research. Graduate students would likelybenefit from structured teaching and mentoring programs that foster the development ofpedagogical and teaching skills through reflective practice. This work-in-progress paper thus proposes a novel teaching and mentoring trainingmodule, the Peer Mentor Major Exploration (PME) module, that offers graduate studentsadditional opportunities to teach and interact with undergraduate students. Through this module,a group of graduate students is allowed to share their academic journey and research work duringthe introductory part of an undergraduate-level engineering course. The graduate students aretrained to deliver a 3MT format presentation for effective and engaging interactions with a classof engineering
, self-efficacy, opportunities for professionaldevelopment, academic support etc. have significant influence on retention in Science, Technology,Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) as well as increases to the STEM workforce[1], [2]. These factors havebeen found especially compounding in historically underrepresented groups in STEM fields, includingEngineering[3]. Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) internship programs partner with nationallaboratories, principal investigators (PI’s), graduate mentors and STEM student groups to assess, explore andexamine science, technology engineering and mathematics (STEM) topics. Such a program is curatedintentionally to retain and increase the STEM workforce by addressing the challenges faced by STEM
from the first-year cohort were contacted directly withthe mentorship opportunity. Many of the mentors from the first-year cohort continued theirparticipation in the Fellowship in the second year. Other University faculty and graduate studentswho were known to be conducting water resource related research by members of the GrandChallenges team were contacted personally to notify them of the opportunity for mentorship.Strategies for student recruitment into the Fellowship included printed advertisements, in-personpresentations, and targeted outreach through department email listservs. The printedadvertisement included information on who was eligible to apply with links to the onlineapplication, presented as both a QR code and a web link. The
more than one project, they may need tomodulate their workload on one project to compensate for intense periods on another. Rarely willone worker, especially a new-hire, be expected to balance 4 or 5 projects, yet we require ourstudents to do this.On a large scale, the professor and class could develop an assignment collaboratively. Theprofessor can set the context and constraints and give students the flexibility to explore optionswithin the allowable space. This approach was used to design an extra credit assignment inresponse to research that found that students entering the workforce lacked experiencearticulating their accomplishments [1].The Class Contribution Extra Credit Assignment provides students with an opportunity to
perceive a lack of readiness as a barrier toparticipation. [3] Creating pathways for diverse and underrepresented undergraduate students to enterundergraduate research and continue to pursue graduate research is imperative to diversity theworkforce. Underrepresented minority students often value collaboration and helping people asimportant factors in their educational objectives and careers. [4] They may have a misperceptionthat science is an isolated field that does not engage in broader community interests. Involvingstudents in community-engaged learning projects allows them to see the social and economicaspects of science problems, exposes them to the interdisciplinary and collaborative nature ofscience, and can result in improved
environment require students to be equipped with a practicalunderstanding that often goes beyond the in-class knowledge. To that end, many universities haveactively collaborated with the industry, developed internship course in their curriculum, and evenmade internship a prerequisite for graduation. Internships programs in construction has been explored by a plethora of existing studies.These studies can mainly be categorized into three topics: introduction of the internship classstructure in a specific program, analysis of the role of internships on students learning, andevaluation of the effectiveness and outcomes of internship programs. For example, [2] provided athorough introduction of the internship program developed by the Building
to nearly200 students, becoming the fourth largest and one of the most diverse among the 30 departmentsin the College of Arts and Sciences. The inaugural engineering graduates represented 40%women, 25% of students representing racial and ethnic minorities, first-generation students(~10%), international students (~10%), and student athletes (~10%). Pierrakos also led andimplemented with the founding team an innovative and evidence-based hiring process to recruita diverse faculty body (Pierrakos, 2025) and institute many evidence-based, theory-grounded,and research-based practices and strategies to curriculum design, advising, and innovation(Pierrakos, 2023; Pierrakos and Kenny, 2025) all strategically aligned to the “Educate the WholeEngineer
Assistant Professor in Mathematics at Navajo Technical University (NTU) as well as the Program Advisor for the Mathematics Program at NTU. His current research focuses on technology-enhanced active learning in college mathematics for tribal students. He works developing lessons and curriculum to promote students’ interests in learning mathematics. He teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses about mathematics. He received his doctoral degree in the Science, Technol- ogy, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Strand of Teaching Learning and Culture Program at The University of Texas at El Paso in 2014 under the mentoring of Dr. Judith Munter.Alice Carron, Blue Marble Institute of Space Science Alice Carron is a Science
, G. (2005, June). A Qualitative Investigation Of A First Year Engineering Service Learning Program. In 2005 Annual Conference (pp. 10-77). 12. Main, J. B., Johnson, B. N., Ramirez, N. M., Ebrahiminejad, H., Ohland, M. W., & Groll, E. A. (2020). A case for disaggregating engineering majors in engineering education research: The relationship between co- op participation and student academic outcomes. International Journal of Engineering Education, 36(1), 170-185. 13. Raelin, J. A., Bailey, M., Hamann, J., Pendleton, L., Raelin, J., Reisberg, R., & Whitman, D. (2011). The effect of cooperative education on change in self-efficacy among undergraduate students: Introducing work self-efficacy
, the proposed research has the potential to broaden participationin STEM by increasing engagement, retention, and graduation of underrepresented minorities.Second, in building SocioTechnical Learning capacity, the research will also contribute to newapproaches for community centered solutions that leverage cultural assets of underrepresentedstudents and consider alternative knowledges in collaborative technology design, development,and implementation. As students graduate and enter the workforce, they carry with them thecapacity to respond to human and societal dimensions of technology in daily practices.3. Conceptual FrameworkThe literature characterizes multiple separate flavors of social learning and techno-centriclearning in the context of
Based Learning ProgramIntroductionIn this research-track paper, we seek to identify the relationship between engineering identity andbelonging and neurodiversity in a co-op based program. Neurodivergent characteristics, such asattention to detail, creativity, and pattern recognition, align well with careers in STEM (Science,Technology, Engineering, Mathematics), yet retention of neurodivergent students withinengineering programs is lower than neurotypical students [1]. Neurodivergent students whograduate or attempt to enter the workforce in a STEM discipline face bias and decreased successrates in job attainment after graduation [2]. By exploring neurodiverse engineering students’engineering identity and sense of belonging in a co-op based