Session T3D
Reading Effectively in First Year
Electromechanical Engineering Courses
Juanita C. But, Ohbong Kwon, and Henry Laboy
New York City College Of Technology/CUNY, jbut@citytech.cuny.edu,
okwon@citytech.cuny.edu, hlaboy@citytech.cuny.edu
Abstract – A college-wide reading assessment conducted
in 2012 (8 sections, N=148) at New York City College of
technology, or City Tech, showed that only less than
30% of our students were college ready in reading, much
lower than the national average of 50% (ACT, 2012).
This weakness is a major obstacle to succeed in collegelevel courses, especially for beginning engineering
students. The reading level of engineering texts is
extremely complex, with various levels of readability and
specialized concepts, formula, and vocabulary. However,
engineering faculty at City Tech are seldom equipped
with instructional strategies to scaffold reading
assignments and use formative assessments to ensure
students’ completion of required readings and help them
understand essential and complex ideas in engineering
texts. To address this problem, a college-wide Reading
Effectively Across the Disciplines (READ) program was
established in Spring 2013 to improve disciplinary
literacy. READ also broadly aims at increasing
retention, engagement, and addressing the major issue
of early and unofficial withdrawals. The targeted
engineering courses in READ include EMT1130
(Electro-Mechanical Manufacturing Lab) in 2013-1014
and EMT1150 (Electrical Circuits) in 2014-2015. Both
are required first-year courses for the AAS Degree in
Electro-Mechanical
Engineering
Technology.
Failure/withdrawal rates of both courses were over 30%.
In this paper, we will give an overview of the READ
program and describe how its components work
together to improve student reading and performance in
first-year engineering courses. Our focus is to describe
our design and implementation of effective strategies,
teaching and assessment tools in enhancing students’
disciplinary literacy in EMT1130 and EMT1150. We will
also discuss and analyze our assessment data and pilot
results, which showed significant improvement in
performance and pass rates among students who were
enrolled in the READ sections of both courses,
EMT1130 (7 sections, N=150) and EMT1150 (3 sections,
N=65), compared to those who were not.
Index Terms - Disciplinary literacy, Active reading, Reading
in Electromechanical Engineering courses.
INTRODUCTION
Each year, many first-year electromechanical engineering
students at New York City College of Technology/CUNY
encounter difficulties in completing and succeeding in their
courses. Faculty members frequently attribute this to
students’ lack of the scientific knowledge and quantitative
reasoning skills that are required for these courses.
However, what is very often overlooked is that many
students struggle in these courses because they are unable to
fully comprehend, adequately analyze, and ably apply the
content of text material.
According to a study of the correlation between
reading achievement and achievement in other academic
areas, of those who did not meet the Reading Benchmark,
only 41 percent met the ACT English Benchmark, only 16
percent met the ACT Mathematics Benchmark, and only 5%
met the ACT Science Benchmark [1]. This reveals that the
ability to read proficiently is particularly significant in
learning mathematics and science subjects. These findings
are especially relevant to predicting student success, based
on their reading proficiency, in engineering courses, which
involve reading discourses in both science and mathematics.
Even though our students are required to pass the
ACT-COMPASS reading test with a score of 70 (certified
as proficient in reading across CUNY) in order to take most
credit-level courses, passing the reading test, in some cases,
is not a pre-requisite for foundational engineering courses.
Students who do not meet the reading proficiency level
often struggle with reading engineering text. Since the ACT
benchmark score for college success in STEM disciplines is
85 or above in the COMPASS reading test, much higher
than the CUNY designated passing score of 70, even among
our students who met the CUNY reading requirements, a
large number still falls short of the national benchmark for
college success.
Further compounds this problem is that most
engineering texts are complex and often require multiple
literacies in academic language, symbolic and visual
expressions, and everyday language.
Students who lack reading proficiency often rely
on listening skills in class, rather than reading to learn [2].
Even among those who read their text material, many still
cannot readily move beyond accumulating facts and
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memorizing the right answers to reach a level of abstract,
metacognitive thinking skills [3].
As an intervention, reading and content area
faculty members collaborate to improve students’ reading
proficiency and disciplinary literacy in Reading Effectively
Across the Disciplines (READ), a program founded in 2013
(funded by a CUNY Office of Academic Affairs Award in
2013-2014). READ takes a novel multimodal approach to
improving content area reading. Its first component is
faculty development, which aims at training full-time and
adjunct EMT faculty to develop and implement disciplinespecific reading and formative assessment strategies,
informed by the theories and practice of effective, active
reading. Secondly, effective assessments are crucial to
measuring students’ reading proficiency and informing the
effect of strategy implementation and appropriate
intervention. In both courses, pre-READ and post-READ
assessments were administered to gauge students’
competencies in comprehension, interpretation, analysis,
and context.
Peer-led-team-learning workshops led by trained
and experienced EMT students is another component to
enhance student learning. Finally, the OpenLab READ
website facilitates sharing of ideas and resources among
faculty and peer leaders. OpenLab is a platform developed
by City Tech faculty through a Title V US Department of
Education Grant. It is an open-source digital platform where
students, faculty, and staff can meet to learn, work, and
share their ideas. Its goals are to support teaching and
learning, enable connection and collaboration, and
strengthen the intellectual and social life of the college
community. Our team engages in an ongoing development
of
the
Open
Lab
READ
website
(https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu). After the courses’
completion, READ-EMT faculty share their course results
and best practices in the subsequent workshops with their
colleagues.
TARGETED COURSES
READ was piloted in two Electromechanical
Engineering courses, Electromechanical Manufacturing Lab
(EMT1130) and Electrical Circuit (EMT1150) in Fall 2013
and Fall 2014 respectively. EMT 1130 and EMT 1150 are
foundational courses which students are required to take in
their first year. From EMT 1130, students gain insight into
selected mechanical and electrical manufacturing processes
by constructing their own digital trainer. EMT 1150
introduces the basic principles of direct and alternating
current circuits. Topics include linear and nonlinear passive
components, transient response and phase relationships.
Laboratory work is performed using the multi-meter,
oscilloscope and frequency generator. Reading proficiency
certification is not required for students taking both courses.
Altogether seven sections of EMT 1130 and three
sections of EMT1150 participated in Fall 2013 and Fall
2014 respectively. Embedded Peer-Led Team learning was
implemented in one EMT1130 section in addition to course
redesign and implementation of reading strategies, which
occurred in all other sections of both courses. Student
performance and pass rates of READ sections, EMT1130 (7
sections, N=150) and EMT1150 (3 sections, N=65), were
compared to those in non-READ sections.
EMT 1130 takes place in a lab setting. Enrollment
capacity is twenty-two. Students learn how to build a digital
trainer based on demonstration and reading of a lab manual.
As listed in the standardized syllabus, the learning outcomes
are the ability to:
•
Understand, analyze, and safely use basic electrical and
electronic circuits/systems and electromechanical
devices.
•
Troubleshoot and fix problems in electrical
circuits/systems and electromechanical devices.
•
Develop skills to use the tools and instruments to build
electromechanical devices.
•
Function as effective contributing members of a team.
•
Recognize the physical laws that govern how all
electrical circuits and devices work.
•
Apply fundamental mathematical principles to their
electronics work.
•
Calculate current, voltage, resistance, power, and
recognize voltage sources, resistor color code, and
VOMs.
•
Wire circuits, use lab equipment, and test and
troubleshoot circuits.
The final goal of the course is for students to complete
final assembly and proper testing of a digital trainer box
device.
From our observation, students seem to struggle most
with making accurate measurements properly, and
understanding the main ideas and the descriptions of
procedures involved in reading the course lab manual.
Making the connections between the diagrams, charts,
tables, descriptions and notes on the lab manual with seeing
the overall spatial-visual perception is another difficulty
students often encounter. Even the proprioception and/or
motor skills of the student interaction with key lab tools and
machines can be challenging.
The instruction method usually involves a lecture with
some explanations of the course expectations, with some
time for students to gain direct guidance from course
instructor. This is quite de-personalized and does not allow
students to keep comfortable with asking questions for
verification or confirmation, which is often required.
Even though students are required to read the lab
manual before class to engage in building the components of
the digital trainer, there is no built-in assessment mechanism
in the course to ensure students’ completion of the assigned
readings. Close reading, comprehension, and application of
instructions are not only important to guide students through
the manufacturing and assembling process, but are
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particularly important to ensure that they observe safety
measures in the lab setting.
EMT1150 is an introduction to the basic principles of
direct and alternating current circuits. Topics include linear
and nonlinear passive components, transient response and
phase relationships. Effective reading and critical thinking
skills in this course are essential in developing disciplinary
competence and problem solving in the course, which are
reflected in the following learning outcomes:
•
Understand, analyze, and safely use basic electrical and
electronic circuits/systems and electromechanical
devices.
•
Troubleshoot and fix problems in electrical
circuits/systems and electromechanical devices.
•
Recognize the physical laws that govern how all
electrical circuits and devices work.
•
Apply Ohm’s Law and Watt’s Law to electronic
circuits, developing their basic skills of problem solving
and critical thinking by solving basic problems.
•
Apply the basic rules of series and parallel circuits.
•
Analyze and simplify series-parallel circuits, use
Thevenin’s Theorem, and Wheatstone Bridge.
•
Wire circuits, use lab equipment, test and troubleshoot
circuits, make graphs, write lab reports, and perform
computer simulations (Multisim) in lab for problem
solving; develop team skills by working in small teams.
•
Recognize alternating current, frequency, the
oscilloscope, capacitors and inductors - in series, in
parallel and in AC or DC circuits, and some important
applications.
The cognitive processes involved in both the lecture and lab
components include various levels of concepts and tasks
that require multiliteracies in the forms of traditional text,
symbolic and graphic expressions both in print and
electronic sources.
The required textbook for the course is
Introductory Circuit Analysis by Robert L. Boylestad. Each
week students are assigned to read one chapter from the
book, corresponding to the weekly learning module.
Supplemental materials are available on Blackboard and
OpenLab site.
Reading requirements in EMT1150 are both
intensive and extensive. The main challenge students face is
to manage the high volume of reading with abstract
concepts, which often need to be explained clearly through
concrete examples. Students also have difficulties
navigating the text. Some are not motivated to read the
textbook and rely mainly on the lectures to learn course
material, by observing demonstrations and using their
listening skills. However, the lectures do not cover all
information that appear in the textbook that students need to
learn.
To encourage completion of reading assignments and
improve disciplinary literacy in EMT1130 and EMT1150,
reading and EMT faculty members collaborated to develop
and implement strategies to facilitate reading-to-learn
among students. Unique tools are required for engaging in
disciplinary literacy, which is “the knowledge and abilities
possessed by those who create, communicate, and use
knowledge within the disciplines” [4].
The activities developed to motivate students in the
learning process involve pre-reading, during reading, and
post-reading strategies. Our goal is to train students to
become independent learners who can adeptly apply
strategies that are transferable among content areas, as well
as strategies that are particularly effective in developing
disciplinary competence in their courses. Specific goals and
purposes were set for these assignments.
ELECROMECHANICAL MANUFACTURING LAB (EMT1130)
A pre-READ assessment in EMT1130 using a passage in
the lab manual revealed that students in all sections
struggled with comprehension, analysis, interpretation, and
application of information they read. This assessment is
based on a reading rubric developed by the City Tech
General Education Assessment Committee. Subsequent to
the assessment, strategies were used as class assignments,
homework, or low-stakes assessment tools to engage
students in active reading.
As a pre-reading strategy, students in EMT1130
were asked to fill out anticipation guides that require them
to make predictions about the information they were going
to read in the lab manual and then matched their answers
according to what they learned from the text. Students chose
to agree or disagree with certain statements related to the
information in the lab manual before reading it. They then
validated or revised their answers after reading the manual.
The purpose of this set of pre-reading activities is to relate
students’ background knowledge to technical information
they were about to learn. This not only served to motivate
students to look for specific answers in the text, but also
enabled them to reflect on the reasoning behind their
predictions, especially when they were not accurate.
Numerous tools and processes were involved in
assembling the digital trainer. Students were required to
attain precise information about the features, functions, and
characteristics of different tools and components, as well as
specific details in each step and how they fit into the entire
assembling process. To help students retain information
better and visualize the steps more clearly, we designed
feature analysis charts (see Figure I) that were used as prelab assignments and assessment tools. These can be used
repeatedly in varying formats to reinforce learning the lab
manual.
INTERVENTION
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transferable strategies [5] [6]. These include text annotation,
the use of graphic organizers, note-taking skills, and word
maps.
In addition, Peer-led Team Learning (PLTL) was
also implemented in one section of the course. Three peer leaders were initially recruited in Fall 2013 and were
enrolled in a semester long independent study course (IS
901) to receive training in facilitating small group learning
among student teams of 5 to 11 students. The peer leaders
engaged students in discussion, problem solving, and
troubleshooting related to the course. As the semester
progressed, only two peer leaders were able to lead the
workshops, so the group size was about 11 students, which
was relatively large. However, our peer leaders were able to
work with students who were already assigned to work in
pairs, which also reinforced the dynamic and benefits of
team learning.
ELECTRICAL CIRCUITS (EMT1150)
FIGURE I
EMT1130 FEATURE ANALYSIS CHART
Another assignment that helped students lay out a blueprint
of the assembling process is the process map. It is designed
as an intermediary step to translate instructions they read in
the lab manual into a visual representation that could
eventually guide them in accomplishing the process. Since
there is more than one sequence of steps in which the digital
trainer could be built, students had to critically evaluate the
process and come up with a sequence that worked for them.
To facilitate this, students were asked to generate a process
map from the information they gained from the instructor
and the lab manual. Figure II shows a version of the process
map detailing the steps.
FIGURE II
EMT1130 PROCESS MAP
Other general reading and vocabulary activities
were also used to scaffold assignments and enhance
students’ reading proficiency and help them develop
Students in EMT 1150 demonstrated weakness, particularly
in analysis, and context, or application of information
gained from reading, in the pre-READ assessment in Fall
2014. Our immediate task at the beginning of the semester
was to help students understand text features and navigate
the textbook. Given the length of each chapter and the
conceptual density of text material, first year engineering
students often feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume and
complexity of concepts and information they have to learn.
To familiarize students with the text, we used a textbook
guide, in the form of a quiz, to introduce students to the text
features. A textbook scavenger hunt was also used in some
cases to encourage students to preview different sections of
the textbook. These activities helped engage students in the
habit of locating information in the text, overcome
resistance and generate interest in reading the text.
Active reading and learning was our main
emphasis during lectures. Because of the amount of material
instructors need to deliver, the lectures aimed at allowing
frequent interactions with students to keep them sharply
involved in the learning process. It is crucial to use
strategies that support active learning, with which students
can understand, assimilate, and apply core concepts and
mathematical procedures to solve problems that could
appear to be confusing and ambiguous to novice.
At the beginning of the semester, we asked
students to fill out a reading checklist, consisting of active
reading strategies that can promote reading-to-learn. This
gave them a sense of how actively they engaged the text
when they read. A reading faculty then discussed the
strategies with the students and modeled some of them to
the students. The list served as a reading inventory for
students, to be used when they read in class and at home.
To facilitate learning in class, modified versions of
lecture slides (see Figure III) were also used. Important
terminologies and theorems were boldfaced, especially in
the first few chapters, in which essential concepts were
introduced. In addition, key terms were also taken out from
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the slides for students to fill in the blanks during lectures.
This ensured active reading and helped keep students
focused and alert. Writing down the terms and concepts in
context also strengthened students’ retention of key
information by requiring interaction with the material
presented in the lectures.
Grade
A
AB+
B
BC+
C
PASS
D
F
W
WN
WU
INC
Total
FIGURE III
EMT1150 Lecture slide
RESULTS AND ANALYSES
EMT 1130 and EMT1150 FINAL GRADES
Students in both first-year EMT courses initially struggled
with reading text material. After implementation of
discipline and course specific strategies to support active
reading, students showed improvement in understanding,
analyzing, and applying concepts in their readings. The
effectiveness of the strategies we applied was reflected in
our pilot results. A comparison of final grades for READ
and Non-READ EMT1130 in Fall 2013 is shown in Table I.
Table II shows that of READ and non-READ EMT1150 in
Fall 2014.
Students in READ EMT 1130 (7 sections, N=150)
performed much better than those in the non-READ sections
(5 sections, N=104). The overall pass rates (“C” or above)
of READ and non-READ sections were 78.6% and 57.6%
respectively. The pass rate of students in READ sections
was 21% higher than those who were in non-READ. What
is most significant was that 55.3% of READ students
achieved an “A” in the course, a percentage that was much
higher than the non-READ students, of whom only 8.6%
achieved an “A.” On the contrary, only 5% of READ
students failed the course (‘F”), compared to 22.1% of nonREAD students. In READ sections, we also see a lower
withdrawal rate (“W,” “WU,” “WN”). Only 13.3% of
READ students withdrew officially and unofficially, while
20.2% of non-READ students withdrew from their courses.
The final grading of EMT 1130 was based on the
physical layout, circuit wiring, and functionality of the
digital trainer in the final testing. TABLE I
FALL 2013 EMT1130 FINAL GRADES
READ
% of
Non-READ
% of
N of students students N of students
students
83
55.3%
9
8.6%
22
14.7%
15
14.4%
3
2.0%
11
10.6%
6
4.0%
17
16.3%
1
0.6%
4
3.8%
2
1.3%
1
1.0%
1
0.7%
3
2.9%
118
78.6%
60
57.6%
0
0.0%
0
0.0%
9
6.0%
23
22.1%
8
5.3%
14
13.5%
6
4.0%
2
1.9%
6
4.0%
5
4.8%
3
2.0%
0
0.0%
150
100.0%
104
100.0%
Similar to EMT1130, the overall pass rate in the
READ EMT1150 sections was also much higher than that in
the non-READ sections (Table II). Of the 65 READ
students, 56 students or 86.7% passed the course (“C” or
above). Only 26 of the 44 non-READ students, or 59.1%,
passed the course. The percentage of READ students who
achieved “A” and “A-” were also higher than that of nonREAD students, i.e. 30.8% in READ and 18.2% in nonREAD. The withdrawal rate (“W,” ”WU.” ”WN”) in READ
sections was 7.6%, much lower than the 15.9% in nonREAD sections.
Grade
A
AB+
B
BC+
C
PASS
D
F
W
WU
WN
INC
Total
TABLE II
FALL 2014 EMT1150 FINAL GRADES
READ
% of
Non-READ
N of students students
N of students
13
20.0%
8
7
10.8%
0
4
6.2%
1
8
12.3%
5
9
13.8%
1
7
10.8%
0
8
12.3%
11
56
86.7%
26
3
4.6%
5
1
1.5%
6
3
4.6%
5
1
1.5%
2
1
1.5%
0
1
1.5%
0
65
100.0%
44
% of
students
18.2%
0.0%
2.3%
11.4%
2.3%
0.0%
25.0%
59.1%
11.4%
13.7%
11.4%
4.5%
0.0%
0.0%
100.0%
The final grading of EMT 1150 students was based
on quizzes (20%), class assignments (5%), midterm (25%),
departmental final exam (30%), and lab component/reports
(20%).
PRE-READ AND POST-READ ASSESSMENTS
Reading assessments were used both as formative and
summative measures in READ. The assessments were
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administered twice in the semester. Students took the preREAD assessment at the beginning of the semester and the
post-READ assessment toward the end of the course.
Reading outcomes of four areas—comprehension,
interpretation, analysis, and context—were assessed when
students read and answered questions on passages from their
textbooks or lab manuals. A comparison between the preREAD and post-READ assessments demonstrated
improvement in students’ reading proficiency in the
discipline. Figure IV shows the results in READ EMT 1130
sections.
The results revealed that students in READ
EMT1130 showed improvement in all four areas in the postREAD assessment. Significant gains in their ability to
analyze and interpret the text were demonstrated. This
improvement correlated strongly with the high pass rate and
strong student performance across the READ sections,
which could be attributed to, among other factors, the
effectiveness of the strategies we used to foster students’
improved reading proficiency and disciplinary literacy.
The ability to analyze, through reading, the
relationships among components and procedures is crucial
to laying out logically and accurately the steps of the
manufacturing process. This is especially important for first
year students who have to adapt to learning new knowledge,
performing detailed and precise tasks such as making
measurements and wiring, which require the development of
cognitive and motor skills simultaneously. Therefore, a
thorough understanding of the procedures, the ability to
make inferences and interpret the causes of specific issues
occurred during the process would help students to
troubleshoot and solve problems. At the basic level, active
engagement with ideas and information enables
comprehension, which is also the basis for questioning and
finding solutions. These abilities are required for success in
EMT courses.
FIGURE IV
EMT 1130 READING ASSESSMENTS RESULTS
DISCUSSION
Effective implementation is just as important as sound
design of strategies in READ. Collaboration of team that
consists of reading and content area faculty is crucial to the
success of this program. In the EMT classroom, the
instructor is not expected to teach students how to read, but
to engage students in active reading and learning by using
relevant assignments and instructional approaches.
The EMT and reading faculty informed each other
in the process of developing strategies, directed by sound
research. Reading faculty gained insight from classroom
visits and discussions with EMT faculty to understand the
needs and discipline-specific learning environment in each
course. Through workshops and meetings throughout the
semester, as a team we discussed the challenges and
evaluated the effectiveness of approaches we used, and
adjusted them to achieve our goals.
Goals and purposes determined the design and
implementation of strategies in READ EMT sections. At a
practical level, students in general are not motivated to
complete assigned readings, if they are not being assessed
formally or informally. Very often, colleagues complain that
students do not purchase textbooks and/or do not read the
assigned readings. Among many students, reading to learn
remain a low priority, as they depend mainly on learning
through lectures. This is even more common in certain
STEM courses.
Therefore, strategies and assignments in READ are
used to incite students’ interest in reading the texts, to help
them relate their background knowledge to what they learn,
to reinforce the completion of assigned readings, to train
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them to read actively, and to apply the reading-to-learn
strategies as their lifelong learning tools.
Four EMT1130 and three EMT1130 full-time and
adjunct instructors participated in piloting READ in their
courses. They drew upon a set of strategies that were
developed in a team setting. However, not all of them used
exactly the same strategies in their classes, nor did they use
the strategies in a prescribed way. The judgment and input
of individual instructors, catering to the needs of his/her
specific group of students, significantly enriched the
teaching and learning experience among the READ faculty
team across the disciplines, including Biology and Dental
Hygiene (Architectural Technology will be participating in
Fall 2015). The READ EMT faculty not only had the
opportunity to exchange best practices with the colleagues
in their department, but also with those in other disciplines.
Through the OpenLab platform, we can also disseminate
ideas and resources and reach out to faculty members who
are not part of READ.
The following are some feedback shared by our
READ faculty:
• Overall good experience, presentation, showing how to
better approach the students. Motivating, changed my
method of teaching [adjusted, dedicating], more time to
communicating effectively utilizing team-based
learning efficiently, providing and referring to further
resources managed to help complete the digital trainer
construction.
• Workshops were well organized. We shared many
ideas; different techniques were introduced to help
students get involved more. These strategies can be
used in and out of the classroom.
• Got the chance to speak to my colleagues in depth
about the challenges we face.
independent readers, who know how to develop and use
strategies to navigate complex texts in different formats and
disciplines. These reading strategies, both transferable and
discipline-specific, are useful to enhance their learning in
college-level courses and beyond.
This can only be achieved by continuing
commitment from content area faculty, department and
college administrators, as well as support from our
institution. Our plans are to impact more students by
including more disciplines and courses and to use
technologies to reach out to more students and faculty.
REFERENCES
[1]
ACT, “Reading between the lines: What the ACT reveals about
college readiness in reading”, ACT, 2006, Web.
[2]
Schemo, D. J., “It takes more than schools to close the gap”, The New
York Times, August 9, 2006, Web.
[3]
Peters, E., Västfjäll, D., Slovic, P., Mertz, C. K., Mazzocco, K., &
Dickert, S, “Numeracy and decision making”, Psychological Science,
17, pp.407–413, 2006.
[4]
Shanahan, T., & Shanahan, C., “Teaching disciplinary literacy to
adolescents: Rethinking content-area literacy”, Harvard Educational
Review, 78 (1), pp.40–59, 2008.
[5]
Yore, L. D., “What research says about science textbooks, science
reading and science Reading instruction: A research agenda”, Paper
presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Association for
Research in Science Teaching (59th, San Francisco, CA, March 28April l, l986), (ERIC) ED269243.
[6]
Carrell P.L., “Can reading strategies be taught?”, Australian Review
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AUTHOR INFORMATION
CONCLUSION
Even though reading proficiency is essential to
learning in every discipline, in higher education institutions
there has not been enough effort in fostering disciplinary
literacy through reading, especially in STEM areas.
Research in engineering pedagogy seldom addresses the
importance of effective reading and its role in facilitating
learning in the discipline.
The demand of higher-order cognitive skills
through effective reading such as application, analysis, and
interpretation is ubiquitous throughout the learning process
in engineering courses, as seen in the ABET criteria.
Reading is embedded in acquiring knowledge in every field,
and the ability to read proficiently is indispensable in
engineering, for “Knowledge is the data base of a
professional engineer” [7].
Having completed its second year, READ is only
beginning to address the discrepancies between the
requirements in the discipline and our students’ readiness in
those areas. Our ultimate goal for is to enable first year
students, in engineering and other disciplines, to become
Juanita C. But Associate Professor of English, New York
City College of Technology, jbut@citytech.cuny.edu
Ohbong Kwon Assistant Professor of Computer
Engineering Technology, New York City College of
Technology, okwon@citytech.cuny.edu
Henry Laboy Engineering Instructor, New York City
College of Technology/CUNY, hlaboy@citytech.cuny.edu
7th First Year Engineering Experience (FYEE) Conference
T3D-7
August 3 – 4, 2015, Roanoke, VA