Practice Of Engineering Teaching Research Articles

Examining an Evolving Biologically Inspired Design Professional Learning Environment through Conjecture Mapping and Design-Based Research.

Biologically inspired design (BID) in engineering is a convergent, systematic approach that uses analogies from biological organisms to develop solutions for human engineering and design problems. Based on outcomes from prior studies of integrating BID in higher education, incorporating BID into pre-college education is a logical evolution. For effective BID instruction of these convergent concepts in pre-college education, teachers need to be well-equipped with biological, engineering, and pedagogical knowledge, both in general and those unique to the convergent, still evolving discipline. In this paper, we investigate the Professional Learning (professional learning) environment designed to foster engineering teachers' understanding of BID integration in engineering and to determine to what extent the evolving professional learning environment fostered engineering teachers' conceptual knowledge of BID across the three-year project. This design study applies conjecture mapping with design-based research (DBR) to examine a professional learning environment that changed over three summers and its impact on teachers' conceptual understanding of BID integration in engineering. The analysis indicates that a combination of experiential and informal learning experiences along with engagement in a formal design challenge promoted teacher enthusiasm and a conceptual understanding of BID across the three years. Professional learning fostered teachers' understanding of BID integration in engineering and enabled them to integrate BID into their engineering teaching practice.

Facilitating Cross & Beyond Course Project-Based Software Engineering Learning Experiences

Throughout each academic semester, software engineering students are often provided with opportunities to explore open-ended project-based activities. Within the confines of specific courses, many of these explorations have resulted in interesting and impactful, partially or fully engineered software solutions. However, after student-developed solutions are explored, tested, and delivered within a classroom setting it has been the author’s experience that they often don’t progress beyond the course in which students explored and created them in. The results of this are missed opportunities for innovation as well as missed opportunities for further creative and collaborative explorations. This work-in-progress explores the following question: what could a model, process, and/or framework look like that would enable software engineering educators to create a learning environment that facilitates continued exploration, collaboration, and iteration of project-based student work beyond individual courses? This paper will describe an exploratory hybrid framework called ORhiDeCy that the author has designed and has been exploring in his courses over the last several years. This paper describes ORhiDeCy, an example of its successful use in the author’s software engineering teaching practice, collaborator and student feedback, and the author’s reflections and ideas for continued explorations.

Application Research on OVP Blended Teaching Method in Microwave Technology and Antennas

The OVP blended teaching method is an effective teaching method based on the engineering teaching practice and the course system of microwave technology and antenna. In the teaching process, we should emphasize the combination of network, virtualization and project teaching mode, and attach importance to the application of new educational platform and educational resources, especially the diversification and cutting-edge concept of curriculum team, which makes teaching methods diversify and engineering. A number of knowledge points throughout the whole design process, to achieve the effective combination of technical principles and engineering practice. It enables students to really participate in the process of teaching and learning, and help to cultivate their comprehensive abilities of practice and innovation.

The Optimum Equilibrium when Using Experiments in Teaching – Where Virtual and Real Labs Stand in Science and Engineering Teaching Practice

The present study compares the relative merits of virtual and real educational laboratories in science and engineering education, in terms of their educational effectiveness and if they were the most appropriate for learning. The age of the students was also investigates as a possible factor affecting the outcome. The authors of the present paper started by identifying 67 recent and mutually compatible research papers (articles, doctoral theses, and reviews) and reviewed their content performing a meta-study to discover their findings about the most effective laboratory type. Web-based tools were used, such as e-journals, databases, thematic guides, and portals, catalogues of other libraries offered by a variety of universities. A critical analysis followed to compare findings and reach decisions. In a corollary section of the study, the authors conducted some semi-structured discussions with 25 experienced science teachers of secondary, primary and tertiary education, for verification purposes. Discussions followed, all participants being arranged in 5 different groups, focusing on still open topics in need of further clarification. The present two-prong analysis resulted in a number of interesting results, presented herein, on the relative effectiveness of virtual and real laboratories as a factor of student age.

From Knowing-About To Knowing-To: Development Of Engineering Pedagogical Content Knowledge By Elementary Teachers Through Perceived Learning And Implementing Difficulties

The present study sought to reveal how elementary teachers develop their engineering pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) after leaving professional development programs to practice engineering teaching in real classroom settings. Participants of this study were the elementary teachers who received one-week training of engineering education provided by EfF (a P-12 Engineering teaching and learning institute in a Midwestern university). Data of this study were collected from these elementary teachers through face-to-face interviews and an online open-ended survey. Based on a phenomenological research method and a constructivist ELC (engineering instruction, learners, and contexts) framework developed by the researchers to investigate engineering PCK development, this study explored the elementary teachers’ lived engineering teaching experiences following the procedures of inductive qualitative data analysis. Findings yielded in this study revealed that the elementary teachers developed their knowledge about engineering teaching and learning situations through their engineering teaching practice. But such knowledge was the knowledge of knowing-about and it did not automatically transfer into the elementary teachers’ engineering PCK or knowing-to knowledge allowing them to act effectively and responsively to engineering teaching and learning situations at hand. In their engineering teaching practice, the elementary teachers engaged themselves in a dynamic and evolving trial-failure-success process. It was in this process that the elementary teachers made sense of new engineering teaching and learning situations and transformed their knowing-about into engineering PCK responsive to these situations.