scholarly journals Promoting learning with understanding: Introducing languaging exercises in calculus course for engineering students at the university level

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Alfaro Viquez ◽  
Jorma Joutsenlahti
Keyword(s):  
Mathematics Teaching ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Mathematical Thinking ◽  
First Year ◽  
Logical Thinking ◽  
Mathematical Skills ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Basic Calculus ◽  
University Level ◽  
The University

The study of mathematics at the university level requires logical thinking and strong mathematical skills. Contemporary first-year students are not prepared for these demands and end up failing their courses. This study aims to present an instrument for enhancing mathematics teaching and promoting learning with understanding in higher education by a combination of symbolic, natural, and pictorial languages in different tasks. We analyze the 17 solutions of four languaging exercises administered in a basic calculus course for engineering students at the University of Costa Rica. The results suggest that these exercises promote the acquisition of skills necessary to be mathematically proficient and are a useful tool for revealing students’ mathematical thinking and misconceptions.

scholarly journals TEACHING ENGINEERING COMMUNICATION TO FIRST YEAR ENGINEERING STUDENTS

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn Labun
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
First Year ◽  
Written Communication ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Design Project ◽  
Engineering Communication ◽  
University Of British Columbia ◽  
The University ◽  
Written Assignments

At the University of British Columbia Okanagan School of Engineering (SOE), first year engineering students take a 3-credit course in Engineering Communication. Designed to replace the traditional 3-credits of English taken by other first year students, APSC 176 introduces students to the fundamentals of engineering communication, with a strong emphasis on written communication. The paper is describes the types of assignments given to first year students, the techniques used to encourage meaningful revision of written assignments, and the methods used to evaluate written assignments. Particular attention will be paid to a two-week first term design project (such as the assignment, supplemental materials including exercises, and marking guidelines). It should be noted that the design is entirely conceptual - students are not required to develop a prototype, but rather to work with a team to develop (and subsequently, explain and market) a concept in response to an RFP.

scholarly journals Mathematical Skills and the Academic Performance of Junior and Senior Electrical Engineering Students of the University of Eastern Philippines

2021 ◽  
pp. 20-31
Author(s):  
Kenneth Bryan F. Abaigar ◽  
Benjamin D. Varela
Keyword(s):  
Academic Performance ◽  
Significant Relationship ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Electrical Engineering ◽  
First Year ◽  
Mathematical Skills ◽  
The Third ◽  
Second Year ◽  
Final Grades ◽  
The University

The study was conducted to determine the mathematical skills and the academic performance of the junior and senior electrical engineering students of the University of Eastern Philippines. Descriptive-correlational method of research was used with a total enumeration of the regular students from third year to fifth year electrical engineering students.     The findings revealed that male students dominated all the three year levels of the electrical engineering course. It was also found out that there were more regular fifth year engineering students than the third year and fourth year students. Meanwhile, the third year students got the highest average rating in the final grades of first year and second year mathematics and the lowest average rating belonged to the fifth year students. The learning style of the three-year levels was found to be visual while in terms of study habits, the third year students have very good study habit. It was also found out that the level of mathematical skills of the three-year levels were low, but the level of academic performance of the three-year levels were found out to be good. Multiple regression analysis was used to determine the relationship of the student profile and their mathematical skills. The results showed that the average of final grades in all first-year mathematics, and the students’ year level have significant relationship with the mathematical skills of the students. Meanwhile, the profile variables found to be significantly related to academic performance were the average of final grades in first year mathematics, average of final grades in second year mathematics and study habits of the students’ respondents. Lastly, the mathematical skills had no significant relationship to the academic performance of the student-respondents.

Assessment of Individual and Teamwork Attributes in Undergraduate Engineering Students

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas O'Neill
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
Team Work ◽  
First Year ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Personal Support ◽  
Program Accreditation ◽  
Team Projects ◽  
University Of Calgary ◽  
Teamwork Skills ◽  
The University

Engineers Canada Accreditation Board lists12 Canadian Engineering Graduate Attributes necessaryfor program accreditation. One of these is the Individualand Team Work attribute. At the University of Calgary anannual survey has been developed to assess studentperceptions of teamwork. The survey examines students’overall satisfaction with teamwork activities, attitudestowards teamwork, perceived emphasis and supportreceived from the department, teamwork skills(competence and importance), and personal support forteamwork initiatives. Based on the responses from pastyears two trends can be identified: students perceive agap between their competence in teamwork skills and theimportance of those skills, and students show high levelsof support for more teamwork initiatives. Following thesetrends three recommendations can be made: teamworkskills development activities for the students, moreopportunities for peer feedback in team projects, andsupport for first year students. By annually administeringassessments engineering departments can evaluate theirsuccess in developing the necessary Individual and TeamWork attribute required by Engineers CanadaAccreditation Board for program accreditation.

scholarly journals Leveraging Escape Room Popularity to Provide First-Year Students with an Introduction to Engineering Information

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Walsh ◽  
Michelle Spence
Keyword(s):  
Computer Science ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
First Year ◽  
Library Services ◽  
Science And Engineering ◽  
Research Skills ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
University Of Toronto ◽  
Engineering Information ◽  
The University

Incoming first-year engineering students at the University of Toronto often have difficulty navigating the library and its resources. Orientation activities at the Engineering & Computer Science Library are designed to introduce students to the library in an informal and entertaining way. In 2017, as a result of dropping interest in previous years' orientation activities, librarians at the Engineering & Computer Science Library collaborated with instructors and staff in the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering to develop an orientation activity grounded in curriculum and based on the popular escape room game. Core library services and engineering resources were used to build a challenging program that introduced students to basic, but essential, research skills. Voluntary student participation in the game exceeded previous years' participation and all expectations of the game designers.

scholarly journals UNIVERSITY-LEVEL DESIGN ENGINEERING CHALLENGES WITH STUDENT FEEDBACK

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Bazylak ◽  
Peter Wild
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
Interdisciplinary Teams ◽  
Student Feedback ◽  
First Year ◽  
Design Engineering ◽  
Electromagnetic Model ◽  
University Level ◽  
The University ◽  
Academic Year

The Design Engineering Challenge Series is a set of design events organized by the University of Victoria Design Engineering Office to enhance the undergraduate student design experience. The first of the two events run in the series was the First Year Design Engineering Challenge. This event challenged first year engineering students to design and construct a microcontroller-directed electromagnetic model crane, in a single day. The second event had students from across campus working in interdisciplinary teams to design video games. Both events were extremely successful with follow up events planned for the next academic year.

Cross-linguistic influence in an oral translation task by L3 French learners

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maarit Mutta
Keyword(s):  
High Probability ◽  
Lexical Retrieval ◽  
First Year ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Multilingual Students ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Probable Source ◽  
University Level ◽  
French Words ◽  
The University

This article addresses multilingual students’ lexical retrieval in L3 French at the university level. The aim was to study how Finnish L3 learners construct the meaning of cognate words that induce a high probability of cross-linguistic or intra-linguistic influence. The task was to orally translate 40 French words into L1 words (Finnish). These words were used to deliberately activate L3, L2 or L1 cognates. The corpus consisted of the productions of 12 first-year students (480 cases). The results show that participants gave the correct answer to a given word in 40% of cases. The results also show that intra-linguistic influence is the most probable source of both negative and positive effects and that cross-linguistic influence from L2 English was more important than that of L1. Nevertheless, well-learned common words seemed to resist this (combined) cross-linguistic influence. On the basis of the task, it can be concluded that cross-linguistic influence can vary considerably and that the source of the influence is not always clear. The analysis also revealed that on an oral translation task, the participants had recourse to different strategies based on form or form and meaning at various levels of success.

On the Learning of Auxiliary Use in the Referential Variety by Speakers of New Brunswick Acadian French

2008 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Balcom
Keyword(s):  
New Brunswick ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
First Year ◽  
Production Task ◽  
Directed Motion ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Acadian French ◽  
University Level ◽  
The University ◽  
Acceptability Judgment

AbstractThis study investigates the learning of Referential French by speakers of Acadian French at the university level. One difference between the two varieties lies in their use of auxiliaries in compound tenses. In Acadian French,avoiris used categorically in compound tenses with verbs of inherently directed motion and pronominal verbs, while Referential French usesêtre. A controlled-production task and an acceptability judgment task were administered to 80 speakers of New Brunswick Acadian French who were students at a francophone university in New Brunswick, 40 first-year students and 40 fourth-year students. Results show that, while there is still variability in the fourth-year students’ auxiliary use, their performance is significantly closer to Referential French than that of the first-year students.

scholarly journals 24. Developing Effective Guidelines for Faculty Teaching First-Year University Students

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irene Carter ◽  
Donald Leslie ◽  
Donald Leslie ◽  
Sarah Moore ◽  
Sarah Moore
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
Teaching Methods ◽  
First Year ◽  
Campus Community ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Faculty Teaching ◽  
Teaching Faculty ◽  
University Level ◽  
The University ◽  
First Year University

First-year university students are a diverse group of individuals with various abilities and needs. Failure of the university and its teaching faculty to meet the needs of first-year students may result in abandonment of the pursuit of a degree. This project informs instructors about the practices that strengthen a learning-centred approach and maximize inclusion of first-year students. The principles and teaching methods of Universal Instructional Design are learner-centred and have shown to improve academic achievement and benefit the campus community. Thus, it is suggested that the principles of this method be applied uniformly across university-level instruction.

scholarly journals Sharing learning outcomes in chemistry teaching at HE level: Beneficial or detrimental?

2011 ◽  
pp. 31-35
Author(s):  
David Read ◽  
Joanne Boniface ◽  
Andrea E Russell
Keyword(s):  
Learning Outcomes ◽  
Good Practice ◽  
Retention Rates ◽  
First Year ◽  
Chemistry Teaching ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
University Level ◽  
The University ◽  
Support Students ◽  
Academic Year

The sharing of explicit learning objectives and/or learning outcomes is considered to be good practice in schools, with OFSTED observation criteria indicating that this is a pre-requisite to a good or outstanding lesson1. Such practice does not appear to be widespread in chemistry teaching at HE level. Whilst a statement of aims/objectives/outcomes can normally be found in the documentation accompanying any given unit of teaching, these are typically in a less student-friendly format than those used in school, or are too vague to be useful. At the same time, many lecturers do communicate aims at the start of a lecture, but there may be scope for doing this in a more effective way. The extent to which students are exposed to „learning outcomes‟ varies greatly from institution to institution, discipline to discipline and from teacher to teacher, and as such it is difficult to discern the best approach.This article presents some background on developments at pre-university level that have influenced practice in this area, and outlines the findings of a research project carried out in the School of Chemistry at the University of Southampton. The project probed the views of staff and students regarding the usefulness of learning outcomes. Several different approaches to sharing learning outcomes with first year students were trialled and evaluated during the course of the 2010-11 academic year. This work is part of an on-going initiative which aims to identify effective methods to support students in becoming independent learners when making the transition to university, and to improve retention rates.

scholarly journals Working with “Others”: Developing Sustainability Skills in the First Year Engineering Classroom

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Nesbit ◽  
Naoko Ellis ◽  
Pete Ostafichuk
Keyword(s):  
Personal Development ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Preliminary Test ◽  
First Year ◽  
Test Results ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
University Of British Columbia ◽  
Structured Problems ◽  
The University ◽  
Current Engineering

Abstract While engineering education excels at training students to solve well-defined and highly structured problems, it struggles to support the development of students’ abilities to address highly complex, ill-structured, and contested engineering problems that lack in definite solutions, where engineers are called on to work with non-engineers in a transdisciplinary environment.  The challenge for engineering educators is to develop and teach constructively aligned curricula aimed at developing transdisciplinary skills so that, as practitioners, graduating engineering students contribute to addressing these types of problems within transdisciplinary environments. Efforts are underway in many institutions to close the gap between the transdisciplinary needs in practice and current engineering curricula. At the University of British Columbia (UBC), a team of faculty members and engineering practitioners have recently developed and are teaching a design-focused engineering course to all first year students. In this paper we, a subset of UBC’s teaching team, present the argument for teaching skills to engineering students that support transdisciplinary. Wesummarize the definitions of these skills found in the literature, and we speculate that the development of one aspect of transdisciplinary is related to personal development. Specifically, we hypothesize that systems thinking is correlated to metacognition. We describe an experimental strategy for testing the hypothesis within a first year engineering program, then we present and discuss preliminary test results.  

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