This report is the based on a 10-year study of the activities developed under a National Science Foundation (NSF) Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) grant to a collaborative of institutions from the State University of New York. The goals of LSAMP are to recruit and retain under-represented minority students in the STEM…

Today's engineering graduates will solve tomorrow's problems in a world that is advancing faster and facing more critical challenges than ever before. This situation creates significant demand for engineering education to evolve in order to effectively prepare a diverse community of engineers for these challenges. Such concerns have led to the…

This article introduces Model-Eliciting Activities (MEAs) as a form of case study team problem-solving. MEA design focuses on eliciting from students conceptual models that they iteratively revise in problem-solving. Though developed by mathematics education researchers to study the evolution of mathematical problem-solving expertise in middle…

Many countries mandate affirmative action in university admissions for traditionally disadvantaged groups. Little is known about either the efficacy or costs of these programs. This paper examines affirmative action in engineering colleges in India for "lower-caste" groups. We find that it successfully targets the financially…

This article presents the results of two studies on using an innovative pedagogical strategy in teaching mathematical modelling and applications to engineering students. Both studies are dealing with introducing non-traditional contexts for engineering students in teaching/learning of mathematical modelling and applications: environment and…

This longitudinal study draws on data from a larger project and examines how students' perceptions of their opportunities to influence their study environment may be enacted in approaches aimed at influencing their studies, and whether this changes during the course of their studies. Ten students from a 4.5-year Master's program in Engineering…

In developing traditional learning materials, quality is the key issue to be considered. However, for high technical e-training courses, not only the quality of the learning materials but also the efficiency of developing the courses needs to be taken into consideration. It is a challenging issue for experienced engineers to develop up-to-date…

In this paper, we will focus on an innovative way to teach some of the engineering fundamentals at the freshman level in an introductory engineering class. Unfortunately, today many students graduate without a good grasp of these fundamental concepts--concepts that every engineer, regardless of his or her area of specialization, should know. In…

This paper presents the methodology and results of teaching an entire engineering course using challenge-based instruction. The challenges consisted of eight biomechanics multimedia learning modules developed by the authors as part of a broader NSF educational coalition. The biomechanics modules were presented in an undergraduate mechanical…

The term "blended learning" is being used increasingly to describe the learning and teaching activities which involve a mixture of online teaching and face-to-face teaching. This paper describes the requirements of distant learning engineering courses, and proposes that a blended learning model suits best to the needs of such courses…

Women are under-represented in the engineering field. Although more than 50% of Canadian university students are female, they represent less than 25% of students enrolled nationally in engineering programs. This study found that female high school students are as aware of engineering as a discipline as their male counterparts but are significantly…

Spatial visualization is a fundamental skill in technical graphics and engineering designs. From conventional multiview drawing to modern solid modeling using computer-aided design, visualization skills have always been essential for representing three-dimensional objects and assemblies. Researchers have developed various types of tests to measure…

This paper offers a multi-perspective view on engineering education at RWTH Aachen University: curriculum design, examples of newly developed teaching methods for engineering curricula, and teaching competencies and teacher qualification. It is based on the theories of student-centred learning, project learning, social skills, etc., but the paper…

The objective of the current paper is to examine how group learning and cooperative learning are used in civil engineering courses. The paper defines group learning and cooperative learning in the first section. It is hypothesized that group learning is used in civil engineering courses to build teamwork skills and communication skills among civil…

The use of effective knowledge management is becoming an essential part of technical development projects in order to enable developers to handle the growing complexity of these projects. In this article we discuss an innovative approach to address this concern from the perspective of an undergraduate engineering curriculum. Instead of adding…