educationprofessionals to improve delivery and assessment is ongoing, and processes to promotetransferability of research findings are under development.References: 1. American Society for Mechanical Engineering web site, accessed May 6, 2014: “Washington Policy Report May 2013.” 2. FEDERAL SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, AND MATHEMATICS (STEM) EDUCATION 5-YEAR STR ATEGIC PLAN, A Report from the Committee on STEM Education National Science and Technology Council, May 2013 3. National Academy of Engineering (2014), Making a World of Difference, National Academies Press. 4. National Academy of Engineering, Grand Challenges for Engineering, www.engineeringchallenges.org, updated 9/2013. 5. Johnson, Steven (2012). Future Perfect
Civil Engineering Body ofKnowledge for the 21st Century outlines the outcomes that “define the knowledge, skills, andattitudes necessary to enter the practice of civil engineering at the professional level in the 21stcentury.”3 One of the professional outcomes listed is Communication; the document cites theneed for engineers to be able to “plan, compose, and integrate the verbal, written, virtual, andgraphical communication of a project to technical and non-technical audiences.”3In addition, ABET accredited universities are well versed in the necessity of teachingcommunication skills within their curriculum, since one of the required student outcomes is “anability to communicate effectively.”4 As mentioned above, the civil engineering
written in advance by the instructors, andin other cases the students participate in developing the rubrics).Table 1- Course Objectives for the Summer Grand Challenge Program RH330 • Analyzing contexts, audiences, and genres to determine how they Technical influence communication and • Crafting documents to meet the demands and constraints of professional Professional situations Communication • Integrating all stages of the writing process, ethically and persuasively, to respond to technical contexts and audiences—from planning, researching and drafting to designing, revising and editing • Collaborating effectively within and across teams with
date.Conclusions and Future DirectionsAs these efforts progress and the authors expand their understanding of the influence of liberaleducation on engineering curriculum, we plan to continue to explore the means by which thesetwo areas are more closely integrated and are then less viewed as separate areas but more as twosides of the same issue. While the course discussed here is only a small start, looking to the workof others, there are opportunities for greater integration of topics such as ethics, sustainability, andsocial justice into core engineering courses. 7 Students at this institution currently have access to achapter of Engineers Without Borders USA. However, it is not clear whether participation in sucha group achieves the desired effect on
-curricularmultidisciplinary design program established in 19954. Through this program, student follow afive-stage approach to an engineering design project to respond to the needs of a communitypartner such as a museum, school, community center, or another service organization4. As aresult of participation in this program, students report that they develop skills in leadership,communication, and project planning, as well as an increased resolve to pursue a degree inengineering4. Other studies of engineering co-curricular service and development projects –such as Borg and Zitomer’s research on student solar water pump projects5 or Amadei,Sandekian, and Thomas’ model for undergraduate experience in sustainable humanitarianengineering design6 – have shown positive
a planned frequently returns time reads most of no eye contact. Page 22.831.12 conversation. to notes. report. Encourages Encourages Avoids or audience audience Reluctantly interacts discourages active interaction. Calls interaction. with audience. audience on classmates by
and very general objectives such as improvingstudents’ understanding of “their place in the world”’ (p. 10). Parkinson explains, “Specificobjectives can help drive preparation beforehand and the planned experience during the stay[abroad]. They can also be a useful vehicle to promote student reflection during the experience”(p. 10) The design and assessment of “Jefferson in France 1787” responded to these criticisms.Course OverviewThe course replicated portions of Thomas Jefferson’s 1787 journey through the south of France.It began just after final exams and concluded in mid-June, so that students could participatewithout foregoing the opportunity for a summer internship or other employment. Using theInstitute of Political Studies (Sciences Po
innovation that I consider exciting or a best practice. There is a lot going on in this class.” (8 Nov 2019).There is also the importance of planning ahead and, while attempting to keep to the schedule,being able to be flexible and move things as needed. Professor B continued: “I think that issomething to do for the spring (assuming I teach [Class B] again) – make a plan, before thesemester starts, for the specific interventions that I want to do, and incorporate them into the[pre-class daily assignments] and course schedule up front.” (1 Feb 2019).At the core of the observed solutions, sociotechnical integration is facilitated by a realisticperspective. Time is a limiting factor in the classroom, both during and in preparation, so lookingfor
and the analytical, being able to structure/organize/ plan a longer term project” and “including business courses like accounting, finance, marketing with the technical classes” 10We note in Table 1 that although “entrepreneurship” is still the least frequently surfaced themeanticipated by the research team, it emerged more frequently than the quantitative results shownin Figure 4 would have suggested. Responses highlighted “creativity” as an aspect
help students understand how their current coursework applies to and builds on not only their current understanding, but also their future coursework and their future careers.This resonates with what is found in Dr. Twenge’s book. According to Dr. Twenge, iGens aremore pessimistic and less confident than previous generations [7]. They are more willing towork hard in class and not question the grades. They are hesitant to talk in class because they donot want to say something wrong. Having grown up with the internet, they are used to findinginformation themselves. They want professors to keep class interesting, keeping videos, etc. tothree minutes maximum. This is important when planning class time for iGens. Typical iGensdo not
-school, and at a regional FIRST Lego League competition.When this project started, Julie had been using Mindstorms in her classroom and after-school forthe last ten years and had no plans of stopping in the near future. Mindstorms, as an educationaltechnology and toy extension of LEGO products, is a proprietary programmable robotics kit thatis owned by the multinational LEGO Group. For both the educational and entertainment ver-sions, the centerpiece of the kit is called the programmable brick, which can be coded to manipu-late motors and sensors. LEGO Mindstorms and the programmable brick have firm roots in constructionism. At asurface level, its name references Papert’s 1980 book, Mindstorms: Children, Computers, andPowerful Ideas and
action.Critical reflection is embedded within a program that recruits both engineers and non-engineers,with teaching and learning strategies drawn from the social sciences and humanities andintegrated with engineering management and problem-based learning. The program connectsstudents to a project partner in Sierra Leone or Zambia, the students work to understand theirpartners’ needs and assets and then develop an intervention plan consistent with the aims of theSDGs.In this paper, we provide results of a critically reflexive thematic analysis to explore the nature ofstudent reflections within the context of this interdisciplinary program. Evidence suggests arange of student interpretation of the purpose and application of critical reflection. Some are
expe- rience. I plan to continue on a path of lifelong learning as I hope to obtain a graduate-level education in the future. My engineering identity and career are underpinned by a hunger for knowledge and a desire to serve.Dr. Nathan E. Canney, Seattle University Dr. Canney teaches civil engineering at Seattle University. His research focuses on engineering educa- tion, specifically the development of social responsibility in engineering students. Other areas of interest include ethics, service learning, and sustainability education. Dr. Canney received bachelors degrees in Civil Engineering and Mathematics from Seattle University, a masters in Civil Engineering from Stan- ford University with an emphasis on
to the present,they argue that “militarism and cultures of warfare” have shaped the relationships betweenindustry (directly connected to war and not) and engineering education.10 At one levelengineering labor is designed to fit into existing power structures and organizational logics.David Noble explores the history of this fit in the U.S., tracing the curriculum and structure ofengineering education to military and commercial interests.11 While much has changed sincethen, the legacy of “command-and-control problem solving”—a system of military planning thatrestricts inquiry to strict causation—persists in engineering education today as the demarcationsbetween the social and the technical.12At another level, engineering epistemologies assume
amongthese: “I had good rapport with my professors to start with … One of my professors, he’s friendswith [manager’s name], who is really high up in [company’s name]. He actually recommended meto [company’s name] for the interview to start with … That’s kind of how I got an interview with[company’s name]. I didn’t actually apply online.” The social capital of her professor and her accessto it helped her to obtain employment at a prestigious consulting company.During her undergraduate studies, Martha interned each summer at a different engineering company.These opportunities honed her educational and career plans, strengthened her technical knowledgeand skills, and introduced her to workplace conventions. When Martha was wavering between civiland
cultural transformations in many engineering programs. We posit thatthese three issues that are wicked problems. Wicked problems are ambiguous, interrelated andrequire complex problem-scoping and solutions that are not amenable with traditional and linearstrategic planning and problem-solving orientations [2].As design thinking provides an approach to solve complex problems that occur in organizationalcultures [3], we argue that these wicked problems of engineering education cultures might bebest understood and resolved through design thinking. As Elsbach and Stigliani contend, “theeffective use of design thinking tools in organizations had a profound effect on organizationalculture” [3, p. 2279].However, not all organizational cultures support
collegial and included room for dialogue and questioning.The decision to make the course mandatory was made largely based on data from the Y1 pilot,assuming that similar outcomes would result from a scaled-up version of the course. Littleattention was given to anticipating how changing the course from optional to mandatory wouldaffect student attitudes, beliefs, or motivations in Y2, in part due to the necessity of makingcourse planning and scheduling decisions for Y2 just a few weeks after the conclusion of the Y1pilot. The unfortunate reality of making an educational pilot fit within the ongoing academiccalendar and scheduling demands of a large public institution necessitates that logistical coursedecisions regarding classroom reservations
student who is able to think sociotechnically is that they will acknowledge, accountfor, and plan for the complex interplays between social and technical dimensions of engineeringacross problem defining and solving phases. In this section, we describe literature relevant tosuch behavior.One of the ways we conceptualize sociotechnical thinking is within the engineering habits ofmind, which are defined as the values, attitudes, and skills held by engineers [9]. Prior researchin engineering education has endeavored to identify engineering habits of mind and methods forteaching them. However, there does not seem to be a clear consensus about the most promisingways to address them in the classroom. This is especially true for habits of mind related
efficientbatteries, the fact that material needed for the batteries is mined in a different country and thatthe people that mine these materials have different priorities than users of electric cars and theirlives are impacted in different ways. This level of thinking was more representative of otherstudents in the class and were partly due to students’ interest and background knowledge, partlydue to assigned readings, and partly due to how activities were led.Future WorkAs the study moves forward, we will continue to refine the above data analysis. We also plan toenhance the study in the following ways: 1. We will use open coding methods to derive a more in-depth, systematic analysis of student responses in Activity 3. Through this analysis, we
-positivist approach thatmight imply that we can perfectly anticipate a given group of students’ motivations beforeinteracting with them and plan accordingly. We as instructors will be more successful if we areprepared to accept students as they are, and design courses that assume, welcome, (and perhapsreveal,) the many different kinds of motivations that are undoubtedly present. We hasten to addthat we are not in opposition to well-posed post-positivist studies of student motivation bydemographic, and in fact believe that this approach may be strongly justified as a component ofintersectional research toward inclusion and culture change. However, the present study wasdesigned fill a particular present need in the literature around engineering
renderedvisible (e.g., “Given a -10 F night temperature, a 1500 calorie daily intake, and a 0.5 in thick coatworn by a homeless person, find the insulation material that will keep this person’s bodytemperature at 97 F throughout the night?”). Students could also identify alternate sources ofknowledge that would be useful to solving the larger homelessness problem “(e.g., social policy,urban planning, nutrition science, distributive economics)” [17]. Furthermore, they could identifywhat assumptions need to be challenged (e.g., what percentage of homeless people are adults vs.children, veterans vs. non-veterans, or how many actually own a coat that provides sufficientwarmth). Finally, students could contrast how their solutions would differ using only
both engineers and non- engineers to become members and work on “wickedproblems”, complex problems that are experienced as local manifestations of global trends. Suchwicked problems are contingent on multiple, interconnected factors manifest longitudinally atlocal, national and international levels (Gardner 2011). Global economic trends interrelated withlocal wages influence aggregate availability and consumption of resources including food,energy, water. Planning depends on local customs and, sociopolitical and legal institutions.Planet-scale environmental changes shape local climate and soil, affecting productivity andaccess to resources. In the interim, individuals and households experience the synchronic effectsof food, water and energy
stakeholders and other professionals. In developing a portfolio of initiatives toaddress the overarching project goals, the City Council has identified an opportunity to utilize avacant city block in a low-income area with an ethnically and racially diverse population todevelop and construct an urban natural enclave, including walking trails and community foodgarden spaces. As the project engineer you plan to approach this initiative by forming a projectadvisory team comprising a variety of community stakeholders and a range of interdisciplinaryprofessionals. After your initial round of interviews, you have invited some of the stakeholders toa group meeting. Your goals in facilitating this first meeting are: 1) through the group discussionyou want to
course content inmore depth because of the communication assignments. While C-I course faculty indicated thatchanging their course objectives and lesson plans to include more work on communication skillshad initially increased time spent on course preparation, they also indicated that because of thedual benefits of improved communication skills and improved understanding of engineeringconcepts, the extra work was worth the effort.At this time, the culture of the College of Engineering was beginning to value and embrace theseprogrammatic changes. The program grew because of successful efforts at faculty buy-in, aswell as positive assessments of the program by students. The program was built from faculty'sgrass-roots perceptions of student needs
thestrategy, and then detailing its research base.Pre-writing. Pre-writing tasks provide opportunities for students to consider what they know anddon’t know about a topic, to organize their writing, and to plan their approach to writing [36, 38,39]. It includes all activities that culminate in a piece of writing: minute papers, reflections,assigned readings and responses, prelab assignments and discussions, and documenting theexperiment itself.Multimodal writing. This form of writing means incorporating multiple modes, such as images,audio, video, and text, and following discipline-specific or genre conventions [40]. Withinengineering genres, this commonly means interpreting tables and figures that display data orresults.Feedback and revision
, inspired by service learning pedagogies [25], we continually ask our students toformulate plans for future action based on their experiences. In short, we ask students: “What?So What? Now What?”MethodsTo explore student capacities for building their own self-concept, learning to develop meaningfuland rewarding relationships, and maturing their capacity for deep learning, we relied on existingwork for the development of self-authorship in the intrapersonal, interpersonal and cognitivedomains, synthesized into a rubric (see Table III).We selected four students who had completed our series of seminar courses, three of whom wereengineering majors, to trace longitudinally, comparing their reflections at the end of the programto earlier work in their