Browsing by Author "Eggermont, Marjan"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Bridging the gap between evidence-informed and actual teaching practices of engineering educators: an AI-enhanced professional learning system
    (2023-09-21) Nelson, Nancy Lynn; Brennan, Robert W.; Male, Sally; Sun, Qiao; Hugo, Ron; Eggermont, Marjan; Francis, Krista
    Imagine a classroom where engineering students are challenged to apply what they’re learning, where they interactively explore the complexities of authentic, level-appropriate engineering problems, supported by professors who are aware of and apply evidence-informed teaching practices. Expectations align with the engineering workplace. Learners improve their acquired knowledge and skills through experimentation and deliberate practice. They harness systems thinking as they make connections and see patterns. They are challenged to adapt to whatever scenario they face, to identify problems, think critically, generate and model effective solutions, and to make justifiable decisions. Learners experience the tension between knowing and doing engineering things. They learn firsthand, and in context, what it means to be a practicing engineer. This aspiring approach is very different from the didactic practices reported in most Canadian undergraduate engineering classrooms. The challenge, and the focus of this research, is to encourage and assist engineering educators to stretch their current teaching practices beyond what’s comfortable and customary, to those that are both evidence-informed and truly representative of engineering. This research is a blend of interdisciplinary mixed-methods and design-based research. The interdisciplinary mixed-method research integrates the findings of educational research, learning sciences, professional learning, and systems thinking. Sixteen research studies explore the experiences and practices of educators and students in the Canadian undergraduate engineering system. These findings confirm that a gulf exists between evidence-informed teaching practices and what happens in the typical undergraduate engineering classroom. They clearly establish the need for an educational development model that translates existing educational research into tangible, level-appropriate teaching practices for engineering educators at all levels of experience and skill. This foundational research leads to the design and development of this thesis' first of three contributions, the LENS (Learning Environments Nurture Success) model of engineering faculty development. This model, which is comprised of six lenses that align with an effective learning environment, offers a practical framework to support educational development and planning for all forms of delivery (face-to-face, remote, blended, or hybrid). It can be used independently, in consultation with an educational developer, or in collaboration with colleagues. It threads educator-related threshold concepts associated with learning, pedagogy, assessment, and teaching with technology through each of six lenses, and links myriad interdisciplinary research findings to facilitate the successful education of undergraduate engineering students. The second contribution of this research is a proof-of-concept intelligent Professional Learning System (iPLS). This AI-enhanced learning platform individualizes and guides the development of professional knowledge and skills. The look, feel, and functionality of this proof-of-concept iPLS is shaped by an integration of research findings in professional learning, training and development, technology-based learning, and AI in education. The final contribution of this work is an iPLS application designed to help engineering educators develop their teaching practices. It provides needs-specific recommendations based on an individual's ranking on a novice to expert continuum and achieved teaching-related thresholds. Quantitative and qualitative field test results show the combined LENS, iPLS, and engineering education application (EEA) to be a viable method by which engineering educators can stretch their teaching to include more evidence-informed teaching practices. Using the elements of an elegant design as its measure, the system is determined to be effective and robust with a minimal number of unexpected consequences.
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    Calgary - A Bee City
    (2021-12-22) Summers, Mindi; Best, Lincoln; Robinson, Samuel; Seal, Michaela; Purvis, Emily; Vermaak, Sarah; Clarke, Arminty; Gavin, Michael; Miksha, Ron; Eggermont, Marjan
    Visual summary of Calgary's native bee biodiversity and the 15 native plants found to support the greatest diversity of wild bees.
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    Critical Pedagogical Interventions in Engineering: Deconstructing Hierarchical Dualisms to Expand the Narratives of Engineering Education
    (2024-01-12) Paul, Robyn Mae; Brennan, Robert; Behjat, Laleh; Eggermont, Marjan; Black, Kerry; Sun, Qiao; Sengupta, Pratim; Lord, Susan
    Engineering in the western world is often framed as neutral or apolitical, meaning engineering education trains engineers to take little responsibility for perpetuating society’s biases through our technologies (such as racism, colonialism, and environmental degradation). In this thesis, I argue that as problem solvers and critical thinkers involved in the world’s biggest challenges, it is our ethical responsibility to unmask the hidden belief systems and dominant narratives that currently drive the engineering sector. Within our society, dualisms are embedded across our value systems, such as the dualisms of woman-man, emotion-reason, nature-culture, and social-technical. These dualisms exist as opposites, exclusive, and in a value-hierarchy (i.e. man-reason-culture-technical are typically viewed in exclusive opposition and valued higher than woman-emotion-nature-social). This thesis uses the hierarchical dualisms pedagogical framework to bring light to the normative cultures of engineering education and aims to support engineering education communities in increasing their critical consciousness and becoming aware of dominant value systems. Thus, my primary research question is: How do we design practices that unmask the hierarchical dualisms to build expanded narratives of engineering and engineering education? I answer this question by (1) outlining a framework of hierarchical dualisms and dominant narratives including illustrative case studies; (2) summarizing two pedagogical innovations I designed and implemented to unmask different hierarchical dualisms; and (3) analyzing my own writing for dominant narratives through a discourse analysis. Throughout, this thesis takes a non-traditional research approach to align my methodology with the epistemological assumptions of the research paradigm. I leverage dialogicity, relationality, and storytelling methodologies to describe my journey of doing paradigm shifting work in the field of engineering education. Overall, this thesis found that through increasing critical consciousness, broadening our systems thinking, engaging in interdisciplinary dialogue, being willing to transcend engineering boundaries, and imagining radical futures we can create momentum for emergent change that will foster liberatory education. As educators, students’ four years of undergraduate engineering in academia are our great opportunity to radically transform engineering students’ way of thinking about technology and design, and give them the skills and tools to radically transform the purpose of engineering.
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    Notes on the body: a written accompaniment to the thesis exhibition
    (1998) Eggermont, Marjan; Laing, William
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    Panel Discussion: Open educational resources
    (2014-12-05) Hickerson, Tom; Henry, Jarett; Estefan, Andrew; Eggermont, Marjan; McKiernan, Erin
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    Turbulent wake structure and dynamics for the thin flat plate normal to a uniform flow: a study of two dynamically stable solutions
    (2021-07-23) Braun, Eric Anthony; Martinuzzi, Robert; Hu, Yaoping; Wood, David; Ware, Antony; Hu, Yaoping; Martinuzzi, Robert; Eggermont, Marjan
    This thesis presents a comparative experimental study of the differences in the structure and dynamics of two nominally two-dimensional turbulent wakes behind a thin flat plate placed normal to a uniform flow. The flows are differentiated by their end conditions: with and without end plates. Both cases are characterized by Karman-like vortex shedding with broadband low frequency unsteadiness. Both wakes evidence a low frequency flapping motion, associated with a flow normal oscillation of the shear layers, as well as a slowly drifting baseflow that is common to cylinder wakes. However, significant differences in the mean velocity fields, back pressures, shedding frequencies, turbulence levels, and Reynolds stress magnitudes/spatial distributions indicate the existence of two dynamically stable solutions. Thus, the flat plate distinguishes itself from standard bluff body flows featuring unique solutions. Low-order representations of the flow fields are used to reconstruct the wake dynamics. The results show that the underlying dynamics differ in terms of the energy distribution and content of otherwise similar modes of coherent motion. For the open end case, a greater cycle-to-cycle variation of the shedding process is associated with a comparatively stronger slow-varying mode in the base region. In contrast, for the closed end case, a shear layer flapping mode is more strongly expressed, which may account for greater variations in the trajectories of the shed vortices. These differences are then related to the structure and intensity of the Reynolds stress fields. A better understanding of the vortex formation process is developed to account for differences in the vortex streets. A careful accounting of the vorticity transport in the wake is conducted and the contributions of different mechanisms are assessed. The work further contributes a new model for estimating the circulation associated with shed vortices which accounts for vorticity not captured in the core region. Despite the strength of the shed vortices being similar between the two cases, differences in the formation regions, such as the rates of vorticity decay, suggest that the concentration of vorticity within the separated shear layers and forming vortices are important to the wake dynamics.
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    waveforms
    (2023-11-14) Tuell, Sara Lydia; Leier, Heather; Stark, Trevor; Feder, David; Ho-You, Jill; Eggermont, Marjan
    My research explores the relationship between creativity and curiosity by investigating questions posed by quantum science about the nature of reality, particularly regarding the concepts of fundamental uncertainty, wave-particle duality, superposition, the measurement problem, entanglement and emergence. This support text will provide important context for the development of my research methodology as well as discussions on the creation and analysis of the two artworks in the exhibition at Contemporary Calgary: Looking Up at the Surface and Emergence. The artworks in my thesis exhibition, waveforms, are the physical and conceptual manifestations of life in a non-deterministic universe. They are conceptual and perceptual metaphors for fundamental uncertainty, our relationship to the quantum world and ourselves as emergent beings. The overarching conclusions of my work concern the limitations on our ability to know the “truth” about the universe, but also the understanding that each of us carry “truth” in our unique, subjective perspectives as we experience and create reality.