ASEE awards for WPI educators

The 2022 Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) gets underway on June 26, and for the second consecutive year, contributions from WPI faculty and staff collaborators are among the award winners.

“Compensatory Effects of Flipped Learning for Experienced and New Faculty” has won the Best Paper Award in the New Engineering Educators Division. The lead author is Professor Sarah Wodin-Schwartz, with co-authors Kimberly LeChasseur (Research & Evaluation Associate, Morgan Teaching and Learning Center), Professors Adam Powell and Yihao Zheng, and former WPI professor Sneha Narra, who is now at Carnegie Mellon University. The paper analyzes outcomes of mutual mentoring and sharing of resources between instructors of the statics course in the Mechanical and Materials Engineering (MME) Department.

"Hands On Learning in a Remote Introduction to Statics Classroom Environment," which received the Best Paper Award from the Mechanics Division at the 2021 ASEE Conference, was recently announced as the Best Presentation Award winner based on feedback from attendees. This paper was co-authored and presented by Sarah Wodin-Schwartz, Kimberly LeChasseur, and Caitlin Keller, Senior Instructional Designer in the Academic Technology Center. The paper described the process of designing a series of remote hands-on activities, called Hands on Learning Days (HOLD), for Introduction to Statics based on materials that students have in their residences.The findings suggest that, even under the extreme circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, HOLD had a positive effect on student learning.

These accomplishments are a testament to the value of faculty and staff collaborations that bring together multiple perspectives and forms of expertise. Congratulations to all!