IUPUC Division of Mechanical Engineering

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Browsing IUPUC Division of Mechanical Engineering by Subject "engineering courses"

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    Construction and Use of a Concept Map in an Undergraduate Dynamics Class
    (ASEE PEER, 2022-08-23) Noor-A-Alam, Mohammed; Medez, Julie; IUPUC Engineering
    While the use of technology in education has been rapidly increasing worldwide, the diversity and availability of information and study materials have been increasing at an even faster rate. However, presenting and explaining key course concepts in an effective and organized manner, as well as involving students in interactive learning experiences, are still key parts of teaching in higher education, more specifically, in achieving the educational objectives in the fundamental courses of science and engineering programs. Keeping this in prime consideration, the use of concept maps in basic engineering courses has been very effective and has gained growing attention in recent years. This work studied the use of a concept map in an undergraduate dynamics class. A two-phase hierarchical approach was used to construct two concept maps which were then demonstrated in the beginning of the course to allow students to see the key points of the entire course. The concept maps took the form of trees, with topics branching up from two broad topic areas at the bottom: dynamics of particles and dynamics of rigid bodies. The entire tree was climbed up as the course progressed. The students were asked to build their own concept map at the end of the semester with the goal of stimulating creativity as delineated by constructivism in contemporary pedagogy. A survey was carried out at the end of the course to study student perceptions of using the concept map. While students expressed different opinions on several questions, 100% of the participant students responded “I agree” to the survey item “The concept map was a useful resource for in-class activities”.
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    Standards-Based Specifications Grading in a Hybrid Course
    (ASEE, 2018-06) Mendez, Julie; IUPUC Division of Mechanical Engineering
    Standards-based grading is being used increasingly in engineering courses in place of a traditional points-based grading system. Benefits of standards-based grading include clearly matching course assessments to the learning objectives and putting more focus on learning instead of grades. In specifications grading, students are given detailed requirements with all assignments, which are graded pass/fail. The course grade is based on the number of assignments successfully completed. As more undergraduate courses are offered in online or hybrid formats, there is little documentation of the use of standards-based grading or specifications grading in these course delivery methods in engineering. This work describes the implementation of standards-based specifications grading (SBSG) in a hybrid (approximately 80% online) undergraduate thermodynamics course.
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    Standards-Based Specifications Grading in Thermodynamics
    (ASEE, 2018-04) Mendez, Julie; IUPUC Division of Mechanical Engineering