The Grades Are In: Two Engineering Professors Earn an A+ for Teaching
Ronald Rockland, chairman of NJIT’s Department of Engineering Technology, and John Wiggins, a senior lecturer in the department and coordinator of the Construction Engineering Technology and Construction Management Technology programs, clearly belong to the latter category.
Both were recognized this spring for their success in inspiring students to achieve by prominent engineering organizations. Rockland received the 2015 “Distinguished Teaching Award” from the mid-Atlantic section of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). Wiggins was named 2015 “Educator of the Year” by the New Jersey chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).
Ron Rockland: Ace Teacher and Video Star
Rockland, now in his 20th year at NJIT, did not begin his career in academia. He spent the first 25 years of working life at high-tech companies, establishing the biomedical engineering department at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in 1970 and later moving to Medtronic, the Minneapolis-based medical device maker. After adding an MBA to his list of academic credentials, he worked on “the other side” of the industry in sales and marketing.
But he always harbored a secret wish.
“Deep down, I always wanted to be a teacher. I would say things like, ‘When I’m rich, I’ll be a teacher,’ or ‘When I retire, I’ll be a teacher.’ Finally, my wife Rona said to me: ‘Just do it. Be a teacher.’ ”
It was a good choice. “I love teaching,” Rockland says. “I empathize with students.”
A “big believer” in active learning, he encourages his students to respond to challenges put before them, such as determining the best filter to use for R wave detection in electrocardiograms. “I want them responding to actual problems, to see how they unfold. I want them on teams, responding to each other.”
And Rockland is himself an active teacher. He’s the star of more than 120 videos in which he brings lectures to life with problem-solving performances. He initially began with 10-minute videos, tackling easy lessons on specific topics, but students demanded harder problems. In response, he devised an expanded version – the “challenge problem.” These videos start with Rockland posing a problem and then asking the students to hit ‘stop’ to try to solve it on their own. After they’ve had a go, they can restart the video to see what they did correctly or not.
“I don’t want them taking notes. I want them listening and practicing," he says. "I will not lecture for more than 10 minutes before I set them to work, either alone or in groups, and checking on each other’s results.”
He is proudest of his students’ senior projects, for which they combine their cumulative knowledge and skills to devise ingenious devices, from home security systems, to "smart aquariums" that regulate temperature and food, to sensors that automatically lower a window slightly if the temperature in a parked car gets too high.
“Seeing students totally engaged in these projects and overcoming problems as a team is a thrill for a teacher,” he says.
John Wiggins: Polymath and Toy Collector
Wiggins also clearly empathizes with students. His office is filled with toys – miniature versions of every imaginable heavy-equipment vehicle, from asphalt pavers, to excavators, to front-end loaders. The models, he says, help students visualize how the equipment operates in the field.
And he brings an infectious curiosity to the classroom. A poster child for life-long learning, he has undergraduate and master’s degrees in civil engineering (from NJIT) and a law degree from Seton Hall. He is currently working on yet another degree – a Ph.D. – at Rutgers University. A licensed professional engineer in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, he has been admitted to the New Jersey Bar.
“It’s a mission of mine to teach everything, from land-use and building codes, to construction safety, to project management,” he says, noting, “I've always loved learning new things."
He takes a multi-dimensional approach to classroom projects, asking students to fully immerse themselves in their subjects by considering them from a variety of angles, beyond the nuts and bolts of construction, schedule and cost.
“When my students put together a proposal for their Senior Project class, I ask them to look at it from an ethical standpoint as well. If they are working on a business model that involves fracking, for example, I want them to say whether it should be done or not and for their plan to support that decision,” he says. “And I don’t simply accept the reasoning, ‘fracking is bad.’ I want to see the numbers and understand the ethical choices that they made in coming to a decision.”
Wiggins worked for several years before joining NJIT as a municipal official, heading up engineering and public works departments in several New Jersey towns and cities. He recalls playing the role of mentor to younger engineers just entering the field.
“Mentoring a younger engineer on his way to professional licensure is a part of being a professional engineer. This was done for me so I always assumed that I had to pay that favor forward,” he says, adding, “I get to mentor on a grander scale here. I see a lot of myself in these students. I started here as an undergraduate in Civil Engineering in 1969 and was the first in my family to graduate college, so I understand a lot of my students are in the same position.”
As a teacher, his satisfaction comes from seeing how NJIT graduates are shaping the built world in important, visible ways, playing key roles in projects ranging from the widening of the Driscoll Bridge, to the rehabilitation of the Pulaski Skyway, to the construction of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and the Prudential Center.