Curricular Innovations and Continuous Improvement of Academic Programs (and Satisfying ABET along the Way): The Elizabeth Judson Memorial Symposium: What Should We Teach and How Should We Teach it?
Sponsored by: TMS Accreditation Committee, TMS Education Committee
Program Organizers: Alison Polasik, Campbell University; Jeffrey Fergus, Auburn University; Assel Aitkaliyeva, University of Florida; Kester Clarke, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Monday 2:00 PM
October 10, 2022
Room: 312
Location: David L. Lawrence Convention Center
Session Chair: Gregg Janowski, The University of Alabama at Birmingham; Kester Clarke, Colorado School of Mines
2:00 PM
Machine Learning and Data Science in the MSE Undergraduate Program: Elizabeth Holm1; 1Carnegie Mellon University
The tools of data science and machine learning are constructed using concepts from the mathematics and statistics core of the undergraduate engineering curriculum; our students are ready and able to learn them. Given the growing importance of these subjects in the practice of materials science and engineering, it makes sense to include data science and machine learning in the undergraduate program. At CMU, we incorporate them into the MSE curriculum via focused modules inserted into our computational materials science course; outcomes and lessons learned will be discussed. Summer research opportunities supplement course offerings; an example of a team project on machine learning for microstructural analysis will be presented and critiqued. Finally, we stress the importance of making MSE data and data science problems more available for student exploration. The ultimate goal is to provide undergraduates with multiple avenues to acquire data science and machine learning experience during their MSE education.
2:20 PM
The Material Science Core: A Need to Align Worldviews?
: Robert Heard1; 1Carnegie Mellon University
Material Science has a complicated relationship with society. For years solutions that have advanced the safety of societies, improved health and quality of life have come from many material developments. We now live on a planet that is in need of material solutions that will aid in the establishment of sustainability, conserving materials and energy and yet still support a developing industrial base. In the curriculum, there has been a substantial growth in “green”, “environmental”, and “sustainable” materials for design of environmentally friendly products including recognition of resource limits of growth, sustainable consumption, the development of sustainable product life cycles and development of the circular economy. These topics resonate with today’s students but can be in conflict with the directions of materials development and thus represent an incongruency in their educational program.Is it time to re-examine the core programs to find an approach to better prepare our graduates?
2:40 PM
Introducing Students to the Importance of Materials in Sustainability: Jeffrey Fergus1; 1Auburn University
Materials science and engineering plays a critical role in the development of sustainable technologies. This presentation will describe three one-credit-hour courses that are designed to demonstrate this importance to students in engineering and non-engineering disciplines. One course focuses on technologies for energy conversion and storage and how materials are critical for enabling advancements in these technologies. The other two courses focus on how materials processing and selection affect the impact products have on the environmental. One of these two courses focuses on mineral resources and their processing while the other course focuses on life cycle assessment.
3:00 PM
Teaching Glass across Disciplines at Alfred University: Alexis Clare1; Jessica Domino1; Doris Möncke1; Angus Powers1; Darren Stohr1; S.K. Sundaram1; 1Alfred University
Interdisciplinary undergraduate teaching has a long tradition at Alfred University, with one favorite class being GlassArtEngine, where students from Art and Engineering work together on glass projects, ranging from developing new colors to stronger glasses, to the use of only natural materials or fusing glasses to other materials. During the spring semester 2022, we also offered an interdisciplinary elective on Natural Glasses for students from Engineering, Art, Science, and Geology. With help from a TA and faculty, students were able to determine the transition temperature of glasses and confirm the amorphous nature of samples, e.g. obsidians, the skeleton of a deep-sea sponge, lightning (fulgurites) or impact (tektite) glasses, even amber. Elemental and structural analysis (IR, Raman) was complemented by a deep dive into the literature. Some students even chose to remelt their own glasses, e.g. space glass with a composition found on Mars. Both classes conclude with a final exhibition
3:20 PM
Investigating the Effects of Different Instructional Methods on Student Performance and Satisfaction in Online Learning: Michael Roberts1; Charles D'Ambra1; Aroba Saleem1; 1University of Florida
The recent COVID-19 pandemic has forced many students to transition to online learning rather than traditional in-person learning. Students learn in many differing ways and recognizing a model where students are set up to succeed is crucial. In this research, two different instructional methods in an online setup, traditional and flipped, were compared, and evaluated. In the traditional class, there were approximately 150 students compared to approximately 100 in the flipped class. Preliminary results suggested the overall exam averages of the traditional and flipped setup were not significantly different. However, the exam distribution showed an enhanced learning outcome in the flipped setup. Further analysis was performed on the exams to identify the challenging topics and to come up with an improved way to deliver the course content. In addition, student satisfaction was quantified using the course evaluation data.
3:40 PM Break
4:00 PM
Assisting Curation of Open-Source Textbook with Natural Language Processing: Amit Verma1; Benjamin Glaser1; Robin Kuo1; Jason Zhang1; Nicholas David1; Zhisong Zhang1; Emma Strubell1; Anthony Rollett1; 1Carnegie Mellon University
Natural Language Processing (NLP) provides a host of solutions to map the knowledge space for the open-source textbook and a pathway to continuously update this mapping. In this direction, we are working on two key ideas: 1) data retrieval; & 2) recognition systems for identifying key concepts and their dependencies, from published literature. The first aims to address the lack of open-access experimental data for various machine learning activities, while the second aim to encode the semantics of the domain for bridging various heterogeneous data sources. In this talk, we will share our vision for the open-source textbook, and where we see NLP tools can support the curation process. Further, we will expand on the tools mentioned, with specific examples to support our vision.
4:20 PM Panel Discussion: Developing an Open Source Introductory Textbook for the Materials Community; Panelists include:Marc De Graef, Carnegie Mellon University; Steven Yalisove, University of Michigan