communication [14,15].The challenges of adequately preparing students for this demand in sociotechnical skillsets hasbeen studied by researchers both for general capstone design courses for engineers only and forthose that are multidisciplinary beyond engineering disciplines [9,16,17]. The “2015 Survey ofCapstone Design” [16] not only highlighted the ever-growing focus on technicalcommunications within capstone courses, but also outlined the ubiquitous challenge ofintentionally modeling capstone design courses to prepare students. In the survey however, theconcept of multidisciplinary is one that refers to the diverse kinds of engineering majors and howthey interplay with one another in capstone projects but does not include capstone design modelsthat
expect any leniency indeadlines for deliverables the way they might from an unrealized project or on a capstone projectfor whom the stakeholders are imaginary. Additionally, these productions have finite budgets aswell as finite material and personnel resources; design decisions must adhere to these constraints.Further, because these productions have large teams of stakeholders (i.e. producers, directors,choreographers, designers, painters, other technicians, etc.) in technical elements with conflictingneeds and competing design criteria, students must learn to collaborate and communicateeffectively with them. A unique skill when speaking with stakeholders who likely know littleabout their specific engineering background
research involves examining different types of homework problems in undergraduate engineering science courses, the intersection of affect and engineering identity, and improving the teaching of engineering courses.Courtney Burris ©American Society for Engineering Education, 2023 Addressing Engineers and Stakeholders Social and Institutional Power in a Human-Centered Design Capstone CourseIntroductionAs trained professionals, engineers have well recognized areas of expertise. Such expertise oftentranslates into expert power in their professional practice. Expert power can be defined as theability to influence other people, decision-making, and project planning and/or project outcomesbased on the
create integrated writing instruction within their own institutions.Approach to integration in one programAt Boise State, we work to integrate communication skills instruction and feedback into project-based courses in materials science and engineering. Harold teaches sophomore and junior labcourses as well as the senior capstone courses. This multiyear sequence provides the opportunityto build a progression of technical education integrated with communication and professionalskills education. The laboratory courses are built with multi-week modules designed to mimicengineering projects one might experience working in industry, drawn from Harold’s personalexperiences in multiple companies. Most modules are staged in progressive phases
Composition (4) Statics (3) Digital Electronics (4) History (6) Dynamics (4) Physics Elective (3) Philosophy/Religion (6) Mechanics of Solids (3) 2-course sequence in Arts/Literature (9) another lab science** (8) Mechanics of Fluids (3) Calculus I (4) Social Science (6) Advanced Engineering Lab (1) Calculus II (4) Foreign Language (12) Capstone (3) Multivariable Calculus (4) Non-western course (3)*** Minimum EPHY Credits= 20 Min. Math/Science Cr.= 35 Min Gen Ed Credits = 46
faculty collaborate with engineeringfaculty on Capstone courses, and offer their input and expertise on clear communication,persuasive argumentation and cogent and clear writing in senior design engineering courses. 8AppendixAs we collect date for this work in progress project, we are constantly gathering evidencethrough surveys, focus group interviews and anecdotal evidence. Below, please find solicitedreflections from engineering and English faculty.Faculty 2 (Division of Arts and Sciences, Writing Faculty)Although the Engineering and English faculty on this project is still working on developingvarious activities, I'm impressed with the impact of our efforts on students' writing,communication, and
course sections seat at most 24 students, to facilitate active learning.Four social justice case study projects are embedded in the curriculum, specifically in theIntroduction to Engineering Design first-year course, Experiential Engineering sophomorecourse, Electronics Circuits and Devices sophomore course, and Capstone Design I seniorcourse. Each case study project has a different format, and contains written, presentation, anddiscussion components.The U.S. Senate Hearing social justice case study is assigned by the first author during theExperiential Engineering sophomore course, which is taught by another instructor. This casestudy is worth 10% of the total course grade. Within each case study, each student is assigned acase study character
goals to broaden the project’soriginal objectives. In particular, we aimed to teach students conceptual frameworks and basicskills for performing responsible data science research and analysis. The capstone lectures onalgorithmic fairness served as models for how we expected students to approach their ownprojects. These lectures demonstrated that a sociotechnical approach to research and designwould require students to know how to look for and identify the most relevant human contexts oftheir research project, for example, paying attention to the identity and positionalities of thepersons represented or otherwise implicated in the data in question.Responsible sociotechnical practice involves more than just the application of
theindustrial shift towards digitalization and new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) andInternet of Things (IoT), the software engineering curriculum at the University of Calgary hasundergone major updates to keep up with current trends. One change has been to add a “projectspine”, to connect the first-year design course with the fourth-year capstone project. Twoproject-based courses were added, aimed at bridging the gap between technical expertise andprofessional development. However, since technical content has been the primary focus of thesecourses, critical interpersonal skills such as teamwork, communication, and resilience oftenremain underemphasized.The need to address these gaps has been supported by industry stakeholders and
engineering culture? To answer this research question, we look at the engineeringteaming experiences of African American females in a diverse range of engineering disciplines.BackgroundTeams are a necessary and vital aspect of the engineering profession, and the process of teaminghas been studied widely in engineering education research (EER) and beyond [21]–[26]. Thereal-world problems engineers face are interdisciplinary and complex, requiring a group ofindividuals offering different backgrounds and areas of expertise to solve them. As a result,group projects requiring teams have become a staple in engineering curriculum [21]. Examplesof engineering team projects include freshmen design projects to capstone senior design projects,including
populations.Dr. Sheryl A. Sorby, University of Cincinnati Dr. Sheryl Sorby is currently a Professor of STEM Education at the University of Cincinnati and was recently a Fulbright Scholar at the Dublin Institute of Technology in Dublin, Ireland. She is a professor emerita of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering MecProf. Teri J Murphy, University of Cincinnati Dr. Murphy is a professor in the Department of Engineering Education at the University of Cincinnati.Dr. Betsy M. Aller, Western Michigan University Betsy M. Aller is a retired associate professor in engineering management and manufacturing. At Western Michigan Univ., she coordinated and taught capstone design courses for 20 years, and developed courses in sustainability
7 Focus Area Elec7ves 8Figure 2. Design Engineering Simplified Requirements MapEach of the curriculum categories in Figure 2 is briefly described below:Design Spine – Open-ended, interdisciplinary engineering design projects every semester,including our signature “integrative design studios” (IDSs). IDSs are founded on sociotechnicalintegration over five semesters and are situated between our first-year Cornerstone Designcampus-wide requirement and our senior-year Capstone Design I & II requirements. All thesedesign courses are crafted to expose students to complex, open-ended, real-world problem-solving with hands-on and team-based components. Sociotechnical integration is prioritized inthe IDSs, where
accessible to a broader range of students.Dr. Sheryl A. Sorby, University of Cincinnati Dr. Sheryl Sorby is currently a Professor of STEM Education at the University of Cincinnati and was recently a Fulbright Scholar at the Dublin Institute of Technology in Dublin, Ireland. She is a professor emerita of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering MecProf. Teri J Murphy, University of Cincinnati Dr. Murphy is a professor in the Department of Engineering & Computing Education at the University of Cincinnati.Dr. Betsy M. Aller, Western Michigan University Betsy M. Aller is a retired associate professor in engineering management and manufacturing. At Western Michigan Univ., she coordinated and taught capstone design courses for 20
militarism inengineering culture, as well as the material reliance of engineers on the military industrialcomplex for employment that Riley details in Engineering and Social Justice [11]. Forengineering majors, most companies at our career fairs and sponsors of capstone projects weredefense contractors. I personally got placed in capstone projects that were for defensecontractors, interned at a large defense contractor in my last summer, and worked there as amechanical engineer for a year before going to grad school. It really felt like all my options foremployment were defense-related in some way, and all the experiences I gained in my programas a mechanical-focused engineering major was geared towards the defense industry. I actuallytried for a
complex sociotechnical and global contexts, as well as designing one’s ownengineering pathway and designing for real-world clients as required in our Capstone Designsequence. For assessing and growing this programmatic spine, we have carefully integrated theassessable performance indicators into our course delivery to expand what it means to be adesign engineer in a socially, and technologically, complex world.Problem Solving Five Years OutAs we develop our students for their post-graduate careers, we consider not only the mission andvalues of our department, but projections for student development and growth five years aftertheir learning experience in our courses. Program educational objectives (PEOs) help us to framestudent success as related
how particular humanities opportunities lead to particular outcomes isexactly what is needed to make evidence-based arguments about the importance of this teaching.The Engineering and Humanities Intersections study responds to this gap by observing studentexperiences as they learn across disciplines to better understand how these learning experienceswork to support the outcomes that are associated with a liberal arts education, namely enablingtransdisciplinary competencies—communication, teamwork, project management,professionalism—and broadening mindsets—an ability to understand alternate epistemologiesand others’ perspectives, an appreciation of the social and environmental context of engineeringwork, self-awareness and ethical reasoning
. They completed a joint capstone project that required the unique knowledge of both setsof students. They worked in mixed groups with automated arc welding equipment to additivelymanufacture a structure or component of their choosing. The flexible project direction facilitatedeach student expressing their interest areas and revealed what knowledge and experience theybrought from their own backgrounds, such as intuition about influences of welding torch angle(welders) or robot programming methods (engineers).This paper reports on two iterations of the project with two different student groups. Studentswere introduced to the FOK concept during the first day of the joint project and had theopportunity to map their own FOK and learn about each
Conferenceengineering school. Others incorporate STS material into traditional engineering courses, e.g., bymaking ethical or societal impact assessments part of a capstone project.”2 While theinterdisciplinary nature of STS makes it difficult to define, the foundational concepts draw onrelated fields such as philosophy, sociology, anthropology, history, cultural studies, and feministstudies. Bringing this interdisciplinary approach to educating engineering students allows themto approach their profession in ways that enhance their problem-solving skills and professionalcommunication skills. Given these benefits, the problem engineering programs face is how tointegrate these skills within the curriculum as opposed to outsourcing these course offerings toother
University of Virginia. He is the principal investigator at University of Virginia on the ’4C Project’ on Cultivating Cultures of Ethical STEM education with col- leagues from Notre Dame, Xavier University and St. Mary’s College. His research focuses on wicked problems that arise at the intersection of society and technology. Rider holds a Ph.D. in Sustainability from Arizona State University, and a Master’s degree in Environmental Management from Harvard Uni- versity and a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science from University of New Hampshire. Before earning his doctorate, he has worked for a decade in consulting and emergency response for Triumvirate Environmental Inc.Andrew LiRebecca Jun, University of Virginia
Department of History at the Rochester Institute of Technology and has taught at RIT for 15 years. ©American Society for Engineering Education, 2024WIP: Navigating Epistemological Borders: Considerations for Team Teaching at the Intersection of Humanities and STEM This paper is a part of a larger project designed to better equip engineering students withempathetic attitudes. While our larger project focuses on the student experience and measuringempathy levels, this paper focuses on the teaching of such a course. Specifically, this paperexamines what we are terming two humanities-driven STEM (HDSTEM) courses taught at twodifferent institutions (Texas Tech University and Rochester Institute of
Engineers, India, M.E. (Production Engineering) degree from PSG College of Te ©American Society for Engineering Education, 2023Using Tutor-led Support to Enhance Engineering Student Writing for AllAbstractWriting Assignment Tutor Training in STEM (WATTS) is part of a three-year NSF IUSE grantwith participants at three institutions. This research project seeks to determine to what extentstudents in the WATTS project show greater writing improvement than students using writingtutors not trained in WATTS. The team collected baseline, control, and experimental data.Baseline data included reports written by engineering and engineering technology students withno intervention to determine if there were variations in
positive impacts of diverse thinking in STEM and how to negotiatediversity to the benefit of a team, project, or product. The same students may then be instructedto use number-based peer-assessment tools that compare team member task completion to thedetails of the team contract. The expectation is that such assessment will address team discord,despite the students never being expressly taught about conflict types, resolution strategies, orthe constructive aspects of well-managed conflict in communication and team settings. Such anapproach invites well-organized complaining based on a narrowly structured and poorlyunderstood team contract from students who may have little to no understanding of or patiencefor perspectives and ways of being that
’ perception of Community Engaged Learning pedagogy in 2020 at North Dakota State University. Over my final undergraduate years, I created a Humanitarian Engineering lab on OSU’s campus. The lab served over 125 students when I graduated in May 2022. I currently attend Colorado School of Mines to study Humanitarian Engineering and Science. At Mines, I am a teaching assistant for the Engineering With Community Design Studio. It consists of eight capstone projects applying engineering for social good. After Mines, I want to become a lecturer for general engineering courses and Humanitarian Engineering.Dr. Dean Nieusma, Colorado School of Mines Dean Nieusma is Department Head of Engineering, Design, and Society at Colorado
University, Prescott Dr. Brian Roth is an associate professor in the aerospace engineering department at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. His teaching focuses on design courses such as Intro to Engineering and Capstone Design. This informs his research interests in team formation, development, and assessment.Katrina Marie Robertson, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, PrescottTrey Thomas Talko, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Prescott ©American Society for Engineering Education, 2024 Small Shifts: New Methods for Improving Communication Experiences for Women in Early Engineering CoursesDr. Jonathan Adams, Embry Riddle Aeronautical UniversityDr. Elizabeth Ashley Rea, Embry
problemsthrough human action. Proponents of this Current focus on citizenship at both the local andglobal level, and use strategies like community projects, debates and action plans that actuallyencourage students to stand up for what is just. Educators may have concerns about exposingtheir ideology and political leanings in the classroom, creating some tension with respect to thisCurrent.STSE-Relevant Practices in Engineering educationIn reflecting on the nature of STSE as described above, and considering the integration withengineering, we might start with exploring the nature of the engineering profession, and how thattranslates to the engineering education context. In a critique of engineering education, Pawley(2019) suggested that engineering
26 30–60–minutequalitative interviews during the 2023 Fall semester to understand the students’ institution–specific experiences of inclusion and exclusion. Additional interviews with students, faculty andadministrators will be conducted during the 2024-25 school year.During this project, five student research assistants conducted semi-structured interviews withtheir fellow students. The interview data collected was analyzed and used to help createsuggestions for practices that might lead to a diverse and inclusive culture in our newmakerspace. By discovering what individual students and stakeholder groups value and expect ofan inclusive makerspace the research team was able provide guidance to campus leaders and themakerspace director to
inequities in student success; and (c) cultivate more ethical future scientists and engineers by blending social, political and technological spheres. She prioritizes working on projects that seek to share power with students and orient to stu- dents as partners in educational transformation. She pursues projects that aim to advance social justice in undergraduate STEM programs and she makes these struggles for change a direct focus of her research.Dr. David Tomblin, University of Maryland, College Park David is the director of the Science, Technology and Society program at the University of Maryland, Col- lege Park. He works with STEM majors on the ethical and social dimensions of science and technology. David also does
educational structures and practices, to recognize,confront, and address the harms of settler colonialism and anti-Indigeneity (e.g. [7]).Our focus on four distinct transdisciplinary approaches reflected the conference’s theme, but alsospoke to the sometimes amorphous identity of the SIG itself. The SIG is made up of membersworking in non-traditional engineering education spaces, including projects and initiativesfocusing on sociotechnical knowledge and humanistic engineering, arts and humanitiesintegration within core engineering curricula, communication and teamwork instruction,transdisciplinary integration of leadership, and decolonizing engineering education. Itsmembership includes engineers who have developed transdisciplinary research and
“economic side” of energy broadly orelectricity more specifically, also emerged as a focus of students’ capstone projects for the course, as onestudent detailed her group’s project, “Mine was about why electricity prices are so high in [NortheastState]. I think it's like, what can we do about it? And what are other states doing to lower their electricityprices, like through policy.” As students thought about the embeddedness of energy in capitalistic systemsin which people might be strained by costs of energy access they considered things like the deregulatedenergy market. Specifically, one student shared, like, yeah, we have ambitious . . . renewable goals and . . . emission reduction goals. But at least what I kind of found was
assessments that promote problem solving skills rather than promoting memorization. The second is about how and why values-based learning outcomes should be scaffolded into STEM curricula and capstone experiences. Dr. Vale believes that building student and faculty appreciation of the intersections between social justice and engineering is crucial to empowering engineers to fulfil their mandate to serve the public. She brings this view to the classroom, to curriculum design and development, and to her research.D’andre Jermaine Wilson-Ihejirika P.Eng., University of Toronto D’Andre Wilson-Ihejirika is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto within the Institute for Studies in Transdisciplinary Engineering