Morgantown, West Virginia
March 24, 2023
March 24, 2023
March 25, 2023
Diversity
10
10.18260/1-2--44695
https://strategy.asee.org/44695
176
Dr. Xinyu Zhang is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Fundamentals of Engineering Program of Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resource at West Virginia University. She received her Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering in 2012 from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is a licensed P.E. in North Carolina. Her research interests include STEM education such as broadening participation in engineering and advanced technologies for STEM education, engineering entrepreneurship, environmental engineering, and sustainable biomanufacturing. She started to lead a summer bridge program for incoming first-year engineering students called Academy of Engineering Success (AcES) in 2021.
Dr. Jeremy G. Roberts is a Teaching Assistant Professor of Global Supply Chain Management at the John Chambers College of Business and Economics at West Virginia University. He received his Doctorate from the University of Phoenix in 2015 and also possess
Amanda Parrish is a doctoral student and graduate teaching assistant at West Virginia University in the Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering Department. She received her bachelor's and master's degree in Petroleum Engineering from WVU. She worked at Halliburton and Liberty Oilfield Services before returning to WVU to pursue her doctoral degree.
A multidisciplinary engineering project experience was developed and incorporated into a first-year engineering course. This course is an academic success and professional development course that aims to retain educationally disadvantaged students in engineering. Students enrolled in this course were non-calculus-ready/first-semester engineering students. Many were from underserved populations (women, minorities, first-generation, low-income, etc.). Students were tasked to apply multiple engineering disciplines (petroleum and natural gas engineering, civil engineering, environmental engineering, and mechanical engineering) to design a scale model of a safe, cost-efficient, and environmentally friendly oil derrick. Non-engineering factors that were to be considered included societal, global, and cultural factors. In addition, a multidisciplinary judge panel, composed of experts from academia and industry in engineering, math, education, business, and library services, was used for the Poster Expo event. Further, an elevator pitch practice session was conducted with a senior entrepreneurship advisor from the business start-up accelerator within the university.
The multidisciplinary project experience was largely enjoyed by the students surveyed (N=16). Eighty eight percent of students reported the multidisciplinary project design experience is positive to their learning experience. Eighty percent of students reported the multidisciplinary judge panel during the Poster Expo had a positive impact on their learning experience. Eighty eight percent of students reported the project increased their interest in engineering. Ninety four percent of students were retained in engineering by the end of the course in 2022 (N=17), which is much higher than the retention rate in the same course in 2021 (58%, N=17).
Zhang, X., & Roberts, J. G., & Parrish, A. (2023, March), Using a multidisciplinary engineering project in a first-year engineering course for educationally disadvantaged students Paper presented at 2023 ASEE North Central Section Conference, Morgantown, West Virginia. 10.18260/1-2--44695
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