Continuous Improvement System B.S. Metallurgical Engineering Program F03 Curriculum The following items are thought by program faculty members to be the most important curricula improvements in the coming year. Cross-pollination – Faculty need to make greater instructional use of faculty expertise within the department. For example, computational tools used by one faculty member are not used to full advantage by other faculty members even though the need is clear to his students. This results in a mismatch in instructor procedures and student expectations not to mention computational efficiency and esteem issues that accompany such lapses. The same problem arises in more areas than computation; for example, there is often a mismatch in the location of library and database resources and in laboratory equipment resources. During the next year, the time previously allocated to establishing the Outcome Assessment system will be used as a faculty seminar for developing cross- pollination activities within the department. Cross- department exchanges will also be fostered. Dr. Howard will organize this effort. Mesh Ethics – The low scores on the ethics sections of the FE Exam by program students indicates that additional effort must be placed on ethics throughout the curriculum. This action item will involve locating the FC Ethics modules in Met 310/MET321 and the establishment of ethics instruction in all Met Eng courses. Additionally, the department will post the Professional Canon Ethics ( on the Daktronics display and the classroom and hallway walls. Coordination of Societal Context, Life-long Learning – Instruction on engineering’s societal context and the importance of lifelong learning will be enhanced through the use of FC Modules in both Met 321 and Met 310. Drs. Han and Howard will be responsible for this activity. Report Rewriting – The program faculty will redouble their efforts to require more effort in writing “perfect” reports. This is expected to replace total report quantities submitted with higher quality. The premise of this action is that students gain more writing skill by focused effort on a high- quality work rather than a more diffuse effort with less faculty feedback. Dr. Kellar will periodically require faculty reports on progress on this action item from all program faculty members. Seminar Series – The faculty believe that students will gain a better understanding of professional behavior, the need for honed communication skills, and better interaction and assimilation skills through a more active seminar series offered by a combination of off-campus invited speakers and presentations by their peers. Dr. Kellar will appoint a faculty member to complete this task. Assessment The following items are thought by program faculty members to be the most important assessment improvements in the coming year. Lab Equip Quiz – To better determine the level of skills in outcome (k) [Use of engineering techniques, skills, and tools], the faculty are going to require that an existing WebCT on-line quiz be administered to juniors and seniors. This will augment the current assessment of outcome (k), which is heavily weighted on computational tools. Dr. Stone will head up this work. Cognitive Assessment for Life long Learning – The program will add a cognitive development assessment for each student in Met 310 and Met 321 to better determine the likelihood of continued development as measured for Outcome (j). This is to be piloted by Dr. Howard and followed up by Dr. Howard. Better Metrics and Instruments in (a) – Better instrument questions will be selected for future assessment of outcome (a). These questions will focus more on open ended questions that require a wider range of student activity than the current narrow homework solutions. Dr. Howard will make the first improvements in Math 373. Better Metric matching – Every faculty member will be asked to create questions on the required instruments that will facilitate more precise and reliable Rationalization of FE Exam Results – Dr. Howard will seek to determine the relative rank of the average student taking the FE Exam nationally. This data is germane to the relative ranking of our students based on the FE Exam. Currently, SDSM&T Met Eng students score low relative to the national scores. However, all of them are required to take the exam. Since the average national student taking the exam is probably 1) more motivated and 2) more likely to be among the more capable students in the population of metallurgical engineering students, their scores are likely to be higher. The current statistical means (Score=3, unless Score=1 for 6 SD’s below average; Score=5 for 2 SD’s above average) of accounting for this will be reviewed. The System: Loop 1-Objectives, Loop 2- Outcomes Evaluation of Objectives Outcome Assessment Outcome Assessment Results Objective Evaluation Action Results Outcome Assessment Action Results Assessment Instrument Inventory Fall Se m Summer Break Winter Break Spring Sem Faculty decides and reports on program changes Faculty acts on recommendations Program faculty evaluates data and prepares report Collection of data and information needed for assessment of actions taken Interim summary of spring semester assessments Collection of data and information needed for assessment of actions taken Annual Assessment Cycle