2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Enabling K-14 Educators in Developing and Deploying Advanced Manufacturing Curricula

Presented at Design in Engineering Education Division (DEED) - Engineering Design and First-Year Education

Manufacturing is undergoing rapid changes due to the demands of product complexity and variety, and therefore factories are demanded to become smarter and more efficient. This transformation is known as advanced manufacturing and will require a new generation of skilled employees. There is a huge lack of qualified personnel in advanced manufacturing stemming from a lack of student interest compounded with a lack of experienced teachers who usually motivate students. This paper describes the findings of an NSF RET project at an US university that successfully addresses the common need to produce STEM graduates in the advanced manufacturing area. We recruited fifteen high school and community college STEM educators for a six-week immersive summer research experience in the state-of-the-art robotics laboratory. At the end of their research workshop, they developed customized hands-on advanced manufacturing curricula for their students. This project produced fifteen competent high school and community college educators, who are capable of blending research with educational activities at their institutions, motivating students for STEM degrees, and building long-term collaborative partnerships in the region. This paper will share some of their successful research projects, how they translated their research into actionable curriculum modules, and some lessons learned from implementations. This paper will also explain the evaluation process and share the results. In view of the pre-survey and post-survey data analyses, it can be concluded that educator participants of the program increased their knowledge and research experiences at very high-quality research facilities and under expert guidance.

Authors

Dr. MD B. Sarder http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5502-7276 Bowling Green State University [biography]

Dr. Sarder is a professor & director of the School of Engineering at Bowling Green State University (BGSU). Prior to joining BGSU, he worked at the U.S. Air Force Academy as a distinguished research fellow. He served as an associate professor, and graduate director of the logistics, trade, and transportation program at the University of Southern Mississippi (USM). Dr. Sarder has a record of excellence in research, teaching, and services as evidenced by the number of funded grants, list of publications, outstanding teaching evaluations, and professional services in the national and international arena. Dr. Sarder spent more than 15 years in administration as a school director, department chair, graduate director, program coordinator, and assistant director of a research center. During his academic tenure, he developed a school of engineering, a school of aviation, two new engineering programs, a graduate logistics transportation program, and two university centers. Dr. Sarder authored 5 books and 7 book chapters. Two of his textbooks including Fundamentals of Economics for Applied Engineering (2nd edition) with CRC Press and Logistics Transportation Systems with Elsevier are being used in many universities nationally and internationally. Dr. Sarder published more than 100 scholarly articles predominantly on logistics and supply chain domains. He served as a PI and Co-PI on more than 30 grants ($5+ million) funded by several agencies including the US Department of Transportation, the US Department of Commerce, the US Department of Defense, and the National Science Foundation. He received numerous awards in research, teaching, and professional services.
Apart from academic pursuits, he is deeply involved in institutional and professional society activities. Dr. Sarder is actively engaged with the AABI and ABET. He serves or has served on the editorial board for several journals including Transportation Research Records, Complexity, and Journal of Enterprise Transformation. He also served as the editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Logistics Transportation Research. He founded the logistics & supply chain division within the Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers (IISE) and served as the founding president of that division. He also served as Technical Vice President of IISE for three terms. Currently, Dr. Sarder is leading a student leadership board (SLB) and chairing the Future Faculty Fellows (3F) programs at IISE. He served on the College Industry Council on Material Handling Education (CICMHE) board, the academic committee of the Association of Operations Management (APICS), the Transformation Team on the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE), the Research Committee of Intermodal Freight Transport committee, Freight Transportation Planning and Logistics committee of Transportation Research Board (TRB) among others. Dr. Sarder chaired the Industrial & Systems Engineering Annual Conference in 2016 and 2017, and the Engineering Lean Six Sigma Conference (ELSS) in 2013.
Mohammad Mayyas Bowling Green State University
Mohammed Abouheaf Bowling Green State University [biography]

Dr. Abouheaf earned his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Electronics Engineering from Mansoura University and completed his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington in 2013. Currently, he holds the position of Associate Professor in the School of Engineering at Bowling Green State University. Dr. Abouheaf's research pursuits encompass a broad spectrum, including Systems & Control, Machine Learning, and Applied Mathematics, all with a specialized focus on the application of autonomous and intelligent systems. His contributions lie in advancing the comprehension, design, and efficacy of cooperative and model reference adaptive control solutions. This is primarily achieved through the utilization of data-driven methodologies, optimization paradigms, reinforcement learning algorithms, and adaptive critics.
Dr. Gül E. Kremer http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8070-825X University of Dayton

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