The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of professional development (PD) on the infusion of engineering design into high school curricula. Four inservice teachers with backgrounds in physics, chemistry, industrial education, math, and electrical engineering participated in the 2006 National Center of Engineering and Technology…

The purpose of this study was to assess the Diploma in Computer Engineering (DCE) courses offered at affiliated schools of the Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT) with a focus on the goals of the curriculum and employment opportunities. Document analysis, questionnaires, focus group discussions and semi-structured…

This article describes the TangibleK robotics program for young children. Based on over a decade of research, this program is grounded on the belief that teaching children about the human-made world, the realm of technology and engineering, is as important as teaching them about the natural world, numbers, and letters. The TangibleK program uses…

Early in his career as an engineering librarian, the author saw plagiarism in completely black and white terms. However, digging into the scholarly literature, he finds ample evidence that there are other factors at work in student writing besides a lack of ethics or the intent to cheat. In this article, he briefly highlights some of these…

The topics of solution thermodynamics, activity coefficients, and complex formation are introduced through computational exercises and sample applications. The presentation is designed to be accessible to freshmen in a chemical engineering computations course. The MOSCED model is simplified to explain complex formation in terms of hydrogen…

This manuscript presents a successful application of inductive learning in process modeling. It describes two process modeling courses that use inductive learning methods such as inquiry learning and problem-based learning, among others. The courses include a novel collection of multi-disciplinary complementary process modeling examples. They were…

This article describes "Build a Band" hands-on activity from "Design Squad Nation," which allows kids to use simple materials to build a four-stringed instrument, then tune it and play a song. Kids explore frequency, pitch, and sound energy while following the steps of the engineering design process. By weaving "Design Squad Nation" episodes,…

For years, researchers have shown the value of using real-world data to enhance instruction in mathematics, science, and social studies. In an effort to help develop students' higher-order thinking skills in a data-rich learning environment, Green Research for Incorporating Data in the Classroom (GRID[subscript C]), a National Science…

This study aimed to investigate the models that co-existed in students' cognitive structure to explain the interactions between electric charges and uniform magnetic fields. The sample consisted of 129 first-year civil engineering, geology and geophysics students from a large state university in western Turkey. The students answered five…

Laboratory instruction is a major component of the engineering and technology undergraduate curricula. Traditional laboratory instruction is hampered by several factors including limited access to resources by students and high laboratory maintenance cost. A photorealistic 3D computer-simulated laboratory for undergraduate instruction in…

Outreach, as defined by Wikipedia, is an effort by an organization or group to connect its ideas or practices to the efforts of other organizations, groups, specific audiences, or the general public. This paper describes a computer engineering outreach project of the Department of Computer Engineering at Ege University, Izmir, Turkey, to a local…

While some disasters involving engineered structures are due to events in nature (e.g., tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes), others may be caused by inadequate materials, design flaws, and poor maintenance. These catastrophes result in the loss of human lives and cost billions of dollars. In the set of lessons described here, students design a…

Manufacturers often claim that their particular toothbrush design is better than the competitors, but is it? As a result, engineers must consider the economic issues involved with selling the products they create, as well as their functionality: to produce the best possible toothbrush regardless of cost, or the toothbrush that will sell the most,…

This paper presents an interactive module for learning both the fundamental and practical issues of servo systems. This module, developed using Simulink in conjunction with the Matlab graphical user interface (Matlab-GUI) tool, is used to supplement conventional lectures in control engineering and robotics subjects. First, the paper introduces the…

Knowledge at work and knowledge in the university are recognised as being broadly, differently structured, differently acquired and used for different purposes. The idea of difference creates boundaries which delineate the two knowledge domains, in general, as distinct communities of practice. The question raised here is how the boundary can…