Faculty Development and Interdisciplinary Partnerships: Supporting Change in Instructional Practice of Engineering Faculty Members Through Professional Learning and Pedagogical Expertise

A shortage of science and engineering professionals has led to an effort to engage and retain higher education students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors in the United States. School reformers call on faculty members to shift their teaching practices towards evidence-based instructional strategies that involve students in the learning process. Professional developers provide awareness of innovative strategies, but support during implementation is rare. This case study research examined how one unique professional learning partnership (PLP) between a School of Engineering and School of Education in the Pacific Northwest supported an instructional change. Faculty members supported by the PLP created, implemented, and assessed curriculum in an undergraduate engineering program through training, ongoing coaching, and local and national engineering education networks. In aggregate, 19 faculty member surveys, six interviews, and 42 artifacts and were collected for this study. Key findings revealed that faculty members desire more pedagogical training with their colleagues and implement evidence-based instructional strategies if they see value in the changes. While the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted instruction, faculty members continued to implement strategies that connected students to the real-world using problem-based learning. Conditions that led to continued implementation included support from colleagues, pedagogical coaching, and ongoing feedback. Data evidenced an educational-related research component for faculty development could improve participation and application of new initiatives

A comparison of head and manual control for a position-control pursuit tracking task

Head control was compared with manual control in a pursuit tracking task involving proportional controlled-element dynamics. An integrated control/display system was used to explore tracking effectiveness in horizontal and vertical axes tracked singly and concurrently. Compared with manual tracking, head tracking resulted in a 50 percent greater rms error score, lower pilot gain, greater high-frequency phase lag and greater low-frequency remnant. These differences were statistically significant, but differences between horizontal- and vertical-axis tracking and between 1- and 2-axis tracking were generally small and not highly significant. Manual tracking results were matched with the optimal control model using pilot-related parameters typical of those found in previous manual control studies. Head tracking performance was predicted with good accuracy using the manual tracking model plus a model for head/neck response dynamics obtained from the literature

Medical Electronics

Contains reports on one research project

On the relationship between instability and Lyapunov times for the 3-body problem

In this study we consider the relationship between the survival time and the Lyapunov time for 3-body systems. It is shown that the Sitnikov problem exhibits a two-part power law relationship as demonstrated previously for the general 3-body problem. Using an approximate Poincare map on an appropriate surface of section, we delineate escape regions in a domain of initial conditions and use these regions to analytically obtain a new functional relationship between the Lyapunov time and the survival time for the 3-body problem. The marginal probability distributions of the Lyapunov and survival times are discussed and we show that the probability density function of Lyapunov times for the Sitnikov problem is similar to that for the general 3-body problem.Comment: 9 pages, 19 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Did the Hilda collisional family form during the late heavy bombardment?

We model the long-term evolution of the Hilda collisional family located in the 3/2 mean-motion resonance with Jupiter. Its eccentricity distribution evolves mostly due to the Yarkovsky/YORP effect and assuming that: (i) impact disruption was isotropic, and (ii) albedo distribution of small asteroids is the same as for large ones, we can estimate the age of the Hilda family to be $4_{-1}^{+0}\,{\rm Gyr}$. We also calculate collisional activity in the J3/2 region. Our results indicate that current collisional rates are very low for a 200\,km parent body such that the number of expected events over Gyrs is much smaller than one. The large age and the low probability of the collisional disruption lead us to the conclusion that the Hilda family might have been created during the Late Heavy Bombardment when the collisions were much more frequent. The Hilda family may thus serve as a test of orbital behavior of planets during the LHB. We tested the influence of the giant-planet migration on the distribution of the family members. The scenarios that are consistent with the observed Hilda family are those with fast migration time scales $\simeq 0.3\,{\rm Myr}$ to $3\,{\rm Myr}$, because longer time scales produce a family that is depleted and too much spread in eccentricity. Moreover, there is an indication that Jupiter and Saturn were no longer in a compact configuration (with period ratio $P_{\rm S}/P_{\rm J} > 2.09$) at the time when the Hilda family was created

A model for human controller remnant Final report

Model for predicting human controller remnant due to underlying psychophysical sources in single display control situation