LETU Receives Grant for Engineering Education Research
Posted/updated on: October 23, 2011 at 5:55 pm
LONGVIEW — The National Science Foundation has awarded $47, 055 to LeTourneau University mechanical engineering professor Matthew Green’s research under its Engineering Education program, designed to improve how students learn drawing-related concepts in engineering. Green will collaborate with Texas A&M University to development innovative learning systems. This project engages two universities with different educational missions to ensure that the results are widely applicable to other engineering schools. Green is also involved in another National Science Foundation funded project at LeTourneau University, to increase the quality, and scope, of student support structures available for recruitment, retention and career placement.
“We are pleased to have world-class engineers like Dr. Green at LeTourneau,” said Ron DeLap, LETU engineering dean. “Dr. Green’s work has the potential to open new pathways to engineering for under-represented segments of our society. LeTourneau’s
highly successful, student-focused engineering program continues to attract attention from the National Science Foundation and from major universities throughout the United States.”
Green’s engineering education research project builds from previous research on how computer-aided feedback to students improves how the students learn drawing-related concepts in engineering statics. By researching how to integrate rapid-feedback between instructor and student, this project will enable computer-assisted drawing tools to be utilized in introductory engineering statics courses to improve student learning.
The broader significance and importance of this project will be to overcome barriers for integrating effective software tools into critical, large enrollment engineering courses early in the curriculum. The needs of students who are typically under-represented in engineering are addressed in the research project. This project overlaps with NSF’s strategic goals of transforming the frontiers by enhancing research infrastructure and data access to broaden research capabilities as well as innovating for society by supporting the development of innovative learning systems.
