Innovative Educational Collaboration between Colleges to Improve Disabilities and Enhance Learning

2011 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-116
Author(s):  
MOLLY L. MCCLELLAND ◽  
DARRELL K. KLEINKE

ABSTRACT Interdisciplinary collaboration in higher education can produce valuable learning experiences beyond that of a single discipline approach. The University of Detroit Mercy College of Engineering and College of Health Professions have effectively collaborated yielding results that benefit not only the student but physically challenged individuals living in the Detroit area. Teams of engineering students and nursing students work together on projects to build assistive devices that improve the lives of people in need. This paper describes the techniques, goals and objectives used in multidisciplinary collaborative education. Students who have completed the course have described an enhanced understanding of how to effectively collaborate with members of other disciplines. Clients who have worked with the multidisciplinary teams have benefited by receiving assistive devices that have significantly improved their activities of daily living.

Author(s):  
Elizabeth Kuley ◽  
Sean Maw ◽  
Terry Fonstad

This paper focuses on feedback received from a set of qualitative questions that were administered to undergraduate students in the College of Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan, as part of a larger mixed methods study. The larger study aims to identify what characteristics, if any, can predict or are related to student success; The “start-stop-continue” method was utilized to assess student perceptions about  their success in the college as a whole. The students were asked: Are there any specific things that you can think of that act/acted as barriers to your success in engineering (stop)? What could the college do/change to make first year more successful for engineering students (start)? Is there anything in your engineering degree so far that you feel is done well and helps students succeed (continue)? Students identified the quality of instruction early in their program as well as adjustment to college workloads and self-directed learning as the most significant barriers tostudent success.


Author(s):  
Omid Mirzaei ◽  
Paul Neufeld ◽  
Jade Knoblauch ◽  
Jessica Gerbrandt ◽  
Mark Runco ◽  
...  

.Abstract – In the latter half of 2015, a survey looking at attitudes and beliefs about creativity was distributed on the campus of the University of Saskatchewan. Over 2000 responses were gathered, including more than 200 in the College of Engineering. Initial quantitative results from this study were reported in 2016 in Neufeld et al [2].  In terms of the methods used in the study, as discussed in Neufeld et al [2], an online pilot survey was distributed to students and faculty from a variety of the Colleges at the University. Survey questions probed respondents’ affinity for creativity, their personality characteristics, their opinions on state, trait and skill-based viewpoints on creativity, and demographic details.  The first part of the survey was a validated Creative Attitudes and Values measurement tool (part of the Runco Creativity Assessment Battery (rCAB)© 2012), as discussed in Acar and Runco [1]. This tool consists of 25, 5-point Likert scale items. Of these 25 items, 15 and 10 were indicative and contraindicative items, respectively. Contraindicative items were reverse coded so that they could be used along with the indicative ones. Both past research and our results showed good inter-item reliability scores for this measurement tool.  In Neufeld et al [2] we presented results covering all of the closed-form, quantitative questions along with some correlational calculations with the rCAB scores. The focus of the current paper is on the qualitative results, as well as on a factor analysis of the rCAB questions.  The factor analysis was quite successful. We used SPSS and forced a correlation of items, reducing to three factors. We have just over 29% of variance accounted for, with 10% non-redundant residuals. We have strong anti-correlation between one factor and the other two, and no correlation between the other two. These results will be compared to those of the rCAB authors [3].  As for the qualitative data, we asked several open-ended questions to probe how respondents defined creativity, whether they regarded it as a positive behavior, as well as how they felt about creativity in terms of it being a skill, trait and/or state. For example, pairs of questions asked when creativity is difficult and easy, when it should and should not be used, and when it grows and diminishes. For each of the 9 questions that had open-ended answers, concepts were extracted from individual responses. Concepts were then grouped into themes. Themes and concepts were compared across questions and were aligned. Responses were then coded for concepts and themes. At this point, the text data could be quantitatively examined. This paper presents those results, and discusses the implications of the concepts, themes, and their statistics for how we talk about creativity, and how we can teach it. Comparisons will be made between the results from engineering students and staff versus non-engineers.  This paper completes the first level of evaluation of the results of this initial survey focused on attitudes and beliefs about creativity. Future work will focus on examining correlations between the results of different questions, including the rCAB scores.  


Author(s):  
Barrie Jackson ◽  
Dale Dilamarter ◽  
Peter Spasov

This paper describes a pilot collaboration between Queen’s University and Sir Sandford Fleming College of Applied Arts and Technology in Peterborough Ontario. Since 1994 Queen’s has offered projects where students learn by solving problems for fee paying industrial clients. Known as Technology Engineering and Management (TEAM) student participants form multidisciplinary teams to consult for business clients. In addition to engineering students, commerce and arts students have often participated in the teams. In the Applied Projects program at Fleming College, third year engineering technology student teams solve problems for enterprise sponsors. A pilot group of engineering technology students from Fleming College worked with students in two Queen’s University TEAM projects. In industrial practice, engineers and engineering technologists often collaborate on solving problems. This collaboration rarely occurs in an educational setting. In the 2002-2003 academic year the pilot exercise simulated the professional working relationship between engineers and technologists. This paper gives a description of the experience and the motivation to undertake this unique collaboration. The most important aspect of the presentation is a critical assessment of the University/College collaboration -- what worked, what problems arose, and what improvements are suggested.


Author(s):  
Rachel Figueiredo ◽  
Helen Power ◽  
Kate Mercer ◽  
Matthew Borland

As the information landscape becomes increasingly complex, librarians must adapt accordingly. With information so readily available, students overestimate their research skills and lack awareness of how the library can help. However, librarians’ academic training makes them ideal resources to support students’ complex information needs - whether students know it or not. In this paper, we argue that embedded librarianship is the solution to this disconnect between librarian and user. Specifically, this paper provides case studies at two Canadian universities of librarians approaching embedded librarianship from different directions. At the University of Waterloo, two engineering librarians worked toward an embedded model of librarianship where this was not yet an established model in the Faculty of Engineering. At the University of Saskatchewan, a librarian was hired with the intention of the new position being embedded, without a formal structure or precedent for this within the College of Engineering.  The term “embedded librarian” describes a service model where an academic librarian participates in an academic course or program on a continuing basis in order to understand the learning objectives and determine which resources best support them. In order to “do this, the librarian has to be familiar with the work and understand the domain and goals. Doing this, the librarian becomes an invaluable member of the team” [1]. The variables associated with embeddedness include location, funding, management and supervision, and participation [1]. To this end, the authors explore how each of these variables contribute to the success of moving towards this embedded model: how moving out of the library influences overall connection, how they acquired funding to grow a new collection, how management supports the overall goal, and how sustained participation in the program grows new opportunities.  At both universities, librarians have seen most success embedding in programs with a strong emphasis on integrated STEM education where the focus is on providing real-world context with the aim of graduating well-rounded engineers [2]. The authors will discuss how programmatic learning outcomes and trends in integrated and interdisciplinary education have allowed them to stretch beyond the traditional boundaries of academic librarianship to demonstrate value to the Engineering departments in new ways.  This paper reports on the experiences, advantages, and lessons learned in moving toward this model, and provides concrete examples for adapting these concepts to programs at other institutions. Through an intrinsic case study [3] the authors aim to understand how librarians’ embeddedness can adapt and change to support student learning in different contexts. This session is targeted towards practicing engineering librarians and engineering faculty members and educators. Attendees will leave the session with ideas on how to stimulate new partnerships between their library and Engineering programs.  


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-184
Author(s):  
Nora Pillard Reynolds

This article was part of a larger study that explored community participants’ perspectives in [Municipality, Country] about the long-term global service learning (GSL) partnership with [Name of university] University’s College of Engineering (Author, year). This article explores the question: From the community participants’ perspectives, what are their educational goals for the university engineering students in this partnership? While I intentionally centered this article on the community participants’ perspectives, I also explored areas of alignment and areas of difference between the different stakeholder groups’ perspectives about learning and knowledge. Although global citizenship surfaced in interviews with both community and university participants, the community participant perspectives push farther than the university administrators/ faculty and call for critical global citizenship education (Andreotti, 2006).


Author(s):  
Jean Koster ◽  
Ewald Kraemer ◽  
Claus-Dieter Munz ◽  
Dries Verstraete ◽  
K. C. Wong ◽  
...  

A delocalized international team of Graduate and Undergraduate students conceive, design, implement, and operate a 3 meter wingspan aircraft with the intent to investigate numerous new ‘green’ aircraft technologies. The project, known as Hyperion, teaches essential systems engineering skills through long-distance design collaborations with multidisciplinary teams of engineering students located around the world. Project partners are the University of Colorado at Boulder, USA, the University of Sydney, Australia, and the University of Stuttgart, Germany. The teams on three continents are distributed 8 hours apart; students can relay select work daily so that progress can “Follow The Sun (FTS).” As a result three workdays are packaged in one 24 hour period. The student teams operate as a single, independent entity; structuring themselves as a simulated industry operation. Thus, project management and systems engineering principles are learned through a real-world design and deliver experience. The project also teaches delocalized manufacturing: select components are manufactured by each team and integrated both in Stuttgart and Colorado, giving the students an opportunity to learn multifaceted design for manufacturing. The project incubated many problems which lead to mitigation techniques for global collaboration as well as generating a better educated workforce to enter modern industry.


Author(s):  
D. M. O'Carroll ◽  
E. K. Yanful ◽  
F. Berruti ◽  
R. O. Buchal

The Faculty of Engineering proposes to replace an existing building at the University of Western Ontario with a modern, state of-the-art, environmentally friendly, and energy-efficient building designed by students. This is an ideal opportunity to expose students to an interdisciplinary design project involving every engineering discipline. Students were commissioned to design a building that achieves the highest possible Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design accreditation. Initial design work was performed by students as part of their capstone design courses in 2004/2005. In 2005/2006, two competing multidisciplinary teams of students conducted detailed integrated design work in collaboration with industry - including architects and engineering consulting firms - to tackle the structural, environmental, materials, mechanical and electrical requirements. The experience was very positive, but the degree of interdisciplinary collaboration was less than expected due to the departmental nature of existing capstone design courses.


Author(s):  
Jordan Ermilio ◽  
Garrett Clayton ◽  
Mahmoud Kabalan

The College of Engineering at Villanova University has a long history of providing technical services to support humanitarian initiatives. For over twenty years, engineering faculty and students have been participating in engineering outreach activities, which are commonly referred to as Engineering Service Learning. In 1991, a small group of engineering students and faculty traveled to work with the Cheypo-Bayano Mission in Panama. Students who graduate were excited to return to Panama to see their projects through to completion, which included a large water supply distribution system and a bridge for a small remote community in the region. At that time, the concept of service-learning did not exist, but due to the Augustinian Heritage at Villanova University, these types of activities have been strongly encouraged. In fact, the idea of ministry has been a strategic part of the university’ mission since 1979, and at the present time, there are an estimated 800 students and advisors who travel annually to over 40 locations globally (including the US) to volunteer on service projects. These projects include engineering and non-engineering activities, but the success of the engineering service learning program has been significantly influenced by the culture of service that exists at Villanova University and the Augustinian values which are routed in service to society.


1999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liwei Lin

Abstract MEMS curriculum development in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan is presented. A course curriculum structure that integrates both mechanical and electrical engineering courses is proposed for mechanical engineering students who are interested in MEMS research. The proposed curriculum starts from undergraduate study and finishes at the Ph.D. level. Two new graduate-level MEMS courses are proposed. They are “Introduction to MEMS” for senior and entry-level, graduate students and “Advanced MEMS” for graduate students. The first course has been experimentally taught at the University of Michigan for the past three years and the class assessments are summarized and analyzed in this paper. It is clear from the student responses that for more advanced MEMS courses should be offered. The vision of the future MEMS curriculum development has also been discussed with the suggestion of the development a new undergraduate-level MEMS course in the college of engineering.


2000 ◽  
Vol 632 ◽  
Author(s):  
William E. Brower

ABSTRACTThe fifth grade inner city volunteer teaching project (5GVP) at Marquette University's College of Engineering has attempted to inform and inspire Milwaukee's inner city fifth graders about engineering for the last ten years. Each year I have recruited our engineering students to volunteer to take self contained science lessons into the Milwaukee Public Schools'fifth grade classrooms. Although the lessons are on science and the career touted is engineering in general, the lessons are flavored by my being in MSE. Being excited about a career is certainly a precursor to choosing that career. I have found the fifth graders very excited about seeing and experiencing science in action as the engineering students present it to them. Hopefully, the program at Marquette will result in more inner city students choosing to enter college as engineers, with MSE garnering its usual share.


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