The Mechanical Engineering Section at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy has developed a comprehensive activity based course to introduce second year students to mechanical engineering design. The culminating design activity for the course requires students to design, construct and test robotic devices that complete engineering challenges. Teams of…

This paper summarizes the findings of a ten year study on a Pre-Engineering program aimed at dramatically improving both the recruitment and retention of under-represented students pursuing careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) at The University of Akron. The primary goal of this study was to evaluate The University of…

The supply-demand imbalance in teacher education is described and a theory of institutional response to the general imbalance problem is discussed. The theory postulates that as market demand for new graduates in a given field declines, the quality of the student body entering that field of study will also decline. The theory assumes the…

This testimony, supported by data from several national surveys, was presented by Sarah E. Klein (president of the National Science Teachers Association) regarding the elimination of science education from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Issues and topics addressed include: (1) statement of the crisis in science/mathematics education,…

Data on 1980 engineering and technology degrees by schools, curriculum group, and degree level are presented. Degree data for each school are arranged in tabular form with columns for the 21 most prominent curriculum groups, totals for the school, and information on each school's accreditation and control status. There are separate tables for each…

The course-taking behavior of various types of students pursuing undergraduate professional programs was examined, and an attempt was made to demonstrate some analytical procedures that can be applied in studying course-taking behavior. Course-taking behavior was defined as the average credit hour load of a student as distributed across the…

The third in a series of four monographs, this study focuses on Black engineering students at Purdue University who persisted, withdrew, or transferred. A survey of the students was conducted to determine factors that influence retention and attrition of Black American students in engineering. A comparison of the pre-college and college…

A computer-assisted instruction (CAI) project focused primarily on curriculum development in three technical areas: science, mathematics, and communication skills. The project also sought 1) to develop specific course material and methods of presentation; 2) to provide explanations of various techniques and strategies for dealing with course…

In recent years educators and educational researchers in the U.S. have begun to introduce engineering design activities in secondary science classrooms for the purpose of scaffolding science learning as well as supporting such general problem-solving skills as decision making and working in teams. However, such curricula risk perpetuating a…

This report describes efforts by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (New York) to reinvent teaching and learning through the development of a comprehensive curriculum to make learning more student-centered, and to utilize innovative technology in the classroom by replacing the lecture-lab-recitation format with smaller, interactive studio courses. A…

This paper is a virtual transcript of a conference presentation. It discusses the context of the course: the students, the expectations of the faculty and employers and the administrative constraints, and the course itself at the University of Hong Kong, an English-medium institution. Teaching non-native speakers to make effective oral…

This bulletin, describing the opportunities in the United States for graduate study in agriculture and those closely allied sciences which have a direct application in agriculture, is the result of an inquiry made by the Bureau of Education in cooperation with the committee on graduate study of the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and…

The demand for basic information on Soviet higher education continues to grow. Previous bulletins on Soviet education published by the Office of Education have either been overall surveys ("Education in the U.S.S.R.," Bulletin 1957, No. 14; "Soviet Commitment to Education," Bulletin 1959, No. 16) or studies of general…

Beginning with the Commissioner of Education introduction, Chapter I of Volume 1 covers British and Irish education, including a detailed view of English and Welsh elementary education. French education is addressed in Chapter II, with historic context, contemporary issues, and data. Chapter III details the Prussian 1906 school law requiring…

Model-eliciting activities (MEA), specially designed client-drive, open-ended problems, have been implemented in a first-year engineering course and in secondary schools. The educational goals and settings are different, but the design of an MEA enables it to be versatile. This paper will introduce the reader to the principles that guide MEA…