Paper ID #32920Alumni Reflect on Their Education About Ethical and Societal IssuesDr. Angela R. Bielefeldt, University of Colorado Boulder Angela Bielefeldt is a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder in the Department of Civil, Envi- ronmental, and Architectural Engineering (CEAE) and Director for the Engineering Plus program. She has served as the Associate Chair for Undergraduate Education in the CEAE Department, as well as the ABET assessment coordinator. Professor Bielefeldt was also the faculty director of the Sustainable By Design Residential Academic Program, a living-learning community where students
Paper ID #34670Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) for Promoting Reflection in EngineeringEducation: Graduate Student PerceptionsDr. Ryan C. Campbell, Texas Tech University Having completed his Ph.D. through the University of Washington’s interdisciplinary Individual Ph.D. Program (see bit.ly/uwiphd), Dr. Campbell is now a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Texas Tech Uni- versity. He currently facilitates an interdisciplinary project entitled ”Developing Reflective Engineers through Artful Methods.” His scholarly interests include both teaching and research in engineering educa- tion, art in engineering, social justice
individual’s decision-making in the face of discrete moral or ethical quandaries. Yet,prior scholarship by Joseph Herkert [2] suggests there is a multi-layered set of ethical obligationsthat range for microethics––or individual decisions––to macroethics, which reflect theprofessional society’s values and ethical obligations. Macroethical dilemmas result in the“problem of many hands”, as described by van der Poel and Royakkers [3]. This brings to lightthe notion that individuals or even large organizations are not solely responsible for engineeringprocesses and uncertain outcomes. For it is clear that no individual or discrete organization hascomplete control and authority for the complex socio-technical innovation process from designto implementation
in this article.Dr. Marie Stettler Kleine’s research on humanitarian and integrated engineering programsinspired her reflection on how different forms of contextualization and the vocabulary used todescribe them signal different ways to best teach engineers. Her graduate training in science andtechnology studies and human-centered design prepared her to see that these forms ofcontextualization are much more nuanced than using particular language, but this varyinglanguage fundamentally changes the engineering pedagogy in practice. She continues tointerrogate why and how engineering educators learn from other disciplines to explicitlyprioritize contextualization.For Dr. Kari Zacharias, this project has been an opportunity to reflect on the
during an event designed to disrupt the educational enterprise [11]. TheCOVID-19 pandemic thus provides an opportunity to investigate dimensions of engineeringculture during a crisis, which can open new avenues for conversations about equity andaccessibility in engineering by identifying which aspects of culture are most and least amenableto change. In other words, disasters can help uncover ‘what really matters’ and potentially offer anew avenue for cultural change.This paper and its larger research project aim to capture student experiences and reflections, intheir own words, in order to understand how dimensions of engineering culture interacted withpractices in engineering education during COVID-19. This research project will then allow
education within the U.S.As evidenced by these programs, sociotechnical thinking is gradually emerging as an importanttheme within engineering education. More faculty are seeking to implement these concepts intheir classrooms. In this paper, we therefore seek to share insight from our team’s experienceswith sociotechnical integrations and our perceptions of the impacts of these integrations on ourstudents, including how we can use our experiences for formative classroom purposes.This paper presents the results of a qualitative analysis of faculty reflection logs written by twoinstructors who implemented sociotechnical thinking in their classrooms. As has been argued byBrent and Felder, writing and thinking, as is required for these logs, provokes
understanding of global and societal contexts in orderto solve some of the grand challenges facing humanity. This task is made no less difficult by thenecessity of multidisciplinary teams, diverse stakeholders, and innovative communicationmethods in an increasingly complex world. This vision for a modern engineer is reflected in the2004 and 2005 National Academies publications of “The Engineer of 2020” [1] and “Educatingthe Engineer of 2020” [2]. For historical context, Figure 1 showcases the call for action assummarized in the Grinter Report of 1955 [3] to the call of action as summarized in the Engineerof 2020 reports of 2004 and 2005. Ultimately, all of these reports (starting in 1955) urged for amore well-rounded engineer. The Engineer of 2020
. Centralto the module was providing definitions of virtue and of teamwork as a virtue and implementingstrategies from an empirically-grounded framework to develop students as virtuous teamworkers. Drawing from Lamb et al. (2021), strategies included “(1) habituation through practice,(2) reflection on personal experience, (3) engagement with virtuous exemplars, (4) dialogue toincrease virtue literacy, (5) awareness of situational variables, (6) moral reminders, and (7)friendships of mutual accountability.”Teamwork-relevant outcomes were assessed using two approaches: self-report and peer-assessment. Students reported perceived embodiment of fifteen teamwork attributes forthemselves and for each of their teammates pre- and post-Project 2. The most
Society of Professional Engineers. American c Society for Engineering Education, 2021 Engagement in Practice: Project-Based Community Engagement Model Preliminary Case StudiesAbstractEngineering engagement is typically project-based, which introduces elements andconsiderations not explicitly covered by models commonly used in service-learning andcommunity-engaged learning. A model specifically for project-based community engagementwas recently developed to facilitate reflection on program design, development, and analysis.Two cases are examined using this model as test examples of how it can be operationalizedacross diverse programs. The application
discourse identity. Although the rationale for developing engineering judgment inundergraduate students is the complexity they will face in professional practice, engineeringeducators often considerably reduce the complexity of the problems students face. Student workintended to train engineering judgment often prescribes goals and objectives, and demands a one-time decision, product, or solution that faculty or instructors evaluate. The evaluation processmight not contain formal methods for foregrounding feedback from experience or reflecting onhow the problem or decision emerges; thus, the loop from decision to upstream cognitiveprocesses might not be closed. Consequently, in this paper, our exploration of engineeringjudgment is guided by the
historical context using a variety of instructional modes and pedagogicalinnovations.This paper presents the experience of developing and teaching MMW for the first time in 2020 inthe midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. MMW was designed and co-taught by an interdisciplinaryfaculty teaching team from the departments of history, theology, and environmental science. As adesignated “Complex Problems” course, a type of first-year interdisciplinary Core course, MMWoffered 70 students the opportunity to satisfy BC’s Core requirements in Natural Science andHistory through three linked pedagogical components: lectures, labs, and reflection sessions. Ourgoal was to integrate engineering, the history of science and technology studies, and ethical andmoral modes of
ability to identify and use appropriate technical literature” [4].Program GoalsWhatever form it took, an enhanced technical writing program would have to meet these goals: • Support ABET’s instruction to produce students proficient in technical communication skills • Respond to employer requests for freshman co-op students more versed in business and technical writing tasks • Teach students a portable set of writing and presentation skills • Help students develop a process approach to writing that includes audience, purpose, context, research, and format considerations • Encourage students to develop a self-reflective approach to writing projects with the goal of becoming more proficient writersEmbedded Technical
, 2016). We use themetaphor of the soul to narrate our experiences in the field, a majority of which includeexperiences we shared being in the same engineering education PhD program. The metaphor ofthe soul serves as a vehicle to communicate our experiences, conceptions, hopes, fears, andaspirations. The soul is as much an idea felt, as it is a scholarship known through inquiry. Weexperienced this essence as it moved across individuals in our department, and believe it is feltfurther in the engineering education community. The soul fuels continuous evolution by creatingtension and using it as energy to find purpose in our work.IntentionOur intention is to share our experiences and prompt reflection from the engineering educationcommunity so that
of the Center for Educational Networks and Impacts at the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology (ICAT). Her research interests include interdisciplinary collaboration, design education, communication studies, identity theory and reflective practice. Projects supported by the National Science Foundation include exploring disciplines as cultures, liberatory maker spaces, and a RED grant to increase pathways in ECE for the professional formation of engineers.Dr. David Gray, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Dr. Gray receieved his B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Virginia Tech in 2000. He then earned a M.S. and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Virginia Tech in
be able to move beyond it in engineeringeducation. Here, the focus is on the circumstances that led to the emergence and prevalence of theterm in two different contexts: (1) the discourse community of speakers of English as representedin the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and (2) the discourse community of engineeringeducation as reflected in papers published by the American Society for Engineering Education(ASEE) in the period 1996-2020. The combination of these two perspectives reveals that (1) theconversation on soft skills is by no means limited to engineering education; (2) interest in thetopic has increased dramatically since 1996; and (3) implementation of the EC2000 accreditationcriteria provided the impetus for the dramatic
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
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
criteria and process reflected severaldifferent communities’ aspirations for the “engineer of the 21st century.” Next, we introduce ourmethodology for analyzing the papers published in the ASEE proceedings as a way to study howthe engineering education community has thought about communication over the past 20 years.After identifying trends and themes in each of the 3 years analyzed in this study, we sketch apreliminary history of engineering communication pedagogy and research in ASEE from 2000-2020. In brief, our initial findings suggest that (1) interest in engineering communication grewin tandem with the implementation of EC2000; (2) momentum built gradually between 2000 and2010 and more rapidly between 2010 and 2020; (3) meaningful
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
are introduced to and invited to reflect on the 13 dimensions ofForeign Service Officers as described by the U.S. Department of State(https://careers.state.gov/work/foreign-service/officer/13-dimensions/). These dimensionsinclude: cultural adaptability (i.e., “to work and communicate effectively andharmoniously with persons of other cultures, value systems, political beliefs, andeconomic circumstances; to recognize and respect differences in new and differentcultural environments”); oral communication (i.e., “by speaking fluently in a concise,grammatically correct, organized, precise, and persuasive manner; to convey nuances ofmeaning accurately; to use appropriate styles of communication to fit the audience andpurpose”); working with others
literature in Engineering and other disciplines on team teaching to betterunderstand this andragogical approach. We determined that Davis’ [1] interdisciplinary teamteaching frame and criteria for teaching evaluation provided a collective lens for examining howwe were working together and how that affects our students’ learning outcomes for all of thematerial we include as part of the course. With this lens in mind, we share the story of ourcourse’s evolution as we reflect on our personal experiences.Stories of teaching experiences provide an important resource for other faculty; simultaneously,stories provide a format for examining ongoing teaching practices for the authors. This paperoverlays stories of our current practices onto Davis’ degrees of
. 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
student experiences.Structured reflections, interdisciplinary assignments, and reworked assessment criteria inviteparticipants to make elements of HC explicit, thereby providing spaces and times for criticalengagement, while extracurricular activities fulfill a complementary role by leveraging HC tocultivate more broad-based engineering skills that are not part of formal curricula. Notably, 3 5publications specifically articulated how the surfacing of HC could enable broader curricularreform, including one that discussed the possibility of emphasizing ethics as a core engineeringcompetency. We address the significance of this approach to HC in more
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
themes into the following dimensions ofcivic responsibility: personal and professional, virtue and obligation, and non-maleficence andbeneficence. We close by connecting these findings to frameworks used to study other forms ofresponsibility in engineering education.IntroductionCivic responsibility reflects individual responsiveness and engagement with community needs.Thus, civic responsibility aligns with the mission of many universities to graduate engagedcitizens. For example, the mission statement of the Association of American Colleges &University is “to advance the vitality and public standing of liberal education by making qualityand equity the foundations for excellence in undergraduate education in service to democracy”[1]. Many
of course scale-up from 6 sections in Spring 2014 to 10 sections in Spring2015 to 15 sections in Fall of 2018. In the decision to scale-up the course, key indicators ofsuccess were considered: (1) course enrollment numbers, (2) end-of-semester evaluations, and(3) students’ individual course reflections. When taken together, these key indicators were anespecially vital tool in the decision to scale-up the targeted course.Figure 2: A history of course section scale-up from Spring 2014 to Fall 2018.Sustained Enrollment Numbers Enrollment numbers for the targeted course have remained consistently high sinceimplementation. An analysis of enrollment data from Spring 2014 through Spring 2018 showed acourse enrollment average of 99% (see
critical reflection is a reasonable approximation of evaluation given the moremodest goal of this research—to serve as an example of how computer science researchers andeducators could integrate justice-centered approaches within an undergraduate curriculum.Given these methods, this research makes no claims about how students or faculty receive thecourse plan. Future evaluations would be largely qualitative, surveying students’ capacitybuilding and reception of the course through interviewing.4. Course DesignTitled “Power, Equity, and Praxis in Computing” (PEPC), the course plan is discussed throughthree facets: the course’s purpose, its content, and its (intended) learning environment. Thepurpose of the course is to make space for undergraduate
practices and the differentinfrastructures of educational technologies we tend to use in response to these various oppressive-isms.The presentations we took account of during the virtual conference offered robust contributionsof scalable scholarship that address, albeit in a different context, Michael Mascarenas’sprovocation in “White Space and Dark Matter: Prying Open the Black Box of STS.”[7] Reflectingon Sheila Jasanoff’s plenary address for “Where has STS Traveled,” the forty-yearcommemoration of the inaugural meeting of the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S) atCornell University, Mascarenas encourages us to “interrogate the society’s contribution to socialpolicy or enduring social problems... our collective need for reflection and
contribute to developingnuanced intellectual tools appropriate to a trend of ASEE scholarship identified by Neeley et al.in which engineering educators engage STS for projects related to “embedded sociotechnicalsystems thinking” undertaken by educators and scholars with diverse training [7].We hope thatour work in this paper will help us and other educators and scholars articulate goals for ourclassrooms and identify thoughtful strategies to achieve them.Many engineering educators may already be engaged in working through concepts that weoutline here, but they may not often reflect explicitly on how it includes and exceeds the scope ofwhat we might understand as “sociotechnical engineering”. With this in mind, this paper is notso much a critique of