Compact Academic Calendar - Excel Template

As part of my planning for the coming year I realized that it would be helpful to have the year at a glance. David Seah produced a very nice Excel template that does exactly that, allowing one to print out a year's worth of calendar on a single piece of paper that will fold to fit with 3x5 cards. It's great for planning because it's continuous, not starting a new line for each month.

To make it suitable for those whose logical years start at other times I've made two variants.

Academic Year 2008-9 - Template

• This runs from September to August. It's in Excel-2003 format.

General (any) Starting Date - Template

• It allows you to put in any starting date that you wish and produces a full year's calendar starting from that date.
• This allows you, for instance, to pick either a Sunday or Monday and any week of the year as a starting point.
• This works well ONLY in Office-2007 (it loses formatting in Office-2003).
  
• It uses conditional formatting and some vaguely fancy formulae so the sheets are "protected", but there's no password so anybody can modify them to suit themselves.
• The Holidays are entered in a separate (non-printing) table on the same page and are automatically put in the calendar. Note that if they belong in the line that has the month name they're pushed to the next line.
  

If you pass on these files please be sure to give David Seah credit.

8/30/2008 Updated to make the holidays appear "automatically" in the printed calendar.
If you want to see a discussion of what I did I explained it in DonationCoder's forum.

10/21/2008 Ellis Godard has updated my version to allow you to choose the start and end dates to make a "truly compact calendar". - Nice.

Approaches to Teaching AE Design

One of the questions I've asked on the survey/questionnaire that I'm developing is which approaches to teaching AE Design do the faculty use.  I've included links to most of them below to help anyone who's uncertain of the meaning I intend.

• Lecture 
• Architectural Studio 
• Modified Studio - Architectural Studio modified, especially by emphasizing team-based projects 
• Case Study
  
• Problem-Based Learning 
• Guided Design 
• Socratic 
• Other
  

Thanks for Taking The Survey

Thank you!

I know that the survey was longer than ideal, but hopefully the results will inform all of us about our commonalities and unique perspectives.

I'm setting it up so that you can return to add to or modify what you've already entered. I'd note that to get back you'll need to have enabled cookies for the survey site and therefore you'll have to be on the same computer each time.

I'll post information about the surveys and any work that comes out of them on this blog site. You're welcome to come back here to follow what happens - and make any comments you wish.

AE Programs - Overview and Emphases

I've been looking at all the papers I can find related to AE Design. An excellent starting point for an overview of the AE programs are the papers by Al Estes and Hector Estrada in which they looked at the information available for all the AE programs. All the information comes from my interpretation of Estes [1] unless otherwise noted.
I've taken the liberty of summarizing their summary in a single table that at helps me get a handle on some of the key paramaters. I strongly suspect that I'll get feedback giving me better information. I'll update this table with the corrected results.
What I've added as interpretation are the last four columns in which I've determined the program emphases by the disciplines. To do so I used the semester hours form Estes Figure-3 deciding on "reasonable" break points for the categories.

AE Program	5-yr	Acred [2]	AE Deg. 2004-5	Quarter System	Struct	MEP	Constr	Arch
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo		1975	30	Q	S	-	o
Drexel University	Coop-5	1991	40	Q			-
Illinois Institute of Technology		2003	5					o
Kansas State	5	1980	55					o
Milwaukee School of Engineering		1988	40	Q	o			o
North Carolina A&T State College		1969	20
Oklahoma State University	5	1986	5		s	o	o
Penn State University	5	1936	100
Tennessee State		1977	10
University of Colorado		1936	40
University of Kansas	5	1936	22				o	S
University of Miami		1962	10
University of Missouri Rolla		new	15
University of Nebraska - Lincoln (Masters AE)		2004	90			S	-	o
University of Oklahoma			0				o	S
University of Texas		1938	45					o
University of Wyoming		1986	35			s	o	o
Texas A&M - Kingsville		new

Legend for determining the emphasis for the disciplines - Based on Semeser hours (Estes fig. 3)

-	Absent	<5%
o	Minimal	5-20%
Blank	Even	20-35
s	Some emphasis	35-45%
S	Strong emphasis	>45%

Sources

[1]	Estes, Allen and Estrada, Hector, “Architectural Engineering Programs: Finding Common Ground),” ASEE Conference Proceedings, 2007; http://www.asee.org/acPapers/AC%202007Full870.pdf.
[2] H. Estrada, “2006-1748 a survey of the american architectural Engineering Curriculum,” ASEE Conference Proceedings, 2006; http://www.asee.org/acPapers/code/getPaper.cfm?paperID=10006.

Questions for Individual Interviews - Initial thoughts

I've formulated the following questions as the basis for my interviews during the visits. Time with each individual is certainly going to vary so I'll probably not be able to address all of them. We may also find as a result of the initial interviews that these should be altered. I welcome suggestions for improving them.

Questions I hope to ask everyone

What is AE Design (AED)?

• As embodied in the school's program
• As practiced in industry
• Your personal view

How does AE Design differ from discipline design (structure, MEP, etc)?

• Within program
• To industry
• To you personally
• Nationally

How important is AE Design?

• Within program
• To industry
• To you personally
• Nationally

What are the ingredients of AE Design?

• In your program?
• In industry
• As you teach it
• Nationally

What methods are used to teach AE Design?

• In your program
• As you teach it

e.g.

• Case study
• Guided Design
• Studio method
• Lecture
• Project based design

What do you think are the best methods to teach AE Design?

• In your program
• As you teach it

What's missing for AE Design as it's currently taught?

• In your program
• As you teach it
• Nationally

What are key content issues for the Teaching of AE Design?

• In your program
• As you teach it
• Nationally

e.g.

• BIM
• Student preparation
• Green design
• Masters as first Prof. degree

What haven't we covered that you think is relevant?

---

Extended Interview questions

• What do you find is the most satisfying thing about teaching AE Design?
• What do you find is the most frustrating thing about teaching AE Design?
• What is the most confusing thing about teaching AE Design?
• What research is needed related to Teaching AE Design?
• It's been observed that what commonality exisits among AE programs is the result of the ABET requirements. What comments do you have about this?
• Should there be any national standards for Teaching AE Design?
• Is there a need for any national effort (ASCE for example) related to Teaching AE Design?

Computers as Tools - An Initial Reflection

The computer is the essential tool for most design work today. Programs are analogous to the computation methods that were the critical components that I learned when I was in school. What a good education these days should do (in part) is

• Teach engineering critical thinking which involves
  
  
  
  • Learning the limits of computation tools
  
  
  • Identifying when each is appropriate
  
  
  • learning how to check the output in a meaningful manner - usually by hand, but not always
  
  
  
  


• Learn the variety of tools that are available


• Learn how to adopt new tools


• Understand the principles that lie behind each of the tools


• Learn common methods and assumptions that extend across tools


• Learn data transfer methods


• Learn how to present data to others in a way that is meaningful

If students can learn these skills I think we’ll have served them well.

To do so we probably have to learn several tools in a shallow manner to address learning techniques and at least one in depth to be able to assess limits.

I’d argue at the moment that these ideas should apply to my study of design for the sabbatical.

Who Would I like to Meet During a Visit?

I've been thinking about how best to make use of the two days I hope to have at each AE school. Earlier I posted a general schedule for the two days. Since then I've been considering how I'm most likely to get a clear picture of the way AE Design is taught and what are its goals and results. In the process I've been through several school websites in detail and built a list of the kinds of people that I believe would be beneficial to interview, either singly or in a group if that's more appropriate. The following list is in rough priority order, but I'm sure each person has unique information to add.

• AE Program Head
• Department Head - if different from Program
• Undergraduate Advisors
• Head of each sub-discipline track
• Faculty who teach design
• Reps of student Associations (AEI, ASCE)
• Industry advisory council AE member(s)

Typical Visit - Initial Plan

I'll shortly be sending out Emails to the schools I hope to visit on either side of the AEI convention at the end of September. That's forced me to consider what I want to accomplish during each visit and therefore how I should structure it - recognizing that individual schedules are likely to make this ideal seldom achieved.

I've allocated two days for each visit in the hope that will allow enough time to talk at some length with all who have a hand in teaching AE design, as well as observing several classes.

I'm suggesting as well that I give a seminar presentation early in my visit so I can pass on what I've learned about the way AE design is taught at the various schools and my thoughts about the issues facing the profession. My hope is that this talk will stimulate discussion with the faculty and students.

Below are my thoughts about the ideal outline. I welcome suggestions for changes and improvements.

Day-1

• Meet with Visit Host(s)
• Visit Dept. Head
• Give Seminar on "Teaching AE Design"
• Tour facilities
• Lunch with faculty
• Visit individual faculty in offices
• Observe Classes

Day-2

• Visit individual faculty in offices
• Observe classes
• Final meeting with any interested - what I observed and learned

A note about the "host" function. I don't want it to be burdensome. I hope that they'd help organize the visits within the department. I'll organize all my own travel, lodging and meals.

July's Escape - AE Examples in the UK

I spent July in the UK, mostly enjoying myself in the countryside and in London. Several AE related visits particularly impressed me:

• The Eden Project in Cornwall (images) - What a splendid marriage of structure, landscape and MEP.
• Peterborough Cathedral (among others - images) - Like so many gothic cathedrals the structure that has endured 800 years exalts the spirit as good architecture should.
• Alpine House in Kew Gardens, London - (my images) - Like the Eden project a splendid, though far smaller, integration of structure and MEP.

Any of these could be used as excellent case studies in a design class.