data from the 1997–1998 internship year suggest that although internship placement rates have remained relatively stable since 1992, larger members of students have been unsuccessful in securing an internship. Implications of current market trends in conjunction with recommendations regarding possible solutions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Integrated Management Curriculum for Civil Engineers and Architects

While it is commonly thought worldwide that the education and training of architects and civil engineers require different patterns of learning, the writers of this paper opine that the teaching and learning of management subjects for both groups should be combined. Architecture and civil engineering faculties have many aspects in common, but, even when residing in the same faculty, the two disciplines rarely integrate successfully. This paper examines integration issues at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, where, over a period of 4 years, partial integration of architects and civil engineers in management subjects has been tested. The paper discusses the problems of devising a curriculum designed to satisfy both architecture and civil engineering undergraduate degree courses. Within the paper, discussion focuses on the outline for an integrated curriculum, the problems of timing, and logistics, and will report on some student experiences. Comment is also included on administrative issues, class size, relative merits of saving resources versus consequential inconvenience, the problems of making assumptions about relative prior knowledge, and expectations of students. Discussion of the various system changes that need to be put in place before such a liaison can be totally successful is presented. The paper provides valuable insight into the workings of two university faculties at the University of Auckland, which will allow parallels with other universities worldwide to be made.     

Telematics in undergraduate teaching

The use of telematics in the practice of medicine has received much recent attention but little has been written about the use of these techniques in medical education. This is a report of a pilot study in which an interactive video-conference took place between medical students at the UAE University and their opposite numbers at Aberdeen University. In Aberdeen, the Dean of the Medical Faculty simultaneously taught Aberdeen and UAE students on a clinical case. He was able to confine his activities largely to the correction of misconceptions, the emphasis of important points and the addition of missing information, while the students themselves conducted most of the presentation. The UAE students presented their Community Health projects and had a spirited discussion on them with the Aberdeen students. Recent technological advances have so improved the quality of transmission of both visual and auditory images and at reasonable cost, using the ISDN telephone system, that the feasibility of using this medium as an aid to teaching has suddenly materialized. The experiment showed that the technology was adequate for easy, fully interactive teaching among students from different continents and with different cultural backgrounds. It is particularly suitable for the Arab world where it is the custom to teach males and females separately. The pilot study has pointed out the existence of a medium of communication and teaching which, if proved to be effective, could have far-reaching consequences in the undergraduate and postgraduate teaching of medicine.     

Academic procrastination: Frequency and cognitive-behavioral correlates.

Investigated the frequency of 342 college students' procrastination on academic tasks and the reasons for procrastination behavior. A high percentage of Ss reported problems with procrastination on several specific academic tasks. Self-reported procrastination was positively correlated with the number of self-paced quizzes Ss took late in the semester and with participation in an experimental session offered late in the semester. A factor analysis of the reasons for procrastination Ss listed in a procrastination assessment scale indicated that the factors Fear of Failure and Aversiveness of the Task accounted for most of the variance. A small but very homogeneous group of Ss endorsed items on the Fear of Failure factor that correlated significantly with self-report measures of depression, irrational cognitions, low self-esteem, delayed study behavior, anxiety, and lack of assertion. A larger and relatively heterogeneous group of Ss reported procrastinating as a result of aversiveness of the task. The Aversiveness of the Task factor correlated significantly with depression, irrational cognitions, low self-esteem, and delayed study behavior. Results indicate that procrastination is not solely a deficit in study habits or time management, but involves a complex interaction of behavioral, cognitive, and affective components. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)