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Work In Progress: Technical Consulting as an Experiential Form of Peer Tutoring

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Conference

2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Minneapolis, MN

Publication Date

August 23, 2022

Start Date

June 26, 2022

End Date

June 29, 2022

Conference Session

First-Year Programs Division Technical Session 13: Work-in-Progress Postcard Session #2

Page Count

10

DOI

10.18260/1-2--41603

Permanent URL

https://strategy.asee.org/41603

Download Count

124

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Paper Authors

biography

Joshua Hertz Northeastern University

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Dr. Hertz earned a B.S. in Ceramic Engineering from Alfred University in 1999 and then a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2006. Following this, he worked at the National Institute of Standards and Technology as a National Research Council postdoctoral fellow. He joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Delaware as an Assistant Professor in September 2008, leading a lab that researched the effects of composition and nanostructure on ionic conduction and surface exchange in ceramic materials. In 2014, he moved to Northeastern University to focus on teaching and developing curriculum in the First Year Engineering program.

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Abstract

This work-in-progress paper presents an initial study on an instructional innovation for first-year undergraduate engineering. The innovation involves a new, experiential form of peer tutoring wherein upper-class students function as technical Project Consultants for first-year student teams as they design and build a project. The process by which a student team decides that they would benefit from technical consultation, and then selects and uses the services of the peer tutor as a Project Consultant, models as closely as possible the analogous process of hiring a consultant in a real-world engineering project. This paper first presents the design and goals of this program. Then, the procedures developed for selecting, training, and implementing the Project Consultants will be shared. Next, results will be given from feedback collected from both the Project Consultants and the students. This feedback came from brief questionnaires collected from the students and Consultants at the project completion. A lead finding is that the program was used sparingly by the students, with a perceived lack of value being the most common reason for not using this resource. Nevertheless, the Consultants reported a very positive experience working with those teams who chose to participate.

Hertz, J. (2022, August), Work In Progress: Technical Consulting as an Experiential Form of Peer Tutoring Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41603

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