Page 14 - ME Spring 2020 Newsletter

Starting Strong: Early Career Highlight
JULIANNA ABEL
Assistant Professor Julianna Abel was awarded an NSF CAREER grant to support her research project, “Design and Processing of Multifunctional Shape Memory Alloy Microfiber Yarns and Textiles with Tailorable Mechanical Performance.”
TIM KOWALEWSKI
Assistant Professor Tim Kowalewski received the McKnight Presidential Fellow Award. These three-year fellowships are given to most promising faculty members who have been granted tenure and promotion to associate professor.
ONLINE LEARNING with Sungyon Lee
Sungyon Lee is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering. In spring 2020, she was teaching ME3332: Fluid Mechanics. We asked her how she made the transition to an online learning environment. Here’s what she said.
I broke lecture segments down into shorter sections to give students flexibility. I also implemented weekly quizzes based on video material — these are short and uncomplicated but keep students accountable and up to date. I hold live Zoom office hours during normal lecture hours, and went from three midterms to two, plus more quizzes. I probably overcommunicate, but I would rather look silly than have two students unable to complete something. My document camera works like a whiteboard, so I can solve problems and respond to questions in real time. We have had Canvas, the U’s online platform, all this time, but we weren’t using it to its fullest capacity.
Screenshot of online instruction in ME3332
14 ME News Summer 2020
I wanted to adjust the course in a way that
honors the way it was but accommodates the new reality. Without face-to-face interaction, I don’t know how they’re doing or if they understand, so I set up surveys and chat functions. I still tell jokes, but no one laughs. Maybe nothing
has changed!