Traditional Engineering Courses Research Articles

Engineering of Existing Structures: The Need and Place for Non-destructive Evaluation (NDE)

Structural engineers today are still educated mainly to design new structures. This ignores the fact that structures already exist and need to be maintained. Students are thus often ill-equipped to deal with maintenance and preservation of existing structures. As an example, when a structural analysis model of an existing structure such as a bridge is built to predict its behavior, it is often done without considering the actual behavior or properties - this would require the engineer to have skills and knowledge in the evaluation of existing structures. As a result, these models are often inaccurate, which can lead to unnecessary replacements of structures. This is not only costly but it also significantly impacts the environment. In this paper we argue that new educational programs that specifically address this need should be developed that revolve around the idea of “engineering of existing structures”. Such programs would still include certain traditional structural engineering courses but also discuss structural behavior and materials properties, and how these can be determined by means of non-destructive testing (NDT) and structural health monitoring (SHM), in sum referred to as non-destructive evaluation (NDE). Because these tools are not traditionally included in the structural engineering curriculum, a new set of basic interdisciplinary skills from the domains of mechanical and electrical engineering, as well as computer science (data analysis, signal processing, etc.), need to be acquired by the students. This paper makes a case for the need of this new direction, proposes curriculum adjustments, and gives practical course examples.

Active learning through flipped classroom in mechanical engineering: improving students\u2019 perception of learning and performance

BackgroundTo address some challenges that the large lecture-focused courses have faced in higher education, the flipped classroom model was implemented in mechanical engineering. The purpose of the study was to investigate mechanical engineering undergraduate students’ performance in the flipped classroom. A comprehensive analysis was conducted to investigate the pedagogical benefits of active learning in the flipped classroom from a self-determination theory perspective. To evaluate the effectiveness of the flipped classroom, students’ academic achievements in the flipped classroom were compared with the ones in the traditional lecture format. Moreover, to explore in-depth students’ learning experiences and their perceptions about the flipped classroom, students’ open-ended surveys were analyzed.ResultsResults demonstrated that students in the flipped classroom performed better and favored the new model, feeling that flipped classroom was useful and helpful in preparing for the course. The qualitative findings showed that students felt that they benefited from the pre-week online lectures in the flipped classroom to prepare for the course.ConclusionsThe current study shows that the flipped classroom model has the potential to create an autonomy-supportive learning environment and provide beneficial learning experiences. This study highlights the benefits of and future direction for implementing the flipped classroom in traditional mechanical engineering courses.

Teaching Mechatronics to Non-traditional Mechanical Engineering Students – An Adaptive Approach

The mechanical engineering program at our university has adopted an integrated curriculum, with the first-two years based on multidisciplinary engineering foundation spiral courses across the college, and the last-two years following traditional mechanical engineering courses within the home department. This paper presents how we introduce the broad field of mechatronics to non-traditional mechanical engineering students via a single technical elective course. Students enrolled in mechatronics usually demonstrate a wide range in knowledge and skill preparation, especially in the areas of electronics, instrumentation, and programming. Such diversity of backgrounds, in addition to the breadth of topics typically associated with mechatronics, impose a great challenge to the design and delivery of the course. In this empirical investigation, we propose an adaptive approach to respond to the challenge. Two stages of adaptation are involved in this teaching approach. At the stage of course design, design-loop adaption is applied to restructure the course contents based on a starting point assessment. During the process of course delivery, task-loop adaption is implemented based on the dynamic assessment of student knowledge state. By replacing the common one-fixed-content-fit-all teaching approach to an adaptive one, we can engage the less prepared and less enthusiastic students while maintaining the interest of the majority in class. Qualitative analysis of the course evaluation results have shown that the adaptive teaching approach has achieved success in several dimensions. The most encouraging feedback lies in the fact that students’ interests in the broad field of mechatronics are greatly inspired by the course.

Multi-dimensional support for development of visual literacy in engineering education

Visual literacy is becoming increasingly important in the digitalized economy, as it determines the ability to perform and communicate effectively. The need to close skills gap and provide engineers and engineering educators with practical, transferable skills based around visual literacy is a topic attracting growing interest at national and international levels. Numbers of reports lead to the conclusion, that not only a deep understanding of visual competences needs among people at technical education is required, but also mechanism of transferring them into ‘teachable’ innovative pedagogical strategies within traditional engineering courses, and mandating curricular improvements among stakeholders involved in education process. Thus, the article presents a case study that describes deeply an example of the initiative aimed at multi-dimensional support for development of visual literacy framework in engineering education. The VLEE initiative, undertaken by 6 organizations recruited in 5 European countries, was carefully designed to address studying and developing visual literacy simultaneously in various areas and formats, hence generating impact in numerous fields. The paper addresses the questions referring to measuring and developing visual literacy and to assess short-term and long-term initiatives aimed at achieving the desired development impact. The achieved results enriched the existing knowledge through proposing the complex approach to organize the appropriate visual literacy oriented education as a spectrum of interconnected analytical and action-focus activities required to be taken to achieve the proper impact on target group. The practical application of proposed approach in VLEE project was presented by indicating the role of related outputs in a process of developing the short and long-term impact strategy.

The Innovation of Using 3D Printing Technology in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering

One of the main challenges that the educator faces in integrating 3D printing technology in a traditional engineering course in the capability of introducing and merging the 3d printing technology at the right educational material. The paper aims to present the challenges and the achievements of integrating 3D printing technology in teaching design and manufacturing courses in the mechanical engineering department to enhance the students’ skills and engagement with the course material. One of the course experiments was nominated to introduce the 3D printing technology, where the students were asked to use the systematic design method as well as design matrix procedure to explore different options to come up with a solution to hold a mechanical component for quality control task. Besides, the students had to design an engineering measurement procedure to achieve the assigned mission of the experiment, where the mechanical part was described to present the main dimensions needed for the measurement sequence. Different groups submitted innovative ideas that were evaluated initially and discussed individually before submitting the final design and the holder prototype. The students presented a functional 3D printed prototype with a full report that clarifies the engineering procedure adopted to achieve the goal of the experiment. The innovation in the addressed solution revealed the importance of 3D printing technology to enhance the students’ skill and engagement with the course material and help them to encounter challenges to come up with creative engineering solutions.

Comparison of Academic Performance of Students in Online Vs Traditional Engineering Course

Abstract Universities in the U.S. typically offer to teach introductory engineering courses in large classes to tackle the increase in undergraduate engineering enrolment and to save on cost of teaching. Previous studies done on traditionally taught large classes have shown the negative effects it has on students and faculty. Many institutions use online courses to teach these large classes due to the flexibility they provide students with in their schedule and pace of learning, as well as being less expensive for the university. This study aimed to investigate the effect of online pedagogy on the academic performance of students enrolled in mechanics of materials course taught at a U.S. Midwestern University. The findings of the study reveal that the online pedagogy had a negative effect on student academic performance when compared with the traditionally taught group. This was true for all demographics (gender, enrolment status, nationality) and categories (high, medium and low academic performance) of students except for high performing students for whom online pedagogy shows promise.

MyMOOCSpace: Mobile cloud‐based system tool to improve collaboration and preparation of group assessments in traditional engineering courses in higher education

AbstractAssessments in traditional university courses continue to be an accepted tool for validating the knowledge acquired in the different subjects. It is in this context that students use a variety of practices to prepare assessments and exams appropriately. On the other hand, in recent years, higher education institutions have been using the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as an alternative to expand and innovate their traditional classroom practices. In this field, some alternatives have been generated in these platforms to extend their functions beyond the courses proposed. MyMOOCSpace is a cloud‐based tool that improves the interaction of students participating in a MOOC course. However, a variation of this tool allows for improved collaboration and preparation of assessments and/or tests for students in a traditional higher education class. This article presents a study using the MyMOOCSpace tool as an alternative to encourage collaboration and preparation of students to take traditional tests or assessments in the field of higher education. To evaluate this application and demonstrate the impact on the results of the evaluations, a case study is presented in which 40 computer engineering students from a Chilean university participated. The results show that MyMOOCSpace generates a positive increase in student interaction regarding the subjects covered in the course, and that it helped them to study and prepare for the final exam of the subject.

Creating Self-Paced Online Engineering Courses for Post Graduate and Senior Undergraduate Students on Pavement Management

Compared with traditional engineering courses taught in classrooms, a self-paced online engineering course has the advantages of distance learning, flexible study schedules, and it utilizes rapid growing technologies including computers, internet, and software. In this paper, the knowledge and experience of creating several self-paced online pavement management courses were synthesized. Using these pavement management courses as examples, this paper illustrates the procedure for developing online courses, and the dos and don’ts of designing online classes. The principles of developing these online courses are also presented in the paper. These principles include making contents attractive with graphs and videos, creating effective quizzes with proper feedback, developing exam databanks with randomly selected test questions for fairness, making navigation easy within a course, and automatically generating certificates to document successful completion. In addition, the paper presents the advantages and challenges of distance learning on self-paced engineering courses.

Lessons from adopting a maker approach to teaching operating systems with Raspberry Pi

PurposeThis paper aims to propose a maker’s approach to teaching an operating systems (OSs) course in which students apply knowledge of OSs to making a toy robot by focusing on input/outputs, hardware devices and system programming.Design/methodology/approachClassroom action research is involved in this study.FindingsAfter the course was taught in this maker’s approach in two consecutive school years, some observations were reported. Students were enthusiastic in doing a series of assignments leading to the completion of a toy robot that follows a black line on the ground. In addition to enjoying the learning process by making tangible products, the students were excited to be able to demonstrate the skills and knowledge they learned with the robots they made.Research limitations/implicationsThe research results were based mainly on the instructor’s observations during the lectures and labs.Practical implicationsLessons from this study can inspire other instructors to turn traditional engineering courses into maker courses to attract students who enjoy making. Industry should welcome engineering graduates to join the companies with more hands-on experiences they have gained from maker courses.Social implicationsAlthough the maker movement has attracted much attention in K12 education, there is little research that studies how this maker spirit can be incorporated in traditional engineering courses that focus mainly on theories or software.Originality/valueIncluding electronics and mechanical components in programming assignments would bring surprising effects on students’ motivation in learning.

Designing a Hybrid Engineering Course combining Case-Based and Lecture-Based Teaching.

Traditional engineering and business school courses have different pedagogical emphases. Engineering courses are perceived as technical, dense and require students to provide definitive answers to problems. On the other hand, business school courses aim to increase students' knowledge by confronting them with real-world cases and by encouraging both in- and out-of-the-classroom teamwork, thinking in groups and problem solving. In business school courses, the teaching is directed towards the thought process rather than the final answer itself. These two approaches to learning are both valuable and give the opportunity to develop complementary skills. Combining both approaches in a single course is however challenging. We tackled this challenge by designing the semester-long "Introduction to Nanobiotechnology and Nanobioscience" course for senior undergraduate and first year graduate students as a hybrid class. Our objective was to design an engineering course of standard length, which incorporates key elements of the business schools' case study approach to learning while retaining essential elements of the traditional engineering education.

Infusing sustainability into software engineering education: Lessons learned from capstone projects

Sustainable development (SD) has become a millennium challenge for humanity. It has boosted the integration of sustainable, sound practices across different fields (e.g. e-participation, smart transportation, sustainable agriculture). Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have strongly supported social transitions in becoming more sustainable and participative over the last two decades. Integrating multi-disciplinary sustainability concepts into the higher education of computer scientists is important in that this ensures that future ICT endeavours will take sustainability concerns into account. This article describes four capstone projects developed by students from the Erasmus Mundus Master Course in Pervasive Computing and Communications for Sustainable Development (PERCCOM), who were enrolled alongside regular students in a traditional software engineering course held at the Lappeenranta University of Technology. The coursework was part of a research project called Green.Citizen@ICT, which aims at investigating the use of ICT and software services for infusing sustainable habits in citizens through the development of applications for SD. This study demonstrates how a sustainable development focus can be integrated into a traditional software engineering course. The goal of this article is to enhance understanding of the integration of sustainability into software engineering education, by providing a detailed example of a master course in which this took place. This course supported the development of ICT competences for building cleaner, greener, and more resource- and energy-efficient cyber-physical systems, while addressing the social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development.

Kaizen teaching and the learning habits of engineering students in a freshman mathematics course

Which are the teaching methods that actually contribute to the learning of mathematics? The answer to this certainly is the holy grail of didactic and pedagogy, and should be supported by large scale statistical evidence. Our article aims at providing an initial step into this direction by first illustrating a teaching paradigm that is suited for the generation of large scale data sets: based on industry best practice quality assurance standards we introduce the Kaizen teaching paradigm which enforces Kolb’s reflective learning cycle on the students’ side. Second, we present and analyze the data we obtained through our pilot implementation at a engineering freshman mathematics course in the Sultanate of Oman. These emphasize the effectiveness of Kaizen teaching and once again show the necessity of continuous learning. A practice that seems to be forgotten in traditional university engineering courses due to the mere size of the audience. In particular it seems that a Markovian estimator for students’ performance may have to be considered.

Liberal studies in engineering – a design plan

We describe a plan to research and explore opportunities to establish an undergraduate, pre-professional degree program –Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies in Engineering – meant to attract students undecided about the choice of a major but who have sufficient interest to enroll in a program that keeps open the possibility that they might pursue a career in engineering. The program's core idea is to … take exemplary, substantive content of the traditional undergraduate engineering program – the engineering sciences, the laboratory tests, the design projects – and subject this to study from the perspectives of the humanities, arts, and social sciences as well as engineering. The method is to build on the content and form of instruction in today's engineering program but dramatically transform both content and form to achieve the goals of a liberal arts program while attending to the fundamentals of the traditional engineering course of study. To do this, ‘fundamentals' must necessarily be redefined.We illustrate what we mean by teaching ‘ … exemplary engineering content from the perspectives of the Humanities and Social Sciences’ with three ‘modules' that students might engage in a liberal studies course or project work. Our work is meant as much to provoke a critical reflection, analysis, and broader discussion about engineering education – its relation to what engineers actually do after they graduate, and about what ought to be taken as fundamental in their education for the profession – as it is to meet the objectives of our proposals to the National Science Foundation (NSF).

A methodology for improving active learning engineering courses with a large number of students and teachers through feedback gathering and iterative refinement

In the last decade, engineering education has evolved in many ways to meet society demands. Universities offer more flexible curricula and put a lot of effort on the acquisition of professional engineering skills by the students. In many universities, the courses in the first years of different engineering degrees share program and objectives, having a large number of students and teachers. These common courses are expected to provide the students with meaningful learning experiences, which could be achieved by using active learning. The use of active learning in engineering courses improves traditional teaching by promoting students’ participation and engagement, although active learning courses can be very sensitive to differences in learning paces or team conflicts; this being a challenge for the widespread adoption of active learning in courses with many students and teachers. This paper proposes a methodology that facilitates the detection and reaction to problems in active learning engineering courses with many students and teachers. This methodology is based on gathering feedback (from students and teachers) and decision-making processes at selected milestones. The methodology integrates intra-edition mechanisms in order to detect problems and react as the courses are being taught, and inter-edition mechanisms to ensure the persistence of necessary changes in the courses design. The methodology has been successfully applied during four consecutive editions to improve an undergraduate active learning programming course with an average of 257 students and 9 teachers per edition. An extended validation of expert educators suggests that this methodology can also be applied to traditional engineering courses.

Effects of Online Courses in STEM on Institutional Integration

Improving the instructional curriculum is a top priority for online instructors. Stakeholders of online science education initiatives firmly agree that additional research is needed to address many issues facing the proliferation of online science courses in the United States. To that end, aggressive steps must be continually taken to develop quality educational methods designed to promote both academic and social growth. Previous research has demonstrated that students who report a higher degree of university involvement and peer interaction also report a higher level of satisfaction with the academic experience. The current study analyzed the perceptions of academic and social integration of undergraduates enrolled in online and traditional science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses using the Institutional Integration Scale (IIS). The Institutional Integration Scale was devised to measure peer-group interaction and student-faculty interaction during a college semester and is based on the seminal work by Tinto that focused on student persistence and commitment to degree attainment. The IIS consists of five subscales: peer-group interactions, interactions with faculty, institutional and goal commitments, academic and intellectual development, and faculty concern for student development and teaching. Both the Peer-group Interactions Subscale and Interactions with faculty Subscales demonstrated significant, yet direct negative effects suggesting that online students perceived reduced interaction between fellow classmates and the instructor during their online course. Future research and teaching strategies designed to promote student interaction in the online environment are recommended in the article.

Java Based Symbolic Circuit Solver For Electrical Engineering Curriculum

The interactive technical electronic book, TechEBook, currently under development at the University of Central Florida (UCF), introduces a paradigm shift by replacing the traditional electrical engineering course with topic-driven modules that provide a useful tool for engineers and scientists. The TechEBook comprises the two worlds of classical circuit books and interactive operating platforms such as iPads, laptops and desktops. The TechEBook provides an interactive applets screen that holds many modules, each of which has a specific application in the self learning process. 
 
 This paper describes one of the interactive techniques in the TechEBook known as Symbolic Circuit Solver (SymCirc). The SymCirc develops a versatile symbolic based linear circuit with a switches solver. The solver works by accepting a Netlist and the element that the user wants to find the voltage across or current on, as input parameters. Then it either produces the plot or the time domain expression of the output. Frequency domain plots or Symbolic Transfer Functions are also produced. The solver gets its input from a Web-based GUI circuit drawer developed at UCF. Typical simulation tools that electrical engineers encounter are numerical in nature, that is, when presented with an input circuit they iteratively solve the circuit across a set of small time steps. The result is represented as a data set of output versus time, which can be plotted for further inspection. Such results do not help users understand the ultimate nature of circuits as Linear Time Invariant systems with a finite dimensional basis in the solution space. SymCirc provides all simulation results as time domain expressions composed of the basic functions that exclusively include exponentials, sines, cosines and/or t raised to any power. 
 
 This paper explains the motivation behind SymCirc, the Graphical User Interface front end and how the solver actually works. The paper also presents some examples and results to better explain the concept.

The Innovation of Software Engineering Course in The Non-Computer Professional

Starting with the generation of the software engineering, the development of software engineering is discussed in this paper. On this basis, we analyze the shortcomings in traditional software engineering courses. Especially for the characteristics of software engineering course in the non-computer professional, a new method is explored—practice-based teaching methods.

개선된 학부 의공학 소프트웨어 교육과정을 위한 새로운 과목의 제안

Biomedical engineering is a discipline where engineering principles and techniques are applied to the medical field. Biomedical engineering lies between traditional engineering and medicine and is an inter-disciplinary field in its nature. Current Korean undergraduate biomedical engineering curriculum is a simple list of traditional engineering courses combined with basic medical/life science courses. There have been efforts to improve biomedical engineering education to reflect its inter-disciplinary nature. Enhanced software course for biomedical engineering is proposed as a part of effort to overhaul the undergraduate biomedical engineering curriculum. In this newly proposed course, students will learn MATLAB and LabVIEW, which are the most widely used software tools in biomedical engineering.

Group design-build-test projects as the core of an integrated curriculum in product design and development

The School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Queen’s University Belfast introduced a new degree programme in Product Design and Development (PDD) in 2004. As well as setting out to meet all UK-SPEC requirements, the entirely new curriculum was developed in line with the syllabus and standards defined by the CDIO initiative, an international collaboration of universities aiming to improve the education of engineering students. The CDIO ethos is that students are taught within the context of conceiving, designing, implementing and operating a product or system. Fundamental to this is an integrated curriculum with multiple design-build-test (DBT) experiences at the core. Unlike most traditional engineering courses, the PDD degree features group DBT projects in all years of the programme. The projects increase in complexity and challenge in a staged manner, with learning outcomes guided by Bloom’s taxonomy of learning domains. The integrated course structure enables the immediate application of disciplinary knowledge gained from other modules, as well as development of professional skills and attributes in the context of the DBT activity. This has a positive impact on student engagement, and the embedding of these relevant skills, identified from a stakeholder survey, has also been shown to better prepare students for professional practice.

Review of Environmentally Conscious Transportation by Myer KutzEnvironmentally Conscious TransportationWiley$135

This book addresses a timely topic in this period of rising transportation costs and public consciousness of environmental effects of their transportation decisions. Recent fluctuations in the cost of conventional transportation fuels i.e., gasoline and diesel have driven an unprecedented level of interest in alternatives to petroleum-based fuels, which is part of the focus of this book. This book is part almanac, part handbook, and part reference material, potentially serving as a handy starting point to learn about the impacts of transportation on the natural and built environment as well as about alternative fuel vehicles. Although the chapters of the book are individually contributed, there is little overlap among them, but the level of detail and number of works referenced does vary widely. For the engineer curious about alternative-fueled vehicles or the environmental impacts of mass transit systems, this book provides a reasonably thorough coverage of the issues. In this way, the book is likely more suitable as a reference than as the primary textbook in traditional civil engineering courses as there are no end-of-chapter problems and the compilation of material does not fit typical course syllabi. However, the book may serve well as supplemental or enrichment material. For example, Chapter 3, entitled “Transportation and Air Quality,” might serve well as a brief supplemental reading to accompany a lecture on environmental aspects of transportation planning in a junior-level first course in transportation engineering. The remaining chapters are organized as follows. Chapter 1, “The Economic and Environmental Impacts of Transportation,” provides a brief overview of key economic and environmental transportation data. Chapter 2, “Public Transportation and the Environment,” provides a healthy discussion of environmental impacts, policies, and mitigation strategies of public transportation systems, covering air and noise pollution, energy consumption, and land use and development. Chapter 4, “The Social Cost of