Engineers as Information Processors: a Survey of US Aerospace Engineering Faculty and Students

US aerospace engineering faculty and students were surveyed as part of the NASA/DoD Aerospace Knowledge Research Project. Faculty and students were viewed as information processors within a conceptual framework of information-seeking behavior. Questionnaires were received from 275 faculty members and 640 students which were used to determine (1) use and importance of information sources, (2) use of specific print sources and electronic data bases, (3) use of information technology and (4) the influence of instruction on the use of information sources and products by faculty and students. As information processors, US aerospace faculty and students are ‘information naïve’, seek out information alone or with the help of co-workers, tend not to make use of the information products and services oriented to them, make limited use of librarians, and make considerable use of computer and information technology. Little evidence was found to support the belief that instruction in library or engineering information use has significant impact either on broadening the frequency or range of information products and sources used by US aerospace engineering students.     

Professional development for university scientists around issues of equity and diversity: Investigating dissent within community

We investigated the role of dissent in a community of university scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and social scientists engaged in a 2‐year professional development project around issues of equity and diversity. Members of this teacher learning community explored issues related to gender and ethnicity in science education, and attempted to develop course materials and instructional strategies inclusive of students from underrepresented groups. We focused our attention on those professional development sessions (6 of the 19) devoted to a contentious yet integral topic in science education: the gendered and multicultural nature of science. We examined conversations initiated by a member's concerns to learn how dissent led (or failed to lead) to new insights into feminist science studies scholarship or to greater understanding of ways to address equity issues in undergraduate science education. We also explored how teacher learners' resulting views of feminist science studies scholarship informed (or failed to inform) changes in their own educational practices. From our qualitative analyses, we highlight the challenges in balancing respect for members' individual voices with collective progress toward project goals, and in structuring conversations initiated by dissent to provide adequate space for deliberation and movement toward deeper understanding of equity and excellence. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 39: 738–771, 2002     

Scientists' views of science,models of writing,and science writing practices

Written and oral communications and the processes of writing and reading are highly valued within the scientific community; scientists who communicate well are successful in gaining recognition and support from members of their own communities, the research funding agencies, and the wider society. Yet how do scientists achieve this proficiency? Are expert scientists equally expert writers in and of science? Do scientists' perceptions of the nature of science influence their writing strategies and processes, and their beliefs about the role of writing in knowledge construction? This study used a questionnaire and semistructured interviews to document these perceptions, strategies, processes, and beliefs in a nonrandom sample of Canadian university scientists and engineers. The results indicate that the scientists subscribed to a contemporary evaluativist view of science, used common writing strategies, held similar beliefs about scientific writing and nonscientific writing, and agreed that writing generates insights and clarifies ambiguity in science. The engineers held a different view of technology than the common views of science or technology as simply applied science. These findings were slightly different than those found for American scientists from a large land‐grant university. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 338–369, 2004     

构建航天特色校园文化的实践与探索

随着职业教育办学模式不断创新,校企文化合作也纳入了办学创新的范畴、进入了职教人的视野。西安航天工业学校依托航天企业办学背景,在长期校园文化建设的实践中,积极融入航天精神,并以航天精神教育为引领,积极探索有活力和魅力的特色校园文化新途径,从而为提升整体办学水平寻求动力和支持。     

Chrysler's “Most Beautiful Engineer”: Lucille J. Pieti in the Pillory of Fame

The case of Lucille Pieti, a technical writer at Chrysler, serves as a discipline-specific illustration of some of Rossiter's (1995) generalizations about women scientists and engineers after World War II. Like other women with engineering degrees, Pieti emerged from college with high hopes, only to find herself consigned to one of the traditional ghettos for women scientists and engineers: technical communication. Her case is unusual, however, because she became a national celebrity.     

Selection of Technical Communication Concepts for Integration into an Accounting Information Systems Course: A WAC Case Study

A project in writing-across-the curriculum was launched within a nationally ranked baccalaureate degree program in accountancy at a Boston area college. The project team, which comprised faculty from accountancy and technical communication, attempted to integrate technical communication skills, principally writing, into an accounting information systems course. To improve student writing in this way, the team had to determine what kinds of writing activities would successfully introduce accounting students to the discourse of their profession, and had to select, from all the communication skills that might be taught, only those that should be taught to complement the specialized content of the accounting information systems course. The team's collaborative process produced three critical planning decisions that greatly simplified the integration: 1) establishing Joseph Juran's TQM notion of fitness-for-use for evaluating the quality of student communications; 2) selecting only those forms of communication used in the profession's discourse community in assignments; and 3) teaching only those communication skills that support and enrich the principal technical skills taught in the accounting course. This strategy demonstrates that communication skills can be integrated within a technical course so as to enhance the students' understanding of technical content while improving the students' proficiency in written communication.     

基于微课的应用型本科专业会计学课程翻转课堂教学模式研究

为了适应现代市场经济需要和学院应用型人才培养的要求,桂林航天工业学院很多应用型本科专业都开设了会计学课程,但应用型本科专业的会计学教学还存在很多普遍的问题,本文试图从本院应用型本科专业会计学课程教学中存在的问题出发,提出基于微课的应用型本科专业会计学课程翻转课堂教学模式,以培养懂会计、能运用会计信息为其专业服务的复合型人才。     

Common elements of capstone projects in the world's top-ranked engineering universities

‘Capstone’ is a metaphor used to describe a final achievement that builds upon previous works and encapsulates them. Capstone projects are included in engineering curricula to integrate multi-disciplinary subjects and teach professional skills that are difficult to impart in a traditional lectured course. Since these projects serve to transition students into professional engineers, they have a direct impact on a university's industry reputation and ranking. Therefore, it is worthwhile to study the capstone programmes implemented at the world's top-ranked engineering universities to discover common elements which characterise them. In this paper, common elements of the capstone programmes implemented in mechanical and aerospace engineering undergraduate programmes in the world's top-ranked engineering universities are identified and analysed to determine established best practices. These practices can be modelled and applied to the pedagogy of engineering programmes at universities around the world to improve the development of professional skills of future graduates.     

Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Education Division Competition 2012 Winner‐Bittersweet: Understanding and Improving the Taste of Artificial Sweeteners

Abstract: One of the core competencies in the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) education standards is for students to achieve competency in communication skills (that is, oral and written communication, listening, interviewing, and so on). According to the IFT guidelines, by the time students graduate, they should not only be able to search for and condense information, but also be able to ``communicate technical information to a nontechnical audience.'' The Education Division of IFT sponsors a writing competition for undergraduate students to bring attention to and promote the development of communication skills. It has been shown that employees/entry‐level scientists who can communicate technical and nontechnical concepts succinctly will be in a better position to achieve management status after entering the work force. Monetary prizes are awarded to the authors of the top three papers. A revised version of the winning entry is published in the Journal of Food Science Education for dissemination to a world‐wide audience.     

航天学科本科生创新实践基地建设探索

建设创新实践基地,提高本科生培养质量,是航天学科本科生教育改革的新模式.结合国防科技大学无人飞行器本科生创新实践基地建设实践,深入分析了建设航天学科本科生创新实践基地的必要性,系统总结了加强航天学科本科生创新实践基地建设的思路举措,包括实践项目设置、导师队伍建设、创新文化营造、管理机制形成等.为航空航天专业本科人才培养改革提供有益借鉴.     

对新形势下大学生实践教育体系建构的探索

本文介绍了清华大学航空航天学院逐步建立的以就业引导工作为核心,以“滴灌理论和精确制导思想”为理论,以“本科生生产实习”、“研究生社会实践”、“在校学生就业实践”三大环节为实施手段,以“航空、航天与航海单位就业引导系列报告”和“精心细致的思想工作”为补充手段的实践教育体系的建设,对新时期大学生培养工作提供了有益借鉴。     

International dimension in postgraduate education (aerospace engineering)

A consortium of seven universities and two polytechnics is developing an international postgraduate degree programme consisting of course modules and directed research to train effective leaders in aerospace engineering. The programme's initial funding is a jointly awarded grant from government funding agencies in both the USA and the EU (DGXX II, European Commission, Agreement No. 98-00-USA-0010-00, US Department of Education, DUNS No. 00-743-1505). The purpose of the Masters programme is to train effective leaders for aerospace engineering development, by developing both their professional capabilities and their understanding of the operation of global markets. Course content and management structure is currently under development. This programme comprises the formation of an International Master of Science (IMS) Degree Programme in Aerospace Engineering. Under the IMS programme, qualifying students at each participating university will assemble a personalized degree programme, choosing course and project modules from among the partner universities. Approximately one-third of each student's chosen modules will be taken in overseas institutions. The IMS Degree Programme will include both coursework and research project work in aerospace engineering. Students begin the exchange programme in the year 2000, and the first degrees will be conferred in the year 2001. The project was successfully introduced to the European Forum for continuing Engineering Education in 1999 (Smrcek and Horner 1999, The 4th European Forum for Continuing Engineering Education, Trondheim, Norway).     

Professional Development Skills for Civil and Environmental Engineers

This paper gives a historical review of the events which have given rise to the need for an undergraduate course module for civil and environmental engineers in ‘professional development skills’ (PDS). A framework is proposed for PDS which integrates the best of existing programmes with new material relevant to the needs of tomorrow's engineers.     

Management Education for Engineers: the case of Saudi Arabia [1]

This paper investigates the continuing education needs and career path development of engineers in Saudi Arabia. A survey of practising engineers in the Kingdom teas conducted. This was supplemented by in-depth interviews with experts in industry. The paper focuses on three issues: (i) the changing job responsibilities as engineers move into management; (ii) the actual, recommended and required undergraduate preparation for engineers in management topics; and (iii) the specific topics in management of merest to engineers. It is recommended that universities and private/public organisations should join together in providing continuing education to the professional engineer. This is necessary for the engineer to fulfil both his technical and managerial responsibilities.     

Grading students' programming and soft skills with open badges: A case study

Well-developed programming (technical) skills are very important for software engineers, information systems engineers and programmers in general. However, they must also possess relevant personal skills (soft skills) to be successful at the workplace (eg, collaboration, solving real-world problems and communication). The latter, however, are rarely assessed and acknowledged in regular software engineering courses. This paper describes the results of a small case study involving an extracurricular Java programming course in which, in addition to knowledge and skills in relevant technologies, students' soft skills were also assessed. As part of the assessment, students have been awarded Open Badges. The study was exploratory in nature, aimed at examining Open Badges as a motivational mechanism, students' engagement in attaining soft skills and students' perception of soft skills and Open Badges. The results suggest that Open Badges may not be so effective in motivating students to complete the assignments nor attend the course, although students' perception of Open Badges is generally positive. Soft skills were generally perceived as important as hard skills. Students' engagement in attaining soft skills could be affected by assignment announcement time and its level of difficulty.     

To Again Feel the Creative Voice

Science and mathematics education needs to serve several (possibly contradictory) motivating goals. One is found in the movement for a universal literacy in the central principles and methods of the disciplines. The second is the need to provide the experiences and background that makes possible the production of scientists and engineers. A complication in both efforts is that the formal education takes place over many years, and the application of the layers of information, understanding, and sophistication need also be aware of the age of the student and what has come before. These efforts require clear ideas as to the end goal of the process and attention to assessment. Receiving less attention is the need to also feed and nurture the creative side of those who would become professionals, as creative approaches will be a central and necessary aspect of their work and thought. In this paper, I address the use of a course in mathematical modeling taught over a period of 25 years to undergraduate students of mathematics, mathematics education, computer science, and engineering, as a method to open up creative pathways. Through an historical discussion of the role and nature of creativity in the sciences and mathematics, a process to have students find their creative voice is described in the context of this course.     

Schools of Education and Preparation of College Teachers

The author explores an assumption evident in the literature that “most” college instructors grade participation in undergraduate courses. Instructors (N = 521) at a large, northeastern university were surveyed regarding their attitudes and practices in grading participation in undergraduate courses. A survey instrument was developed for the purpose of this study and subjected to principal components analysis. This instrument yielded seven subscales of acceptable reliability (Cronbach's alpha ≥ .70), three of which are the focus of this article. Results suggest that the majority of instructors across disciplines do incorporate a “participation” factor into students’ final course grades. Course level is not a significant correlate, but some differences may be observed by discipline. Underlying instructor beliefs are examined, and implications and future directions for research are discussed.     

《仿真技术基础》本科课程教学改革思路初探

"系统仿真"是一门实践性很强的综合性新兴学科,仿真技术则是该学科所涉及到的有关具体技术,而仿真技术的基础内容则是该学科具体仿真技术中最为基础的技术部分,是控制系统工程技术人员必须掌握的基本内容.针对"仿真技术基础"本科课程的特点和现有弊端,提出该课程教学的改革思路.     

航空航天专业本科课程体系改革实证研究

研究采用问卷调查方式,利用SPSS专业数据分析软件,以国防科学技术大学航天科学与工程学院本科高年级、硕士生、博士生为调查对象,从公共基础课、航空航天专业课、必／选修课配置等方面了解学生对本专业本科阶段课程设置的观点。结果表明：学生认为本科阶段修课学时多,选修课较少,人文类和理工类公共基础课程尚不能满足发展需求,专业课实验教学环节仍有待加强,考核评价方式有待改革。     

Developing a technical vocabulary on teacher planning: Preservice teachers' concept maps

Recent literature has focused on a need to develop a technical vocabulary in the teaching profession. Concept mapping, a technique of graphically representing concepts and their hierarchical interrelationships along two dimensions, was used to examine the growth of student teachers' knowledge concerning planning over three sequenced courses. Quantitative and content analysis of the maps indicated that students developed a more shared, technical vocabulary reflecting course content and evidencing greater hierarchical organization. The study provides information about the nature of and growth of student teachers' thinking, and demonstrates a means of monitoring the growth of student teachers' conceptual development over a course.