better.Story as a Way to Understand Meaning Stories etch grooves deep enough for people to follow in the same way that water follows certain paths down a mountainside. And every time fresh actors tread the path of the story, the groove runs deeper. [1]For decades, researchers have realized that the stories we tell are important artifacts of what wevalue and how we find meaning. Schrank’s study of artificial intelligence included a deep diveinto how the stories we tell relate to human memory and understanding [2]. Further, he notes thatboth the act of telling a story and the process of listening to someone else’s story shape thememories we have of our experiences. Pennebaker’s extensive work with guided writing, atechnique where
the development of empathy for the community, as is (again) adopting a mindset thatde-emphasizes one’s prior knowledge in order to develop an unbiased view and holisticunderstanding of a community’s true needs.4.3 CommunicationEffective communication skills are an essential component of utilizing empathic designtechniques to understand users’ needs, within or outside of service-learning contexts. Walther,Miller, and Kellam8 developed a series of four modules for cultivating empathic communicationskills among engineering students. These modules included (a) a direct focus on improvingspecific communication skills such as talking, listening, and observing, (b) role-playingactivities, (c) reflective writing exercises, and (d) “rich picture
given dataand engineering and math alone vs. also factoring in related bodies of knowledge andassumptions.We are not suggesting here that faculty have to re-write all the problem statements they assign intheir ES classes. These interventions can be made gradually—first, for example, by assigningextra-credit opportunities for those students re-writing problems, then by allowing problemrewriting sessions (with a TA) every other week, then incorporating them in exams. It is clearthat initially, integrating SJ may provoke discomfort and seem outside any given instructor’s areaof expertise; however, with time and gradual integration, along with examples of suchintegration like those below, instructors should notice greater comfort and, more
to develop a critique of the epistemologicaland axiological assumptions and privileges of educators, scholars and studentswho engage with communities that exist on the margins. I argue that asstudents, teachers, and researchers, we equate the minds of those who occupyeconomic and social margins with the possession of marginal intellect whenwe set out to help or aid them without recognizing the validity of andvalorizing their ways of knowing. Learning how members of socially andeconomically marginalized communities apply their minds, mouths, handsand feet to solve locally occurring problems may help us interrogate ourscholarly, pedagogical, and ethical objectives in a more reflexive manner. Drawing on ethnographic research and writing
dualism, and the meritocracy ideology (for further details on theseideologies read: [13], [14]). Cech found that the need to meet accreditation requirements and be considered,“legitimate purveyors of knowledge” [10, p. 64] can put pressure on even the most ethically andpedagogically innovative of schools to fall into the same culture of disengagement. The study found thatwhile all four of the engineering programs studied showed a decrease in the perceived importance of publicwelfare amongst students as they progressed through their time in school, programs perceived by studentsas focusing on ethical and social issues, with a general education and writing skills emphasis, and a focuson policy implications overall found ethical responsibilities
Can a Body Do? How We Meet the Built World, the artist, design researcher, and OlinCollege professor Sara Hendren writes, “Engineering is not the science of the laboratory alone…It is fundamentally applied, which means its results live in the world. It belongs to people, notjust as ‘users’ but as protagonists of their dimensional lives” [1, p. 23]. Hendren’s invocation of avision of engineering as radically human-centered provided the philosophical and humanisticcore to our interdisciplinary teaching team as we embarked on designing a new course forfirst-year students at Boston College (BC). Our course, Making the Modern World: Design,Ethics, and Engineering (MMW), situated engineering practice and knowledge within its social,political, and
] writes, “In the Nazi regimethe technology served both the purposes of the state and the ethical values of the technologicalprofessionals.” This brings Katz to the question, “how does an engineer know that the values[they] embod[y] through [their] technological products are good values that will lead to a betterworld?”The contemporary use of technologies such as facial recognition and predictive algorithms in thecontext of law enforcement and incarceration make Katz’s question both relevant and urgent.Software such as the predictive policing tool PredPol reinforces biases within U.S. lawenforcement [5]; as one study noted, “PredPol is a tool for that aids law enforcement as itcurrently exists, and around the country, law enforcement targets
engineering identities“must negotiate the roles they play within the community of engineering as a discipline, ingroups with their peers, and within the classroom.” Tonso [25] describes identity development as“a complicated process through which campus engineer identities (cultural knowledge learned oncampus) provided a lens of meaning through which to “recognize” (or not) performances ofengineer selves as engineers.” Particularly for women and students of color, engineering identitycan be very malleable and susceptible to change, with persistence and career plans able to be“strongly swayed” by even small interactions or experiences as undergraduates [29].Institutions themselves foster engineering identity development through displays of solidarity
education is equally sought by engineering educators: “Only connect.”3And yet our institutional environments discourage this “combinatory play” of disciplines,methods, and ways of thinking. The traditional means of integrating engineering and thehumanities is through general education requirements, which students tend to take during theirfirst two years, in lower-level survey courses. Here they learn a bit about history, writing, orphilosophy, with the hope that they will remember and draw on this work once they dig into theirmajor coursework and projects. But most of these lower-level general education courses focus ondelivering content, often in large lectures.4 The methodology of the discipline, and opportunitiesfor students to understand how a
] club, if you waste a day,maybe you’ll pick it up some other day. At work, you have to get things done and there are peopledepending on you. I think it really gets you ready for the working world that you're going to be in. Itgives you those professional skills: how to act around your supervisors or mentors and how to gethelp from them.” She reported learning how to be part of a team, to communicate with people fromother disciplines, to send clear and concise emails, to write reports, and to organize data.When it came to the job search, Martha drew heavily on her internship experience: “I think thosesummer experiences really helped me. The good marks at university helped. [Company’s name], forexample, puts a lot of weight on your transcript
to create credible undergraduateengineering programs that maximizes access while also expanding the national STEM workforcehave struggled to balance professional skill sets with fundamental training in engineering in amanner that gives a distinct profile to each program. Our initial data indicate that U.S.universities continue to struggle to define themselves at this nexus.It is also evident that the various “structural” features that we reference in our study designfunction in complex, interdependent, and generally non-deterministic ways that approach thecomplexities of an ecosystem. For example, while much of the focus on professional skill sets—especially teamwork, communication (writing and presentation), and design—have occurredwithin
patterns’21. As it was hypothesized that the aptitudes for lifelong learning were present in thesedata, and this hypothesis required testing, the research literature on lifelong learning wasinvestigated for potential theory or theoretical frameworks to guide the study. Deakin Crick etal’s (2004) Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory (ELLI) was selected for a number of reasons6.Importantly, Deakin Crick et al. (2004) have extensively investigated how to characterize lifelonglearning, and write about its many facets6. They explore the notion of lifelong learningholistically in its relevance over one’s lifetime, as well as in the context of traditional learning,including classroom, formal and informal, and self-directed learning6. They position their
training in communications, leadership, and presentationskills. The course also includes sessions on networking, gender and diversity issues, and otherspecial topics.Throughout the academic year, Engineering Ambassadors participate in special seminars acrosscampus as determined by group advisors and student leaders. The students plan and invitespeakers for professional development including topics of “Sexual Harassment in the Workplaceand Classroom”, “Advanced Presentation Skills”, “Technical Writing and Presentation Skills”and special leadership workshops offered by UConn’s office of student leadership. Page 23.496.14Additionally, during each
, in the “program evaluator competency model”,ABET also emphasizes the professional competency of program evaluators, which mainlyencompasses professional ethics requirements for program evaluators as “professional peers”: “a.conveys professional appearance and demeanor, b. is committed to contributing and adding valueto the evaluation process, c. considered a person with high integrity and ethical standards, d.represents ABET and responsible technical society as a practicing professional, e. willing tomake observations to stimulate innovation and further the program's efforts toward continuousimprovement, f. shows professional respect for institution faculty and staff, g. upholds ABETcode of conduct at all times.”18In contrast, the CEEAA’s
takeinitiative to pursue these opportunities for themselves. The ambassador is able to discuss howtheir “extra-curricular” experiences (internships, research, activities, etc) shaped both theircollege experience and the opportunities that have opened up to them regarding future careers.The first year students can begin their college careers seeing an example of someone who hasbeen through the experience and has reached goals relating to future careers. The ambassador isa relevant role model, a peer to whom students are able to relate. Additionally, the examplesprovided show how the work that the student has done in their engineering college career is Page
break free of disciplinary constraints andreconfigure one’s own knowledge with the knowledge of others.15, 33, 41, 107, 113 Thus, both domainknowledge and integrative experience are important antecedents of innovation.One of the most powerful effects of E&LE integration is that of collective intelligence. Page88shows that in many situations calling for innovative solutions, who you know turns out to trumpwhat you know, and Reich93 has noted that in the modern world, successful new ventures requirea team; what he refers to as “collective entrepreneurship.” Leonard and Sensiper write, “Creativeideas do not arise spontaneously from the air but are born out of conscious, semiconscious, andunconscious mental sorting, grouping, matching, and
Christine Haas brings over ten years of experience working in marketing and communications with a focus on the science and engineering fields. She’s held positions as the director of marketing for Drexel’s College of Engineering and director of operations for Worcester Polytechnic Institute - Engineering. Now, as Principal of Christine Haas Consulting, LLC, Christine travels around the world teaching courses to scientists and engineers on presentations and technical writing. She has taught clients across gov- ernment, industry and higher education, including Texas Instruments, Brookhaven National Laboratory, European Southern Observatory (Chile), Simula Research Laboratory (Norway) and the University of Illinois-Urbana
, we are committed to broadening the definition of engineering.Instead of perpetuating a false division between technical and social aspects of problems, weseek to explicitly recognize engineering as a socio-technical discipline. As Erin Cech writes,“Prioritizing certain ‘technical’ features (faster, smaller, cheaper vs. quality or sustainability) overothers is a social and political choice at its core. Thus, the notion that engineering work cansomehow be separated from the social world is itself a cultural frame for understanding whatengineering is [13].” We envision an innovative engineering culture that is inherentlyinterdisciplinary, engaging faculty across engineering departments and across campus toprovide students with an engineering
negotiationson a common topic, namely: agricultural productivity incorporating the use of geneticallymodified organisms, sustainable intensification, and agro ecology. One optional term project (U8) offers students an opportunity to submit an application for a national or internationalfellowship opportunity in the broad area of “science policy” (i.e., Fulbright program, [31]) toallow students an opportunity to explore alternative career paths beyond the traditionalengineering approach of working for a company, consulting firm, or regulatory agency. Andone optional term project (U 9) offers students an opportunity to write a case study of sciencediplomacy on a topic of their choosing using the lessons of the Antarctic Treaty of 1959 as aguide [32] to
education for more than 30 years. As a manager, teacher and researcher, she has served many departments, including Office of BIT President, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, School of Law, etc. In 2011, she built the Center for Faculty Development (CFD) of BIT, which has been named as the National Demonstrational Center by the Ministry of Education of China. Now, professor Pang is the head of Graduate School of Educational and the director of CFD at BIT. Her teaching, research, and writing focused on general education and suzhi education, faculty de- velopment, and higher education management. She has published 8 books, more than 50 papers, and undertook around 15 research projects. Her monograph ”General
. The joint case study grade is worth 10% of the final grade for ENGR 321. Each student writes a 700 word essay about the assigned topic and a 300 word essay about how the sophomore class can realistically contribute to solving the problem. Both essays require citations: at least five citations for the 700 word essay and at least one citation for the 300 word essay. Each group gives a five minute presentation, and then the entire class discusses the problem. When the joint case study debuted in Spring, 2018, class of 2020 sophomores investigated these elements of Hurricane Maria: how individuals have coped, political representation, electrical infrastructure, island finances, effect of climate change on hurricanes, and response
Methods MAutoethn nographyAutoethn nography (a combination n of autobiog graphy and eethnography) is a qualitaative approacch toresearch and writing that “seeks to t describe anda systemattically analyyze personal experience iin [10]order to understand u cultural c expeerience” . In this papeer we use auttoethnographhic techniquues tosituate Michael’s M periences as a freshman engineering student in thhe context oof engineerinng expprogramss that, we arg gue, are in tu urn nested within w and coonnected
global accreditation community has affirmedthe importance of educational breadth, in multiple agreements including the Washington Accord,the Sydney Accord, and the Dublin Accord.14 Engineering historian Bruce Seely has noted thecyclical nature of these calls. 15An ABET-funded study on the impact of EC 2000 by Lisa Lattuca and colleagues at the Centerfor the Study of Higher Education at Penn State16 found that 75% of the approximately 150chairs surveyed reported “some” or “significant” increases in emphasis on communication,teamwork, use of modern engineering tools, technical writing, lifelong learning, and engineeringdesign, without significantly impacting technical outcomes. More than half the faculty reportedsimilar gains in these areas in
Wisconsin–Madison Traci Nathans-Kelly earned her PhD in 1997. At that time, she was also the Program Director for the Sci- entific and Technical Communication BS degree at the University of Minnesota, Crookston. She came to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to teach in the College of Engineering’s Technical Communication program, the Masters of Engineering inProfessional Practice program, and the Masters of Engineering in Engine Systems program. She instructs a variety of topics, including technical communication (graduate and undergraduate), technical presentations (graduate and undergraduate), technical editing, writing user manuals, and other courses. She is active in the Society for Technical Communication (STC) as
policies, indicating that individuals create behaviorpatterns or have consistent justifications and logic. The most significant types of pressures toviolate workplace policies included peer behavior, wanting to seem better that they are, andsomeone telling them to do it. On the opposite side, conditions that caused them to hesitate toviolate workplace policies included negative consequences, fear of getting caught, and it wouldrequire more work or money later.Incidents of less-than-exemplary behaviors of engineers may lead us to question the adequacy ofthe educational preparation of engineers during college. A majority of engineering facultybelieved that the ethics and/or societal impacts education of undergraduate and graduate studentsin their
isbased on one such bank of questions pertaining to ABET, including an effort to capture thesubject’s attitude towards accreditation, general accreditation practices at their institution, andtheir opinion on known issues such as PEV training and consistency. We are preparing a separatearticle, slated for a peer-reviewed journal, which reports more directly on the issue of howacademic institutions and their programs responded to EC 2000, and a more robust account ofhow assessment and accreditation are practiced at engineering schools today. We note that eachinterviewer was given full discretion regarding how to direct their questions and where to focustheir interviews. We deemed 200 of our 277 interviews to have substantial content related toABET
alumni more likely to be employed full time in non-engineeringareas than white alumni. Gender differences were minimal in the first ten years aftergraduation, but became pronounced after ten years at which point salaries were 25%higher for men than for women with similar experience. Men were also 25% more likely,at the ten-year mark, to be promoted to senior managerial roles than their female peers.Finally, white men expressed the highest levels of job satisfaction and Black and femalegraduates leaned more toward pursuing graduate education than their peers. Morerecently, Sheri Sheppard’s large-scale school to work transition surveys have put careerpath analysis on the engineering education research map.11 Briefly, Sheppard and herteam used two
transition totheir careers. Students setting out for college campuses, getting out of the comfort of the familyfor the first time in life is itself a giant leap in their maturing. Then the experiential learningcoming from open discussions, making deep, meaningful connections, and dispute managementin classes and dorms all significantly contribute to shaping them as responsible future citizens.Students learn not only from the faculty but from their peers. They learn about themselves, theiridentities, their interest, their character, school pride, conflict resolution, emotional intelligence,and a whole host of things. However, even with all its benefits, this residential experience is notaccessible to all groups of students due to its high price tag
service-learning literatureto tie the questions to the course objectives [5]. As such, the questions were chosen to see howstudents viewed the role of engineers in human development and to evaluate the students’perceptions of how CST can inform their work as engineers. The first objective was the mainfocus of the first two critical reflections. The first reflection focused on the role of the individualengineer while the second focused on the impact the project had on the community. The lastwritten reflection addressed the second objective. In addition to the course objectives, theauthors wanted to assess student outcomes, in particular ABET H. The first two reflectionsaddressed this outcome.Students were asked to write a reflection that answered
several wind energy and control systems classes and began engineering education research related to social justice in control systems engineering in fall 2014.Dr. Jon A. Leydens, Colorado School of Mines Jon A. Leydens is Associate Professor of Engineering Education Research in the Division of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at the Colorado School of Mines, USA. Dr. Leydens’ research and teaching interests are in engineering education, communication, and social justice. Dr. Leydens is author or co-author of 40 peer-reviewed papers, co-author of Engineering and Sustainable Community Development (Morgan and Claypool, 2010), and editor of Sociotechnical Communication in Engineering (Routledge, 2014). In 2016, Dr