When am I ever going to use this? An investigation of the calculus content of core engineering courses

Background Engineering students inconsistently apply equilibrium when solving problems in statics, but few studies have explored why. Visual cognition studies suggest that features of the visual representations we use to teach students influence what domain knowledge they use to solve problems. However, few studies have explored how visual representations influence what problem‐solving strategies and domain knowledge students of different levels of expertise use when solving problems that require them to create and coordinate multiple representations. Purpose/Hypothesis This study addressed the following research question: How do students with different levels of expertise coordinate their problem‐solving strategies, problem‐solving heuristics, and representation features when sketching their shear force and bending moment diagrams? Design/Method We conducted think‐aloud interviews while students sketched shear force and bending moment diagrams. These interviews were subsequently analyzed using the constant comparative method to examine the effect of representations on students' problem‐solving approaches. Results Three themes emerged from the data: Students used heuristics that are based on perceptually salient features to sketch their shear force and bending moment diagrams; students across levels of expertise rely on the object translation heuristic rather than equilibrium problem‐solving schema to sketch and reason through their shear force and bending moment diagrams, and domain knowledge aids students' ability to resolve conflicting heuristics. Our findings suggest that students primarily rely on heuristics triggered by representation features they notice. Conclusions Students engaged with shear force and bending moment diagrams not as a way to describe systems that are not accelerating but as a series of representations that “should go to zero” or arrows that make things “not zero.”

Many stakeholders have called for education reform and particularly regarding the outdated manner in which we generally educate engineers. As a result, understanding dissemination and implementation tactics of research-based instructional strategies (RBIS) has emerged as a critical topic within engineering education research. Additionally funding agencies such as the NSF, have encouraged interdisciplinary projects where STEM faculty work with education experts to apply innovations in teaching. However, how to make these joint ventures successful is less well understood. For example, collaboration in engineering education research typically focuses on student teams or how professional engineering teams learn to work together. Fewer studies articulate how to motivate engineering faculty to interact across engineering disciplines, let alone, with non-engineering faculty such as educational experts. Therefore, the research team sought to understand, how can we develop a culture of collaboration among STEM faculty around the issue of implementing teaching innovation including RBIS's? The specific guiding research question for the current study is how do faculty in STEM describe their experience participating in the Strategic Instructional Innovations Program (SIIP) -a program designed to promote and support the implementation of teaching innovation?This qualitative study employs an exploratory phenomenological approach, using semistructured interviews with 12 STEM faculty across academic ranks. The participants worked on a collaborative team project(s) to implement teaching innovations at a Midwestern large researchintensive, predominantly white institution (PWI). The project durations ranged from one to three years for sustainable implementation of teaching innovations. The semi-structured interviews covered the participant's previous teaching experience prior to joining the SIIP community, a description of their current role in the community including what did and did not work well, and a description of their vision for the community in the future. Consistent with phenomenological research, the interviews were evaluated holistically to allow essential themes of the experience to emerge.Preliminary results of the phenomenological analysis suggest three emergent themes. First, the participants specified the entry point for implementing instructional innovation. That is to say, the departmental culture was emphasized as a key structural support to ensure the sustainability of the implemented innovation. The second emergent theme articulated by the participants, was the recognition of individual skills and abilities within the SIIP community. Specifically, the expanded peer interaction fostered an environment for complimentary skills to thrive. For example, some of the STEM faculty were more comfortable than others with flipping their classroom, particularly with large service courses with over 100 students, and were able to share best practices or personal success stories. Finally, most participants acknowledg...

How engineering students use domain knowledge when problem solving using different visual representationsBackground: Engineering students commonly learn domain knowledge by engaging with visual representations of it. However, at times they have trouble accessing information from these representations due to the way information is encoded in features of the representation.Purpose: To describe how students engage with representation features, we explored two research questions: 1) What is the interplay between how concepts are encoded within representations, students' use of those concepts, and how students translate between representations during their problem solving and 2) How is the interplay described in Research Question 1 similar and different across students in statics versus those in digital logic? Design/Method: We synthesized findings from two of our prior research studies using the constant comparative method. We describe the effect of representations on students' ability to access and use domain knowledge during problem solving within and across engineering disciplines. Results:We identified three themes that describe how visual representations affect students' reasoning. First, students conflated concepts that were represented using similar features.

Nicole received her B.S. in Engineering Physics at the Colorado School of Mines ('13) and her PhD in Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ('18). She is currently a lecturer in the Materials Engineering Department at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. In addition to teaching across the curriculum, she studies mental health in engineering students and engages in outreach with underrepresented groups in STEM.