Materials Education and Research in Art and Design: A New Role for Libraries - Session 3. RISD Faculty

Faculty from Rhode Island School of Design representing Interior Architecture, Industrial Design, and Textiles detail their thoughtful interactions with materials.

Materials Education and Research in Art and Design: A New Role for Libraries - Session 4. Designers

Designers respond to issues and synthesize ideas from throughout the day as voices from the field who directly encounter the need for recently graduated students to possess the ability to investigate and interrogate materials.

Materials Education and Research in Art and Design: A New Role for Libraries - Session 2. Educators

Educators representing interactions with materials speak to critical approaches, life-cycle concerns, critical thinking of composition/process/properties.

Interactive DC-DC converters tools for instant design and education

This paper deals with the usage of interactive simulations tools to serve as an oriented design tool for the lectures and laboratory experiments in the power electronics courses. A dynamic and interactive visualization of simulations for idealized converters in steady state are provided by the proposed educational tools, allowing students to acquire qualification in non-isolated DC-DC converters, without previous circuitry knowledge, either without the usage of sophisticated simulation packages. The interaction with proposed simulation tools can be accomplished by student using direct or graphic mode. In direct mode the parameters related with the design of converter can be inserted simply editing default values presented in textboxes, while in the graphic mode students interact indirectly with design information by manipulating visual widgets. In order to corroborate the proposed interactive simulation tools, comparisons of results from buck-boost and boost converters on proposed tools and a well-known simulator package with those on experimental evaluation from laboratory classes were presented. © 2009 IEEE.

Design instrucional: uma abordagem do design gráfico para o desenvolvimento de ferramentas de suporte à Educação a Distância

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Introdução à pesquisa com sequências didáticas na formação continuada online de professores de ciências

The integration of research in teaching practices assumes increasing importance and complexity in education. One aspect involved in this issue and poorly investigated is the training of teachers for the development of research linked with their practices. In this context, we present a training for research developed on a distance-learning course in the Science Teaching, which involves the design, implementation and analysis of didactic sequences: the Study Guide to the Initiation of the Term Paper (SGITP). Our research goal is to present a training proposal produced from the results collected from a survey of the literature of the area, and to investigate its application and its results in the teachers' continuing education program. Using data extracted from the production of students and tutors, we concluded that SGITP had a good acceptance among them and it was positively evaluated by teachers, in addition to promoting a greater understanding of research.

Establishing common elements among some science education references as a resource to design a Didactics of Physics program for teachers initial education

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Design, implementação e estudo de uma rede sócio profissional de professores de matemática

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

What is Missing for Traditional Design-Centric Engineering Education to Better Prepare Newly Graduated Engineers for the Global Era?

This paper presents an analysis of the capacity of design centric methodologies to prepare engineering students to succeed in the market. Gaps are brainstormed and analyzed with reference to their importance. Reasons that may lead the newly graduated engineers not to succeed right from the beginning of their professional lives have also been evaluated. A comparison among the two subjects above was prepared, reviewed and analyzed. The influence of multidisciplinary, multicultural and complex environmental influences created in the current global business era is taken into account. The industry requirements in terms of what they expect to 'receive' from their engineers are evaluated and compared to the remaining of the study above. An innovative approach to current engineering education that utilizes traditional design-centric methodologies is then proposed, aggregating new disciplines to supplement the traditional engineering education. The solution encompasses the inclusion of disciplines from Human Sciences and Emotional Intelligence fields willing to better prepare the engineer of tomorrow to work in a multidisciplinary, globalized, complex and team working environment. A pilot implementation of such an approach is reviewed and conclusions are drawn from this educational project.

Úlcera venosa e terapia compressiva para enfermeiros: desenvolvimento de curso online

OBJETIVO: Descrever a elaboração de um curso on-line sobre úlcera venosa, com enfoque em terapia compressiva, para capacitação de enfermeiros. MÉTODOS: O desenvolvimento do curso on-line seguiu as fases de análise, design, desenvolvimento, implementação e avaliação, baseadas no design instrucional contextualizado. RESULTADOS: O curso dividiu-se em dez módulos estruturados no ambiente virtual de aprendizagem Moodle. Caracterizou-se por uma proposta construtivista, visando ampliar a participação do aluno, disponibilizar as principais referências, revisões e consensos, bem como utilizar objetos multimídia e recursos didáticos interativos. CONCLUSÃO: O curso possibilita a capacitação profissional do enfermeiro em terapia compressiva de maneira inovadora, flexível, interativa em diversos ambientes de cuidado.

Design, implementation and evaluation of a virtual laboratory for Computer Engineering Education

Broad consensus has been reached within the Education and Cognitive Psychology research communities on the need to center the learning process on experimentation and concrete application of knowledge, rather than on a bare transfer of notions. Several advantages arise from this educational approach, ranging from the reinforce of students learning, to the increased opportunity for a student to gain greater insight into the studied topics, up to the possibility for learners to acquire practical skills and long-lasting proficiency. This is especially true in Engineering education, where integrating conceptual knowledge and practical skills assumes a strategic importance. In this scenario, learners are called to play a primary role. They are actively involved in the construction of their own knowledge, instead of passively receiving it. As a result, traditional, teacher-centered learning environments should be replaced by novel learner-centered solutions. Information and Communication Technologies enable the development of innovative solutions that provide suitable answers to the need for the availability of experimentation supports in educational context. Virtual Laboratories, Adaptive Web-Based Educational Systems and Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning environments can significantly foster different learner-centered instructional strategies, offering the opportunity to enhance personalization, individualization and cooperation. More specifically, they allow students to explore different kinds of materials, to access and compare several information sources, to face real or realistic problems and to work on authentic and multi-facet case studies. In addition, they encourage cooperation among peers and provide support through coached and scaffolded activities aimed at fostering reflection and meta-cognitive reasoning. This dissertation will guide readers within this research field, presenting both the theoretical and applicative results of a research aimed at designing an open, flexible, learner-centered virtual lab for supporting students in learning Information Security.

Design Simulation for Solar Energy Research and Education

Solar research is primarily conducted in regions with consistent sunlight, severely limiting research opportunities in many areas. Unfortunately, the unreliable weather in Lewisburg, PA, can prove difficult for such testing to be conducted. As such, a solar simulator was developed for educational purposes for the Mechanical Engineering department at Bucknell University. The objective of this work was to first develop a geometric model to evaluate a one sun solar simulator. This was intended to provide a simplified model that could be used without the necessity of expensive software. This model was originally intended to be validated experimentally, but instead was done using a proven ray tracing program, TracePro. Analyses with the geometrical model and TracePro demonstrated the influence the geometrical properties had results, specifically the reflector (aperture) diameter and the rim angle. Subsequently, the two were approaches were consistent with one another for aperture diameters 0.5 m and larger, and for rim angles larger than 45°. The constructed prototype, that is currently untested, was designed from information provided by the geometric model, includes a metal halide lamp with a 9.5 mm arc diameter and parabolic reflector with an aperture diameter of 0.631 meters. The maximum angular divergence from the geometrical model was predicted to be 30 mRadians. The average angular divergence in TraceProof the system was 19.5 mRadians, compared to the sun’s divergence of 9.2 mRadians. Flux mapping in TracePro showed an intensity of 1000 W/m2 over the target plane located 40 meters from the lamp. The error between spectrum of the metal halide lamp and the solar spectrum was 10.9%, which was found by comparing their respective Plank radiation distributions. The project did not satisfy the original goal of matching the angular divergence of sunlight, although the system could still to be used for optical testing. The geometric model indicated performance in this area could be improved by increasing the diameter of the reflector, as well as decreasing the source diameter. Although ray tracing software provides more information to analyze the simulator system, the geometrical model is adequate to provide enough information to design a system.