Little did the author realize how much his first engineering project would change his career path, but when it came, he was hooked forever on doing R&D-type engineering. In this article, the author takes the reader back to his first really important electrical engineering project. While the technology he worked on back then is antiquated by…

This paper describes a newly designed upper-level undergraduate and graduate course, Autonomous Mobile Robots. The course employs active, cooperative, problem-based learning and is grounded in the fundamental computational problems in mobile robotics defined by Dudek and Jenkin. Students receive a broad survey of robotics through lectures, weekly…

"Cloud computing" is currently the "buzzword" in the Information Technology field. Cloud computing facilitates convenient access to information and software resources as well as easy storage and sharing of files and data, without the end users being aware of the details of the computing technology behind the process. This…

A new educational simulation tool designed for the generic study of wireless networks, the Wireless Fidelity Simulator (WiFiSim), is presented in this paper. The goal of this work was to create and implement a didactic tool to improve the teaching and learning of computer networks by means of two complementary strategies: simulating the behavior…

The ultimate objective of teacher professional development (TPD) is to deliver a positive impact on students' engagement and performance in class through teacher practice via improving their content and pedagogical content knowledge and changing their attitudes toward the subject being taught. However, compared to other content areas, such as…

This paper explores the use of lecture capture in Engineering classes to provide students with the opportunity to enhance their understanding of the course content. Students were asked to provide feedback on what they perceive the benefits and the drawbacks of lecture capture to be. The results show that the students consider lecture capture an…

An interdisciplinary undergraduate-level robotics course offers students the chance to integrate their engineering knowledge learned throughout their college years by building a robotic system. Robotics is thus a core course in system and control-related engineering education. This paper summarizes the experience of developing robotics courses…

Keeping a uniform, basic arrangement of the school library is essential if students are to be comfortable finding resources in other libraries. Two questions that must be answered if a new system were to be devised are: Who would decide on the particulars of that system? What criteria would be used to make the decision to ensure that use of the…

The discourses around globalisation and internationalisation within higher education to date have tended to focus on institutional change. While recognising the importance of these debates, this paper suggests that issues around curriculum change and teaching and learning through global professions such as health and engineering have so far been…

Background: Despite the recent evidence for a multi-component nature of both visual imagery and creativity, there have been no systematic studies on how the different dimensions of creativity and imagery might interrelate. Aims: The main goal of this study was to investigate the relationship between different dimensions of creativity (artistic and…

There is a growing literature on the educational benefits of using podcasting of lectures in higher education, but to date little research that interrogates closely its impact on student learning. The present study investigated how students used lecture podcasts produced in two engineering courses at a South African university. The findings…

The purpose of the pilot study, which is a part of a larger project on ESL writing involving freshmen college students in the Philippines, is to explore the relationship between writer's performance, writer's resources, and writer's idea generation process. To measure the writer's performance, diagnostic essays of 85 Filipino freshmen engineering…

Innovative thinking skills are among the top characteristics that employers look for when hiring engineers. Universities are therefore charged with investigating and providing the type of learning environments that will foster the development of innovative thinking especially in large classes. This involves considering multiple factors such as the…

Every year a group of graduates from high schools enter the engineering programs across this country with remarkable academic record. However, as reported in numerous studies, the number of students switching out of engineering majors continues to be an important issue. Previous studies have suggested various factors as predictors for student…

No one is satisfied with science education in the U.S. today. One need only look at Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), and National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data to see what a mediocre job is being done of imparting a solid science education to the…