College of Engineering News Room

ASEE’s 126th Annual Conference Hosted by USF in Tampa

For the first time in the history of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), the organization held its annual conference in Tampa, with the University of South Florida serving as the event’s host university. The conference, attended by 3,500 engineers, featured more than 400 technical sessions and research presentations as well as more than 110 exhibitors stationed at the Tampa Convention Center.

“The conference was a great opportunity to showcase the academic strengths of the USF College of Engineering,” said Engineering Dean Robert Bishop. “Many of our faculty and students presented engineering education research or conducted workshops and community service activities.” 

Each of ASEE’s conferences focuses on contributing to the advancement of engineering education curriculum and pedagogies across all engineering disciplines, as well as providing educators, industry partners and stakeholders with networking opportunities. Exhibitors at this year’s conference included Google, NASA Exploration Systems, Boeing, Texas Instruments and a variety of national engineering societies and associations to name a few.

ASEE has more than 12,000 members, that include engineering deans, faculty, students, and government and industry reps. Its partners include 400 engineering colleges and affiliates, more than 50 corporations and a number of government agencies and professional associations.

Tampa Mayor Jane Castor spoke during the opening plenary and welcomed the educators to Tampa, saying she hopes it won’t take another 126 years for the conference to come back to the city.

The plenary included an award ceremony for students who were winners of ASEE’s first-ever video contest as part of its 125th anniversary last year. The competition challenged engineering students of all degree levels to create a 90-second video summarizing how the state of engineering education will have advanced in the next 25 years. USF engineering Ph.D. students Zachariah Beasley and Sadhu Moka won first prize, and you can watch their video below.

Between panels and presentations, guests could participate in a community service activity at the Florida Aquarium co-led by USF Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Maya Trotz, take morning yoga on the Riverwalk or write on ASEE’s Living Wall — a physical comment wall featuring insights and reflections from attendees at each of ASEE’s annual conferences.

The college robotics model design competition featured teams of first-year and second-year engineering students who competed to see which of their robots they designed and built could best surpass a gauntlet of challenges.

ASEE Mechanics Division members could listen to a talk from awards banquet speaker and USF Mechanical Engineering Professor Autar Kaw, who shared how educators could gather top teaching techniques under a universal education framework for all students. Environmental Engineering Division members celebrated with an awards dinner, where USF Civil and Environmental Engineering postdocs Pablo Cornejo and Kevin Orner received the division’s 2019 Best Paper Award.

The conference also featured more than 20 USF engineering faculty members who presented their education research. Below is the full list of their presentations at ASEE 2019:

Minorities in Engineering Division
Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in an Engineering Summer Intervention Program (Research) [view paper] Dr. Tonisha B. Lane (University of South Florida ), Dr. Jonathan Elliot Gaines (University of South Florida), Ms. Selene Willis (University of South Florida), Salam Ahmad (Affiliation unknown), Dr. Kali Lynn Morgan (Georgia Institute of Technology), and Dr. Eugenia Vomvoridi-Ivanovic (University of South Florida)

Poster · NSF Grantees Poster Session
Board 80: Integrating Adaptive Learning Lessons in a Flipped STEM Course: Development, Learning Gains, and Data Analytics [view paper]
Prof. Autar Kaw (University of South Florida), Dr. Renee M. Clark (University of Pittsburgh), Eleonora Emma Delgado (University of South Florida), and Mr. Nicholas Abate (University of South Florida)

Educational Research and Methods Division
Teacher Perceptions of Incorporating Engineering Design in Mathematics and Science Instruction (Research) [view paper] Dr. Eugenia Vomvoridi-Ivanovic (University of South Florida), Dr. Tonisha B. Lane (University of South Florida), Dr. Jonathan Elliot Gaines (University of South Florida), Dr. Kali Lynn Morgan (Georgia Institute of Technology), Ms. Selene Willis (University of South Florida), and Salam Ahmad (Affiliation unknown)

Pre-College Engineering Education Division
Contemporary STEM Issues: Engineering Training of Pre-Service Teachers for Middle School STEM Curriculum Development (Evaluation) [view paper] Dr. Sylvia W. Thomas (University of South Florida), Prof. Scott W. Campbell (University of South Florida), Ms. Manopriya Devisetty Subramanyam (University of South Florida), and Dr. Cheryl R. Ellerbrock (University of South Florida)

Student Division
Research for the Improvement of the Foundations of Engineering Lab Course [view paper] Miss Kelsy Ecclesiastre (University of South Florida) and Mr. Robert Hogan Jr (University of South Florida)

Computers in Education Division
On the Potential of Evolved Parsons Puzzles to Contribute to Concept Inventories in Computer Programming [view paper] Mr. A.T.M. Golam Bari (University of South Florida), Dr. Alessio Gaspar (University of South Florida), Dr. R. Paul Wiegand (University of Central Florida, School of Modeling, Simulation, & Training), Dmytro Vitel (Affiliation unknown), Mr. Kok Cheng Tan (Affiliation unknown), and Stephen John Kozakoff (University of South Florida)

Cooperative and Experiential Education Division
Preparing Engineering Students for Their Profession - A Novel Curricular Approach [view paper] Prof. Joel Howell (University of South Florida), Dr. Chris S. Ferekides (University of South Florida), Dr. Wilfrido A. Moreno (University of South Florida), Dr. Tom Weller (Oregon State University), and Dr. Arash Takshi (University of South Florida)

Design in Engineering Education Division
Engineering Design Instruction Using Slack for Project Support and Teamwork [view paper] Dr. Jonathan Elliot Gaines (University of South Florida), Dr. Olukemi Akintewe (University of South Florida), Dr. Schinnel Kylan Small (University of South Florida), and Terreonn Henry (Affiliation unknown)

Mechanics Division
Verified Solutions using Rotation Operators for Combining Rotations [view paper] Dr. Shuh-Jing Ying P.E. (University of South Florida)

First-Year Programs Division
Engineering Skills and not People through the First-year Design Experience and Service Learning [view paper] Dr. Jonathan Elliot Gaines (University of South Florida)

Mathematics Division
A Course in Differential Equations, Modeling, and Simulation for Engineering Students [view paper] Prof. Scott W. Campbell (University of South Florida), Prof. Carlos A. Smith PhD (University of South Florida), and Silvia M. Calderon (Universidad de Los Andes, Venezuela)

Computers in Education Division
Lessons Learned from Available Parsons Puzzles Software [view paper] Dr. Alessio Gaspar (University of South Florida), Dmytro Vitel (University of South Florida), and Mr. A.T.M. Golam Bari (University of South Florida)

Women in Engineering Division
WiCSE: Impact of a Women’s Support Group on Increasing the Percentage of Women Students in a Department of Computer Science and Engineering [view paper] Dr. Jing Wang (University of South Florida), Prof. Dmitry Goldgof (University of South Florida), and Dr. Ken Christensen P.E. (University of South Florida)

Engineering Ethics Division
Ethical Education in Engineering: A Pedagogical Proposal Based on Cognitive Neurosciences and Adaptative Complex Systems [view paper] Dr. Luis Fernando Cruz (Affiliation unknown), Dr. Wilfrido A. Moreno (University of South Florida), and Joel Howell (University of South Florida)

Poster · Educational Research and Methods Division
Board 39: Designing Intelligent Review Forms for Peer Assessment: A Data-driven Approach [view paper] Zachariah J. Beasley (University of South Florida), Prof. Les A. Piegl (University of South Florida), and Paul Rosen (University of South Florida)