educationresearch [13]. Figure 1 leverages this model to show how the engineering and labor theory ofchange fits into this study of engineering graduate students engaging in a strike. The modelconnects Mejia et al.’s critical consciousness model [17], which engages Freire’s principles ofcritical pedagogy [18], with Hassan’s model of learning-assessment interactions [19]. “Mejia etal.’s model is represented in the center of this model, showing relationships between theory,action, reflection, and concepts of scholarship, praxis, concientização, and liberation that resultfrom their overlap. Hassan’s model of learning-assessment interactions is overlaid, with theoverlap taking the form of reflection as an assessment method and action as a learning method”[13
in order to gain insight into the largerand multi-faceted culture in which these experiences take place5. This approach places value onthe subjectivity of the researcher, acknowledging the inherent bi-directional influences betweenthis individual and the culture they are studying. The autoethnography herein focuses on onestudent’s experiences of identity formation and reflection spurred by his involvement in aresearch project about engineers’ imaginaries of “the public.” These experiences are discussedin three journal entries and analyzed with the lens of identity formation described below.Through this research, the student was able to gain a deeper understanding of experiencesfoundational to his personal and professional identities as well
inequities they sought to address.Freire characterized this as “false generosity”—as charity offered that does not empower, butinstead fosters dependency. While such aid may help individuals, it also sustains inequities [10].Addressing inequality in engineering education means interrogating the origins of inequalities.Efforts to unravel those systems requires the knowledge of decolonization and engaging indecolonizing methodologies [11]. This is important to reflect on because when organizationsenter a community, they often act in colonizing ways and extend oppressive systemsmasquerading as aid. Decolonizing methodologies center community knowledge and needs andforeground the community’s own purposes.Such work is effortful and time consuming, but
the global community, and have become more prominent at this culturalmoment. In an effort to address the topics of social justice, equity, and inclusion manyuniversities and groups of faculty and students have focused on ways to educate STEM studentand faculty populations.There is a complex and continually developing body of literature discussing and reflecting onreform efforts both in engineering education and more broadly. This literature can simplisticallybe classified into three general types: (1) calls for action that explain and provide evidenceconcerning the needs for reforms [1], e.g. , [2]; (2) research describing the reform process e.g. ,[3], [4], and; (3) research examining why most reform efforts fail [5], [6].This third type of
to create such opportunities, Dr. Zastavker’s re- cent work involves questions pertaining to students’ motivational attitudes and their learning journeys in a variety of educational environments. One of the founding faculty at Olin College, Dr. Zastavker has been engaged in development and implementation of project-based experiences in fields ranging from science to engineering and design to social sciences (e.g., Critical Reflective Writing; Teaching and Learning in Undergraduate Science and Engineering, etc.) All of these activities share a common goal of creat- ing curricular and pedagogical structures as well as academic cultures that facilitate students’ interests, motivation, and desire to persist in
Sky’s the Limit: Drones for Social Good courseincludes critical aspects that relate to multiple engineering disciplines, which allows students toidentify the connections between drones and their particular engineering concentration. Thecourse is also multi-disciplinary and encourages critical social reflection. Students consider abroad range of applications of drones with the goal of promoting social good. The courseculminates in an entrepreneurial project that incorporates knowledge and skills from severalengineering disciplines in the context of engineering for social good.Research has found that female, Black, and/or Latinx engineering students are drawn to pursuingcareers that they identify as promoting social justice and a greater social
. c American Society for Engineering Education, 2020 Reflecting on #EngineersShowUp: Outcomes and Lessons from Organizing a Campaign among Engineering EducatorsAbstractIn an open dialogue format, participants and organizers of #EngineersShowUp report on theorganizing work, actions, discourse, and reflections emerging from an NSF-funded week ofaction campaign that occurred from February 23rd - 29th, 2020. Participants helping to organizeand take part included students, faculty, administrators, postdoctoral researchers and othersconnected to the world of engineering education. The intention of this week of action (directlyfollowing E-Week) was three fold. First, we aimed to test approaches from social movementsand assess
mechanical,electrical, or industrial engineering degrees. Upon further explanation, the alumni clarified thatwhat they meant by this statement was that they did not use their disciplinary expertise. Theydid, however, emphasize the ways that the abilities they acquired in their engineering education-- namely technical problem solving, critical thinking, communication, and teamwork -- werewhat allowed them to succeed as engineers. To the surprise of our current students, the panelistsall agreed that one of the most useful classes they took was public speaking. Recognizing theneed for a broad curriculum that reflects the diversity of skills engineers require, including thosewithin the liberal arts, we have started a new major in General Engineering. In
engineering students. Thesearchitectures are compatible with a wide range of course and informal learning settings. They arefocused on engaging in, observing, and reflecting-in-action on individual and group dynamics,especially in conversations that challenge personal views and comfort zones. After attending toeach architecture in turn, we discuss the collection of architectures as a toolset for facilitating thedevelopment of interpersonal skills in engineering students.IntroductionThe ability to engage with and facilitate conversations on complex topics is a crucial skill forengineering students preparing to thoughtfully encounter a world full of diversity, challengeassumptions, and work across disciplinary and cultural boundaries. This kind of
contextualized curricula, spurring many technical programs to reform,for example by “humanizing” engineering, developing technical literacy in nonengineers, ortrying to produce more integrative socio-technologists.Several initiatives reflect the mid-to-late 1960s interest in educating “socio technologists” tobridge the gap between competing admiring and critical visions of technology; this period wasinformed by both the triumphs and the tragic consequences of WWII and Cold War technology.Wisnioski [7] calls this gap “a rift about the purposes of engineering and the nature oftechnology...sparked by a combination of changes in the organization, content, and scale ofengineering labor, and by a trenchant critique of technology from intellectuals, activists
particular skill after taking theworkshop and to provide feedback about the workshops, the workshop instructors, and their skilldevelopment in their engineering projects course. The data in the surveys is analyzed alongsidequalitative data from individual student reflections and focus groups to determine theeffectiveness of the workshops and how students report subsequently using those skills. Thegoals of this study are to 1) identify if and how students are using the skills developed duringskill-building workshops, 2) determine if and how those skill-building workshops affect studentsself-efficacy levels in engineering, and 3) generate suggestions for improvement to theworkshops to make them more equitable experiences for all students.BackgroundThe
which the university will: become an anchorinstitution, demonstrate engaged scholarship, practice changemaking, advance access andinclusion, demonstrate care for our common home, and integrate our liberal arts education.In addition, the University Core curriculum recently underwent an overhaul with a new CoreCurriculum in place in Fall 2017. One significant outcome of the new Core reflects theUniversity’s commitment to Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice (DISJ). Whereas studentspreviously were required to take a single Diversity course, the new Core requires students to taketwo Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Justice (DISJ) courses recognizing a developmental modelof achieving these outcomes. In addition, the DISJ designation is now based
general, we interpreted student engagement with and case-study application of the E4SJcriteria as an indication students not only understood the criteria, but could also analyze andevaluate them well enough to argue for or against their inclusion/exclusion in the process ofdeciding which criteria were the most or least effectively engaged. Furthermore, student use andevaluation of the criteria to an actual engineering case study constitutes a form of sociotechnicalapplication, wherein students analyzed and reflected on the complex interplays of the social andthe technical. Overall, the E4SJ criteria evaluation process via case studies provided studentswith concrete, specific opportunities to evaluate the utility of the criteria and to understand
technology that led to a “virtuous cycle” of exponentialimprovement. Students engage in reading and discussion along with short lectures describing thedesign and manufacture of semiconductors. Hands-on experiences involving coding andintegrated circuit design are used to strengthen student understanding of basic concepts. Studentwriting assignments include reflections about their personal history experiencing technologicalimprovements, reactions to the hands-on experiences, and a book report in which they exploreone particular aspect of semiconductor technology and its societal impacts.Assessment of student writing assignments showed that students gained a qualitativeunderstanding of semiconductor design and manufacturing and an appreciation for the
Core Curriculum cultivates social justice, civic life, perspective, andcivic engagement. It involves community-based learning with a social justice emphasis. Studentsare required to (i) engage in 16 hours of community-based learning experiences and (ii) performcritical reflection and evaluation of their experiences. A primary goal of the ELSJ requirement is“to foster a disciplined sensibility toward power and privilege, an understanding of the causes ofhuman suffering, and a sense of personal and civic responsibility for cultural change.”The specific learning objectives of an ELSJ class are as follows:• Recognize the benefits of life-long responsible citizenship and civic engagement in personal and professional activities (Civic Life
know)? 2. Write a story about when you, or someone you know, or someone you can imagine, were personally impacted by bias in an engineering design.Student responses were collected and graded based on whether they had been submitted or not.The intent of the reflective questions was to motivate students to examine bias by giving them anopportunity to see how it had shaped their own lives. Students had already been exposed tostorytelling as a tool for communication via other initiatives in the department, so we includedsome reminders from those projects, such as “make it sticky,” “include a few compelling detailsto make the story specific [and] real,” and “help the reader see your story, like they are watchinga movie.”Intervention phase 1
Science on Stage, Science and Technology in the Popular Media, Language andPower, Engineering and Science in the Arts, Language and Meaning, and The Power of Story--aswell as the opportunity to earn a Certificate in Communication. Awarded to students whocomplete three of these courses, the Certificate reflects the FASE’s success in promoting andrewarding student engagement in educational opportunities outside the core curriculum.In this panel of the Associate Professors, Teaching Stream, and Lecturers who teach thesecourses, we explain our context at a top-flight research university, before discussing our coursesand assessing their success in providing a liberal education for our students. A discussion periodwill allow us to share insights into
in men’sresponses, expectancy was a more prominent theme for women. Thematic differences were alsoapparent in the instrumentality of the activity, with women more likely to record goals ofexciting students about engineering and men more likely to articulate goals of teaching content.Work In Progress (WIP): A Systematic Review of Outreach Impact 4 Bigelow [14] also used a VIE-informed reflection paper to investigate undergraduateengineering students’ motivation towards outreach after participating in a biomedicalengineering course in which an outreach activity was included. Using an inductive codingprocess, Bigelow identified 12 themes within the reflections, but these focused on lessonslearned
MSAs and their impact on quality of life metrics, to find multiplealternative hypotheses to pursue, and find ways, both engineering and non-engineering, toimprove such metrics. This should help place engineering solutions in the broader scope ofthings and their impact.We hypothesize that, by providing scaffolding with ’executable’ narrative case studies andinteraction with students in other disciplines, we can help mainstream engineering students tostep out of their comfort zones and reflect on broader societal issues. We also hypothesize thatthis would help non-mainstream engineering students to find a new awareness and strength inbecoming engineers.Our approach is derived from two theoretical models with strong emphasis on studentinvolvement
Narratives aims to provide students with a toolkit for successfulcommunication in contemporary society and the workplace. This integrated course experience invitesstudents to reflect and use diverse ways of communication in the digital era. During one semester,participants were introduced to oral, written, visual and auditory techniques of communication, anddocumented through various digital media artifacts. Page 26.127.3Our value proposition that artistic storytelling can help students think, communicate and aid in theiremotional wellbeing is backed by a long history of scholarship. Such seminal articles as K. Egan’s“Memory, Imagination
between engineering faculty expertise and the requirements of preparing students to function well in diverse settings and promote inclusive practices. Possible Topics for Future Papers/Collaborations • Given that engaged reflection is essential for students to optimize their learning from intercultural interactions and other diversity interventions, what are the most effective pedagogical strategies for getting students to engage in meaningful reflection? How can we structure reflection assignments so that they are optimally timed, efficient, and focused while still allowing space for
. While mostcreativity frameworks involve divergent thinking (concept generation), convergent thinking(iterating a prototype), as well as openness to idea exploration, and reflection, in practice andunder constraints most engineering projects focus disproportionately on the first two of these four.Useful interventions might find ways to increase students’ “openness to idea exploration” and“reflection” about design.Studies have shown that students’ creativity increases when risk taking is supported in theclassroom (Daly [65] again, citing others). Increasing incentives for students to take risks andexplore ideas, and providing an environment in which they feel safe doing so, could disrupt the“lockstep” “death march” and enhance creativity and free
Education from 2005 to 2016. Their “working definition considers interdisciplinaryinteractions as attempts to address real-world cases and problems by integrating heterogeneousknowledge bases and knowledge-making practices, whether these are gathered under theinstitutional cover of a discipline or not” and was adapted from (Krohn 2010). In the literaturethey reviewed, “the reported success factors include taking a system approach, employingreal-world problems as exemplars and tasks, involving reflective dialogue, and aspects ofinfrastructure and collaboration. Reported challenges address institutional barriers, complexity,and acquiring adequate levels of support.” The authors go on to report that “motivation behindinterdisciplinary education … is
numerous transitional points. In developmentalmodels from the field of psychology, empathy tends to be a peripheral but important component.For example, many of these models emphasize the individual’s cognitive growth as a parallelcomponent to their social development (e.g., Hoffman19, Kohlberg34). Other models integrate allaspects of development into a single unifying staged theory, be it their cognitive/ethicaldevelopment (e.g., Perry35) or their reflective judgement (e.g., King and Kitchener36).Stage models tend to include lower stages or tiers of development that the individual attains inearly adolescence. For example, Hoffman developed a stage model of empathic development, butthis model focused solely on the concept of empathic distress
theanalysis we focus on how these engineers reflect on their fit in each job and how they account fortheir decision to pursue a second term of internship or co-op at an organization or, alternately,how they decided not to return. We highlight the cases of three engineers who represent twodifferent experiences of young engineers: trying lots of internships as a student and finding agood fit before graduation versus trying one internship as a student and perceiving oneself as apoor fit for one’s job after graduation. We therefore use this analysis to examine the relationshipbetween undergraduate work experience, perceived fit in a work environment, andattrition/persistence in engineering.Analyses in this area are important to conduct because there is a
, emotional, and self-reflective livesof engineers themselves that fail to “fit into” prevailing professional paradigms of thought andpractice.Cannons refers then not only to military annihilation but also to the systematic drowning out ofvoices/perspectives that diverge from, challenge, or oppose the engineering status quo. Wepropose that these voices and perspectives are essential for the development of technically andmorally robust engineering research and practice. In fact, they are the very thing that wouldenable engineering to truly hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public, andrealize philosopher Charles Harris’ proposed ideal of bettering “the material basis of humanwell-being or quality of life.”3This paper engages in a
- cation with specific emphasis on innovative pedagogical and curricular practices at the intersection with the issues of gender and diversity. With the goal of improving learning opportunities for all students and equipping faculty with the knowledge and skills necessary to create such opportunities, Dr. Zastavker’s re- cent work involves questions pertaining to students’ motivational attitudes and their learning journeys in a variety of educational environments. One of the founding faculty at Olin College, Dr. Zastavker has been engaged in development and implementation of project-based experiences in fields ranging from science to engineering and design to social sciences (e.g., Critical Reflective Writing; Teaching and
implement the SSDS and illustrate the findings when usingthis survey pre- and post- course with students who participated in WPSI across threeuniversities during the Fall of 2014. Results from these components are triangulated withstudents’ end-of-semester written reflections and participating instructors’ course experiences.This qualitative component allowed us to consider how WPSI might be improved in future Page 26.508.3iterations, as well as broader implications of the SSDS and WPSI for engineering educationcourses and curriculum.For anonymity, throughout this paper we will refer to course offerings as Course 1, 2, and 3. Thisframing puts the
espouse differentvalues reflected in their respective cultures [38] [39]. For example, where academic goalsemphasize student learning and development, industry goals are often driven by profitability,productivity, and benefits to the broader organization. Many students thus graduate withuncertainty about what working in an engineering organization is like [40]. Some mightextrapolate from real-world jobs, internships, or co-ops [41] [42], but not all students have accessto these opportunities, especially if they come from minoritized groups or have less social andcultural capital [43] [44]. Further, engineering education has been criticized for perpetuating a“culture of disengagement” [24] that privileges objectivity and, in the process
. Their plans, actions, policymaking,reflections, and frustrations all aim to explore possible reactions to the challenges brought bythese dominant images. 1It is worth noting that the idea of dominant images is not an empirical concept. In other words,the dominant image active learning in American engineering education does not necessarily inferthat most American engineering schools and programs have adopted or developed active learningwell. Rather, dominant images often have normative value. Engineering programs and facultymay have different feelings about active learning, but active learning as a social image is relevantto their educational