Research Experience for Veterans and Teachers: Motivation, Program Description, Outcomes and Expectations for Future

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahender Mandala ◽  
Mary Goldberg ◽  
Jonathan Pearlman ◽  
Rory Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Academic Career ◽  
Research Experience ◽  
Undergraduate Level ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
Research Experience For Teachers ◽  
Program Description ◽  
K 12 ◽  
Realization Process ◽  
Product Realization ◽  
Two Populations

Students, especially from the underrepresented groups, are largely underprepared for and unaware of all the STEM opportunities at the undergraduate level. We have recognized this need with two populations: students that come directly out of K-12 schools and military veterans transitioning into college. We offer two programs to combat lower STEM enrollment and attrition at post-secondary institutions: a Research Experience for Teachers program that instructs teachers on an innovative product realization process to excite their K-12 students about STEM disciplines and an Experiential Learning for Veterans in Assistive Technology and Engineering program as a mechanism to advise and prepare Veterans with disabilities for their transition from the combat field to an academic career. In the following paper we look at a novel attempt to combining the two seemingly diverse populations of Teachers and Veterans in a single training initiative, made possible by their overlapping needs and STEM theme.

scholarly journals Undergraduate Disabled Students as Knowledge Producers including Researchers: A Missed Topic in Academic Literature

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lillywhite ◽  
Wolbring
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Education ◽  
Stem Education ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Career ◽  
Post Secondary Education ◽  
Research Experience ◽  
Disabled People ◽  
Disabled Students ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
Academic Literature

Research experience is beneficial for undergraduate students for many reasons. For example, it is argued in academic literature and in reports produced by various organizations that engage with science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education and science education that undergraduate research experience increases the graduation rate in STEM disciplines as well as the amount of students thinking about STEM careers. As such, being researchers should also be of benefit to undergraduate disabled students in all disciplines including STEM education. However, given that undergraduate disabled students encounter many problems within post-secondary education, including STEM education, undergraduate disabled students might encounter problems in becoming researchers. Policies are to be guided by knowledge and evidence. However, knowledge and evidence deficits exist in relation to the lived experience of disabled people. Undergraduate disabled students could decrease the knowledge deficit as researchers and knowledge producers. The numbers of disabled academic faculty are judged as being too low and efforts are under way to increase the number of disabled academics. Increasing the number of undergraduate disabled researchers might increase the available pool of disabled students that pursue an academic career. Given the important role research performed by undergraduate disabled students can play and given that many studies highlight problems for disabled students in post-secondary education in general, we used a scoping review approach to investigate the coverage of undergraduate disabled students as knowledge producers, including as researchers, in the academic literature. Using various search strategies, we obtained 1299 initial hits. However, only 15 had relevant content. No study investigated how undergraduate disabled students select their research topics or how they are enticed to pursue research projects outside of a course-based framework. No study looked at the linkage between being an undergraduate disabled researcher and career choices or using the obtained research skills on the undergraduate level in one’s role as a community member after graduation. Our findings suggest an opportunity for many fields, ranging from disability studies to STEM education, to generate more empirical data and conceptual work on the role of undergraduate disabled students as knowledge producers including as researchers. Such studies could help to increase the numbers of undergraduate disabled students as knowledge producers, including researchers, which in turn could help to increase (a) the number of disabled academics, (b) the number of disabled students who perform research in the community after graduation, (c) the degree success of disabled students and (d) the knowledge available on the social situation of disabled people.

Development of a Multidisciplinary Engineering Research Program for Middle/High School Teachers

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wen Li ◽  
Joshua Kim ◽  
Drew Kim ◽  
Adam Alster ◽  
Marianne Livezey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
High School Teachers ◽  
Stem Education ◽  
Research Program ◽  
Summer Program ◽  
Research Experience ◽  
School Teachers ◽  
Engineering Research ◽  
Research Experience For Teachers ◽  
K 12

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in K-12 schools is critical to inspire young students and prepare them for future college coursework and careers in science and engineering. An effective mechanism for creating and sustaining successful STEM education is to train well-qualified K-12 teachers with a positive attitude and deep knowledge skills in STEM fields. Supported by the National Science Foundation’s Research Experience for Teachers program (NSF RET), the RET Site at Michigan State University (MSU) aims to build a multidisciplinary engineering research program for middle and high school teachers and their students, within a coherent theme of “Smart Sensors and Sensing Systems”. This paper presents an introduction to the MSU’s Site program and highlights the learning outcomes and achievements of the RET participants. The MSU Site has four main components including authentic research experience for teachers during an intensive summer program; curriculum development by integrating engineering design units into teachers’ courses; professional skill development through seminars, facility tours, and field trips; and finally classroom implementation of the developed curricula. Throughout the 6-week summer program, teacher participants were given the opportunity to work closely with graduate students and engineering professors on current research projects in university laboratories. The teachers’ research activities culminated with a final poster report and oral presentation during a symposium at the end of the summer program. Follow-up classroom visits helped to build a strong connection between local middle/high schools and MSU to smooth students’ transitions to college. Since 2016, the Site has graduated 21 middle and high school teachers from the greater Lansing-Detroit area that serve large populations of minority and female students. These RET teachers have produced over 24 sets of curriculum plans and classroom activities, 3 sets of which have been published by an online digital library, TeachEngineering.org (TE), and 8 sets of which have been accepted by TE. Finally, from the findings of the RET Site, the paper discusses best practices and recommendations for incorporating teachers into a university laboratory setting.

Summer Research and Collaborative Professional Development Experience for NSF RET Teachers in Advanced Manufacturing and Materials

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahsan Mian ◽  
Margaret Pinnell ◽  
Leanne Petry ◽  
Raghavan Srinivasan ◽  
Suzanne Franco ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Field Trips ◽  
Advanced Manufacturing ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Research Experience ◽  
Engineering Research ◽  
Regional Universities ◽  
National Science Foundation Research ◽  
Research Experience For Teachers ◽  
K 12

The current collaborative National Science Foundation Research Experience for Teachers (NSF-RET) site placed seventeen in-service and pre-service teachers with research mentors at one of the three regional universities WSU, CSU, and UD to work on engineering research projects. These research projects were chosen in such a way so that they were relevant to regional strengths in advanced manufacturing and materials. In addition to research, the RET teachers participated in various professional development (PD) activities such as “boot camp” facilitated by ASM Materials Education Foundation prior to the start of their research experience, field trips, seminars given by guest speakers and group work that produced K-12 curriculum related to the teams’ research experience. The teacher groups also presented the developed STEM curriculum and the final laboratory project results, and provided regular guided reflections regarding their efforts during the six-week program. This paper presents a brief overview of the collaborative RET project and details the achievement during the first project year. Emphasis is given to the collaborative PD activities of all seventeen teachers and the research projects performed by the two WSU RET groups comprised of four in-service and two pre-service teachers.

The integration of a community service learning water project in a post-secondary chemistry lab

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Ho ◽  
Boris S. Svidinskiy ◽  
Sahara R. Smith ◽  
Christopher C. Lovallo ◽  
Douglas B. Clark
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Secondary Students ◽  
Community Service ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Community Service Learning ◽  
Secondary Chemistry ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
K 12

Community Service Learning (CSL) is an experiential learning approach that integrates community service into student projects and provides diverse learning opportunities to reduce interdisciplinary barriers. A semester-long chemistry curriculum with an integrated CSL intervention was implemented in a Canadian university to analyze the potential for engagement and positive attitudes toward chemistry as a meaningful undertaking for 14 post-secondary students in the laboratory as well as for their 400 K-12 student partners in the community. Traditionally, introductory science experiments typically involve repeating a cookbook recipe from a lab book, but this CSL project allowed the post-secondary and K-12 students to work collaboratively to determine the physical and chemical properties and total dissolved solids in the water fountains from the K-12 students' schools. Post-instructional surveys were completed by all learners and were analyzed using a mixed methodological approach with both quantitative and qualitative methods. The expected audience that may be interested in this study are those involved in teaching chemistry in higher education and at the K-12 level as well as those interested in service learning, community and civic engagement, experiential learning, and development of transferable skills in chemistry. The results demonstrate that both groups of students report favorable engagement and attitudes towards learning chemistry and higher self-confidence levels on performing lab skills after the activity. Furthermore, both groups of students expressed interest in exploring future projects, which is indicative of the positive impact of CSL and the mutual benefits of the partnership.

SHARP: A System for Haptic Assembly and Realistic Prototyping

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abhishek Seth ◽  
Hai-Jun Su ◽  
Judy M. Vance
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Prototyping ◽  
Mechanical Assembly ◽  
Swept Volumes ◽  
Physically Based ◽  
Product Design Process ◽  
Costly Product ◽  
Easy Integration ◽  
Realization Process ◽  
Product Realization

Virtual Reality (VR) technology holds promise as a virtual prototyping tool for mechanical assembly; however, several developmental challenges still need to be addressed before virtual prototyping applications can successfully be integrated into the product realization process. This paper describes the development of SHARP (System for Haptic Assembly & Realistic Prototyping), a portable VR interface for virtual assembly. SHARP uses physically-based modeling for simulating realistic part-to-part and hand-to-part interactions in virtual environments. A dual handed haptic interface for realistic part interaction using the PHANToM® haptic devices is presented. The capability of creating subassemblies enhances the application’s ability to handle a wide variety of assembly scenarios. Swept volumes are implemented for addressing maintainability issues and a network module is added for communicating with different VR systems at dispersed geographic locations. Support for various types of VR systems allows an easy integration of SHARP into the product realization process resulting in faster product development, faster identification of assembly and design issues and a more efficient and less costly product design process.

Introducing the Industrial Product Realization Process Into Mechanical Engineering Design Education

1995 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vance D. Browne
Keyword(s):  
Product Development ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Process Development ◽  
Project Planning ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Engineering Project ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Realization Process ◽  
Product Realization

Abstract The process by which new products are brought to market — the product realization process, or PRP — can be introduced in engineering design education. In industry, the PRP has been evolving to concurrent engineering and product teams. The PRP includes components such as concept generation, analysis, manufacturing process development and customer interaction. Also, it involves the sequencing of the components and their connections which includes teamwork, project planning, meetings, reports and presentations. A capstone senior engineering project, along with classroom lectures and presentations can be structured to provide knowledge and experience to the students in many of the PRP components and the connections. This paper will give an overview of the PRP and a project/lecture structure at the author’s university. The instructor recently joined the academic ranks after years in industry with responsibility for directing product development and R&D and for leading product development teams.

Quality Assurance and Online Higher Education

2011 ◽  
pp. 3073-3083
Author(s):  
Edward D. Garten ◽  
Tedi Thompson
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Role Models ◽  
Teaching Profession ◽  
Teaching Competencies ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
Motivation For Learning ◽  
Curriculum Instruction ◽  
Critical Competencies ◽  
K 12 ◽  
The Way

This is an urgently needed topic. It is the author’s conviction that, currently, there are no 21st century schools and, even worse, there is no substantive and widely held vision about what such schools should look like, and what the role and competencies of teachers in those schools should be. So, the tendency of most educators writing about needed 21st century teaching competencies will be to pretty much “rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.” Most will be driven by another equally repugnant cliché, “Technology is only a tool,” and they will try to determine how this misunderstood tool can best enhance out-of-date and fast-aging approaches to K-12 curriculum, instruction, and assessment. This is not to say that the wonderful array of traditional teaching competencies and skills that have enabled teachers to have generally done such an impressive job of teaching our children over the last century will cease to be important. The ability of teachers to understand and connect with students; to impart considerable knowledge and wisdom about their subject; to provide them with good adult role models; to cultivate their motivation for learning; to encourage their sensitivity toward, and appreciation of, individual and cultural differences; to prepare them for post-secondary education and/or the world of work; and even, to sometimes be “the sage on the stage,” will remain critical competencies as long as there is a teaching profession. But just as technology has dramatically transformed society, the way we work, the way we live, even the way we think about things, schools must be dramatically transformed in the way they work, in the way content is processed, and maybe most importantly, in the way teachers teach and students learn.

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