Bryan Boudouris, assistant professor of chemical engineering, is using part of a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant headed by Michael Harris, Reilly Professor of Chemical Engineering, to introduce FYE students to nanotechnology. The goal was to create a new path for undergraduate students to develop an interest in nanotechnology by providing a strong background that starts in their foundational courses and continues throughout their career at Purdue.

“We put together a program that pushed the boundaries of complexity while still allowing it to be communicated to a broad audience,” Boudouris says.

He collaborated with Heidi Diefes-Dux, professor in the School of Engineering Education – where the FYE Program is housed.

“She taught me a number of significant lessons regarding engineering education pedagogy, which is one of the many big things she did for me,” he says. “She also showed me what was realistic to try to cover versus what was unrealistic for a group of students from a very diverse set of backgrounds.

“I had some misconceptions, especially with respect to what I thought previous experience in high school was versus the data that Heidi showed me on the prerequisite skills the students actually have. That helped me center my thinking on learning objectives.”

“We don’t do nanotechnology in FYE,” Diefes-Dux says. “And I thought, I’d be interested in writing new mathematical modeling problems, ones that introduce students to current topics in engineering serve dual purposes of exposing students to the topic and enabling realistic context for learning mathematical modeling and design.”

Boudouris created a mathematical modeling activity involving quantum dot solar cells. The two decided to stick with the topic and also created a new class design project for students – Developing a Simulation Suite for Planning Photovoltaic Solar Panel Fabrication. The idea was piloted in two sections of ENGR 132 during the Fall 2014 Semester. All 15 sections of the class are doing the modeling activity this semester and more than half of the sections continuing it with the design project.

Connecting FYE with the other disciplines

The video lecture Boudouris made after the pilot allowed him to have "face time" with students in multiple sections of ENGR 132.

The collaboration between Boudouris in the School of Chemical Engineering and Diefes-Dux and others in the School of Engineering Education has been an involved, yet enjoyable, process, according to those involved. Besides meeting to draft and revise plans, Boudouris gave a lecture to each section of the class during the pilot phase and recorded a 16 minute video lecture for use in the roll-out this spring. Diefes-Dux says the time commitment and demanding constraints for the problems developed for the FYE students can make it difficult to connect with the professional schools.

“The problems have to have pretty solid story lines,” she says, “because we want the students to have a complex enough story to read that they have to kind of tease out who are all the stakeholders and why do these stakeholders care. So it can’t be a three line problem. It has to be a richer thing than that.”

While the basic concept of the problem came somewhat easily for Boudouris, he said the critical part was the ENE faculty and staff helping him format the content and deliver the material to the students in the best way. Without these crucial aspects the learning objectives associated with even the most cutting-edge problem could be lost.

“I think any junior faculty member can come up with a word problem for their field that has to do with nanotechnology,” he says, “and learn how to make something bigger from there. That has been the cool part.”

Boudouris thinks the experience will benefit him when it’s time to teach the students as sophomores and juniors, because he will have a better understanding of the instructional methods used in the FYE program.

“We want to highlight this partnership,” Diefes-Dux says, “because I think we can create more problems like this and I think that it’s an opportunity for researchers in engineering to disseminate their research to audiences and have impact with their research, but also have impact and face time with our first-year students.”

Early data

As with most instances of introducing a new technique, method or problem in FYE, engineering education faculty and graduate students conduct research on its implementation and impact on students. Doctoral candidate Kelsey Rodgers is heading up the research on the implemented quantum dot modeling and simulation design activities.

“Based on research I conducted with Drs. Diefes-Dux and (Krishna) Madhavan, we found ENGR 132 students have trouble understanding what makes a simulation and the connection between mathematical models and simulations,” Rodgers says. “This new modeling activity presented an opportunity for the research team to further the mathematical modeling development with a simulation development design project.”

She says having the mathematical modeling and the design project both focused on the quantum dots problem context gave students a more connected learning experience.

“Our preliminary findings have shown that more students present a better understanding that simulations are based on mathematical models,” Rodgers says, “and the simulation design project has even enabled some teams to further improve their original mathematical models while adding the components necessary for their simulation, such as manipulatable variables and visualization.”

The team’s overall research on introducing nanotechnology into FYE shows it enables many students to understand how nanotechnology is impacting the various disciplines of engineering and their field of study. This finding is similar to the goal of the NSF grant project that involves Boudouris.

“Does this encourage more students to continue in nanotechnology pathway from their FYE classes, on? Do they seek out those kinds of classes when they enter their disciplines – those elective classes? Do they do research that’s more nanotechnology-focused?” he says.

NSF officials want to know what happens after graduation. They hope to find out if undergraduate experiences with nanotechnology lead students to find graduate programs or careers with nanotech companies.