Paul Schoch - US grants

9354397 Carlson The recent sharp decline in the number of freshmen planning engineering careers has exacerbated the long-standing problem of attrition in engineering education. Responding to this problem, the project continues the development of a new introductory electronics laboratory, entitled Introduction to Engineering Electronics, that motivates freshmen for further study of engineering. The course focuses on electronics for motivation, since all branches of engineering use electronic instrumentation. Distinctive course features include an emphasis on interactive learning and hands-on experiences that stimulate curiosity, build confidence, and demonstrate the relevance and rewards of engineering work. The project has four major objectives: (1) assessing the motivational effectiveness of the course; (2) refining the content and structure based on student response; (3) preparing a guidebook and laboratory manual for use at Rensselaer and for dissemination to other interested institutions; and (4) developing a multimedia laboratory terminal. By achieving these objectives the project addresses educational issues of national significance -- motivation, retention, hands-on learning, and building student confidence. ***y

The project is developing, deploying, evaluating, and disseminating interactive learning modules (ILMs) and web-based educational technologies to help student learn the fundamentals of electrical engineering. Investigators from three other universities, representing a minority institution, a four-year school, and an urban university, are participating in the project. The ILMs, which build on a prior prototype development project, support the "key concepts" of electrical engineering (i.e., areas associated with the PE and FE exams). These ILMs provide illustrative supporting materials for engineering students that can be further used to stimulate interest in K-12 students to consider STEM careers. Deployment also involves a faculty exchange program, allowing faculty partners to "swap" classrooms for a particular topic, and experience diverse teaching/learning environments. Evaluation experts at a separate university will organize and carry out the evaluation. The materials will be available on the Internet and on CDs and a major publisher has indicated interest in the product. The project team plans a series of workshops.

Due to the resources required to support student labs, experiments are rarely designed with sufficient time for students to explore concepts on their own. Nor is the laboratory equipment available to students outside of proscribed hours because it is needed for too many classes, is too hard to use without supervision, and is, in some cases, too fragile and easily damaged. However, the continued revolution in electronic miniaturization is making possible portable, low-cost, robust experimental platforms that allow for ubiquitous hands-on experiences for students anywhere and anytime - integrated with lectures in the classroom on campus or online, as assignments in take-home project, or when students want to try out their own ideas. Ubiquitous hands-on experiments enable a new pedagogical model that promotes a more complete integration of theory, design, and practice.

The Mobile Hands-On STEM (MOHS) project is a collaboration among Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, University of Albany, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Howard University, and Morgan State University. The project is developing standardized assessment tools for the mobile hands-on-learning experiences in order to measure student learning as well as its ease of adoption by instructors. The project is building a community of practice composed of developers, users, industry partners, and commercial device suppliers in order to share information across a large, diverse collection of schools and across a diverse set of portable experimental platforms. Building on this community of practice, the project is holding workshops for both instructors who currently use mobile hands-on education and for new instructors to introduce them to mobile hands-on learning. This proactive dissemination strategy gives the project insight into the barriers to adoption and helps form the next steps toward wide dissemination.