Celebrating 20 Years of the ExCEEd Teaching Workshop

In response to the clear need for faculty training, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) developed and funded Project ExCEEd (Excellence in Civil Engineering Education) which is celebrating its twentieth year of existence. For the past two decades, 38 ExCEEd Teaching Workshops (ETW) have been held at six different universities. The program has 910 graduates from over 267 different U.S. and international colleges and universities. The ExCEEd effort has transformed from one that relied on the grass roots support of its participants to one that is supported and embraced by department heads and deans. This paper summarizes the history of Project ExCEEd, describes the content of the ETW, assesses its effectiveness, highlights changes in the program as a result of the assessment, and outlines the future direction of the program

T4-D: The Impact of Concept Map Development on Student Synthesis of Course Information

Concept maps are a pedagogical tool that encourages students to recognize and develop links between what may appear to be disparate ideas. Identifying these connections encourages a higher cognitive understanding and greater synthesis of broader ideas, both within a course and across multiple courses. In an attempt to reduce concerns about a comprehensive final, and demonstrate the interconnectedness of topics, concept map activities were integrated into a junior level geotechnical engineering course. This paper will provide background on the course and a description of the assignments, activities, and resources used. Results and assessment will be presented, including multiple methods of evaluation such as quantitative and qualitative analysis of generated concept maps, and student survey results regarding the value and impact of the activity. The future direction of the project will also be included

The Impact of Near – Peer Mentoring in an Introductory Course

One methodology researchers have used to reduce or reverse poor retention rates is near-peer mentoring. Studies have shown that acting as a near-peer mentor aided in the mentor’s academic growth and was suggested to be a promising prospect for student retention. Kuh et al. have also demonstrated that the educationally purposeful activities described in the National Survey of Student Engagement, produced a statistically significant increase in first year grades, and second year persistence (2008). A recent review of mentoring programs (Gershenfeld, 2014) suggests that more rigorous research should be completed, particularly with respect to the assessment of the social validity of the programs. The revised introductory course at Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) integrates upper level students as near-peer mentors. The addition of these mentors to the class is designed to allow freshman to more easily find their fit within the college and increase retention. The social validity of the program is evaluated through a mixed method approach including the use of pre and post surveys of the students enrolled in the course and focus group discussions with the students serving as near-peer mentors. The impact of these relationships on student self-efficacy and the future direction of the program will also be included

Various Activities to Facilitate Participation in Group Discussions

Research has shown that group discussions benefit students’ comprehension of material, critical thinking, and development of communication skills. However ensuring both preparation and participation by all, or even a majority of students, are often some of the most challenging aspects of class discussions. This participation is further complicated in larger classrooms, where individual voices may be less likely to be heard – either from the perspective of timing / logistics or from a students’ unwillingness to contribute. Awarding credit for class participation and / or soliciting participation from reticent students are potential solutions, but can be a complex undertaking if an instructor wants to divide a larger class into smaller discussion groups. This poster presents approaches taken in an upper level course at Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) to both increase the preparedness of students for class discussions and promote participation of more students in class discussions. These roundtable activities are weekly occurrences and focus on both historical articles written by some of the most well-known researchers in the field to journal articles published within the last six months on transformative research or recent projects. Inclusion of both pre-class activities and the associated rubrics, as well as various in class approaches will be included

T2-B: CLEAN WATER Outreach Program”

The CLEAN WATER program at Florida Gulf Coast University is an outreach experience that integrates engineering entrepreneurship and regional water quality issues into elementary and middle school classrooms. Coordinated by the U. A. Whitaker College of Engineering and supported by a grant from the EPA, the program combines hands-on classroom activities, physical and virtual field trips and a culminating engineering entrepreneurship challenge on the university campus. Classroom activities include physical models, laboratory testing and analysis, interactive lesson plans, computer simulations, and team based project learning assignments. This paper will discuss the various components of the program as well as provide results of student assessment. Participant feedback will be included along with a discussion on the future direction of the program

The Mentor Experience: Undergraduate Near-Peer Mentor Outcomes Across Two Institutions

This presentation focuses on the early results of a cross-institutional study considering the impact serving as a mentor has on upper-level undergraduate students. Using a focus group methodology, students in different programs at different universities were interviewed with the goal of identifying common outcomes associated with serving in a near-peer mentoring capacity. While differences in results can be attributed to programmatic variations, similarities are expected to be suggestive of broader commonalities that could be generalizable to multiple programs and universities. The mentoring programs of each university will be discussed as well as combined results and the direction of future work

Assessing the Impact of Educational Factors on Conceptual Understanding of Geotechnical Engineering Topics

A study on student understanding of geotechnical engineering topics was conducted at several private and public institutions with civil engineering programs. The institutions vary significantly with respect to their size, student population, location, and Carnegie classification. A background knowledge probe (“pre-test”) and course knowledge survey (“post-test”) were developed based on fundamental concepts in geotechnical engineering to assess the knowledge gained in an introductory undergraduate geotechnical engineering course. The pre-and post-tests were administered over a span of several semesters at these institutions to measure the students’ prior geotechnical engineering knowledge, and the knowledge gained as a result of the course experience, respectively. The purpose of this study is to examine several variables that may correlate with the amount of knowledge gained in the conceptual understanding of geotechnical engineering topics. The educational factors of interest include class size, class meeting time (e.g., morning, mid-day, or afternoon), class length and format (e.g., three times a week for 50 minutes vs. twice a week for 75 minutes), laboratory format (e.g., attached to the course vs. separate from the course), institution type (e.g., public vs. private; Carnegie classification), and faculty attributes (e.g., rank and obtainment of P.E. license). Through detailed statistical analyses, preliminary results show that correlation exists between the amount of knowledge gained in conceptual understanding and a few independent variables (most predominantly, the type of institution). This paper presents the institutional context, geotechnical engineering curricula, educational factors considered, results of statistical analyses, conclusions, suggestions for future research and discusses conditions for optimizing student learning in undergraduate geotechnical engineering courses

I think we should break up - class, that is

Class time, whether in a physical or virtual setting, is a valuable component of the learning process. However, time in class does not always equate to time on task. Class periods can vary in length from 50 minutes to 3 hours or more, but how much of that time are students paying full attention, thinking critically about the material, and engaging with course concepts? Additionally, how might these differing time periods equate to a difference in student engagement, and what can be done to ensure that class time is effective? One potentially effective tool is to provide class breaks at regular intervals. A number of different methods have been used in K-12 education, such as “brain breaks,” to exhaust excess energy, break up classes, and allow students to refocus while in an extended class period. In college classrooms, however, any type of break seems to be far less common, and the effectiveness of breaks and acceptance among engineering students has not been evaluated extensively. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of using class breaks as a pedagogical tool and determine how commonly breaks are deployed. Coauthors at five different universities included a variety of break types and lengths in different engineering courses. The courses varied from first year to graduate level and were offered in-person and hybrid during the Fall 2021 semester. Students were asked to complete a voluntary survey to determine whether breaks helped them stay engaged in the course and what manner of breaks they preferred. The results indicate that about 50% of students have never had a formal break in an engineering class until the one administering the survey, but about 80% of students surveyed said a break somewhat or greatly increased their ability to focus and learn. Only 6% percent reported a reduction in their ability to focus, and 4% reported a reduction in their ability to learn as a result of the break. Recommendations are provided on what types of breaks work in different classroom settings as judged by the faculty and students, the students\u27 perceived ability to focus in classes with breaks, and the students\u27 perception of learning when accompanied by a class break

I think we should break up - class, that is

Class time, whether in a physical or virtual setting, is a valuable component of the learning process. However, time in class does not always equate to time on task. Class periods can vary in length from 50 minutes to 3 hours or more, but how much of that time are students paying full attention, thinking critically about the material, and engaging with course concepts? Additionally, how might these differing time periods equate to a difference in student engagement, and what can be done to ensure that class time is effective? One potentially effective tool is to provide class breaks at regular intervals. A number of different methods have been used in K-12 education, such as “brain breaks,” to exhaust excess energy, break up classes, and allow students to refocus while in an extended class period. In college classrooms, however, any type of break seems to be far less common, and the effectiveness of breaks and acceptance among engineering students has not been evaluated extensively. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of using class breaks as a pedagogical tool and determine how commonly breaks are deployed. Coauthors at five different universities included a variety of break types and lengths in different engineering courses. The courses varied from first year to graduate level and were offered in-person and hybrid during the Fall 2021 semester. Students were asked to complete a voluntary survey to determine whether breaks helped them stay engaged in the course and what manner of breaks they preferred. The results indicate that about 50% of students have never had a formal break in an engineering class until the one administering the survey, but about 80% of students surveyed said a break somewhat or greatly increased their ability to focus and learn. Only 6% percent reported a reduction in their ability to focus, and 4% reported a reduction in their ability to learn as a result of the break. Recommendations are provided on what types of breaks work in different classroom settings as judged by the faculty and students, the students\u27 perceived ability to focus in classes with breaks, and the students\u27 perception of learning when accompanied by a class break

The ASCE ExCEEd Teaching Workshop: Assessing 20 Years of Instructional Development

The Excellence in Civil Engineering Education (ExCEEd) Teaching Workshop (ETW), a week-long teacher-training program sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers, has been improving the quality of university teaching for twenty years. The 41 workshops conducted over this period have produced 963 graduates from 253 universities around the world. This article celebrates the history of this landmark faculty development initiative. It assesses the extent to which the ETW provides a unique contribution and has influenced teaching practices in U.S. civil engineering programs. This assessment includes participant satisfaction, the long-term influence on participants, the influence on those participants who became ETW faculty leaders, the satisfaction of the deans and department heads who sponsored the participants, the scholarship that has resulted from the ETW, and the implied influence on the engineering students who ultimately benefit from this workshop. Finally, the future direction of the ETW is addressed. Although the workshop is intended primarily for civil engineering programs in the U.S., the results of this study are also highly relevant to other engineering disciplines and to engineering programs outside the U.S