high school students’ future outlook on STEM by increasing theirexposure to opportunities in STEM careers, and improving their math skills. A committee of five(5) people was formed. The committee highlighted the objectives of the 2014 summer camp, aswell as, the long term goals of the program. The committee members also created a curriculumfor the program. A copy of the daily schedule is presented in Appendix 1. The camp acceptancecommittee set criteria including a minimum GPA of 3.0. Each participant must have beenrecommended by appropriate personnel from a school and/or community agency. Theapplication was designed in such a manner that the applicants were required to write a shortessay about extra-curricular activities in which he/she is
Page 26.1052.2While the need to increase numbers of students in science, technology, engineering, andmathematics (STEM) degree programs is well established, less than half of students enrolled in STEM programs of study graduate with STEM degrees.1 Further, underrepresented minority(URM) students continue to be a small percentage of the students receiving STEM degrees. TheNational Academies propose doubling the number of underrepresented minority studentsreceiving undergraduate STEM degrees.2 Recruitment programming must be coupled witheffective retention programs to achieve increases in underrepresented STEM graduates. Aninstitution’s ability to increase numbers of underrepresented students
occur acrossrace and sex boundaries.IntroductionMore-so than other post-secondary degree fields, engineering is dominated by both Whites andmales, who represent 70% and 82.1%, respectively, of the field1. In contrast, African-Americanwomen, who represent 6% of the U.S. population and 7% of the college student population2, asrecently as 2009 accounted for only 1% of the 70,000 undergraduate engineering degrees andonly 2.3% of the 3,376 engineering PhDs awarded in this country3 - a percentage that remainedunchanged in percentage in 20102, 4. The profile is even more troubling at the faculty level whereAfrican-American women remain less than 0.5% of the more than 20,000 tenure-track faculty inengineering5.These statistics illustrate that, despite
baccalaureate degree in engineering, andpursuing a graduate degree. It will also highlight lessons learned and future plans for theprogram, as well as best practices that are useful to other institutions in developing similarprograms.1. IntroductionThe PCAST Report Engage to Excel: Producing One Million Additional College Graduates withDegrees in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics states a critical need todramatically increase the number of STEM graduates over the next decade. The report cites thelow completion rate among STEM students, with many leaving the STEM field in the first twoyears of their program. Among the recommendations to address this issue of low completion rate
team lies in qualitative methodologies, cultural theory and the belief that outliers offer great insight into the workings of power. Her research interests include cultural theory, the cultural/historical construction of women’s identities and roles in past and present societies, and most recently, equity issues surrounding gender and underrepresented populations in engineering education. She can be contacted at cynthia.e.foor-1@ou.edu.Rui(Celia) Pan, Toyota Financial Services Dr. Pan is currently working as a sales, product and remarketing analyst at Toyota Financial Services. She received her Ph.D in Engineering Education, M.S. in Statistics and B.S. in Electrical Engineering.Dr. Randa L. Shehab, University of
and impactdiversity in all areas of employment.1 IntroductionThe United States is known to be at the forefront of technical innovation and science, contributing Page 26.862.2significant advances in the areas of communications, defense, health, infrastructure, andmanufacturing, among other areas 1 . Success in technology has been due to the tech industry’sability to develop products which serve the ever-changing requirements of today’s world.Considering changes on a global scale, the world’s population is growing at an enormous rate andis expected to reach 8 billion by the year 2020. Much of the anticipated growth is expected tooccur in
the College ofEngineering, so the curriculum for Fall 2015 was heavily influenced by feedback andobservations from the previous year of this course offering. The three instructors collaborativelydesigned the curriculum the summer prior to the class. Table I shows a summary of the activitiesand topics that were included in each week: Table 1. ENGR 101 Weekly Course Activities and Topics Week Activity Week 1 Welcome and introductions; engineering design cycle team activity Week 2 Engineering discipline presentation Week 3 Industry career panel Week 4 Global perspectives in engineering role playing activity
(voluntary mentors) prepare 1-2 page experiential learning research project summaries (by January). The laboratory research engineer budgets for the internship cost from his/her research project. • Laboratory Contracting Officer forwards research project summaries to university PM. • University PM develops an intensive promotional (with all STEM academic departments) and orientation program, and students apply on line. • University PM matches student applicants with research project summaries based on academic merit and mentors interests. Students are interviewed, if necessary. • Logistics including housing, local transportation, and air transport to the laboratory, etc. are jointly arranged for
wasdesignated as an HSI by the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) in 2014,after FORCES began. Based on 2006-07 data (just before the FORCES proposal was written),UT Arlington had an enrollment of approximately 19,205 undergraduate students of whom53.2% were female, 14% were Hispanic, 12% were African American and less than 1% wereNative American. The College of Engineering’s undergraduate enrollment in 2006-07 was 1,884students, nearly 10% of the university’s. There were 410 students at the university who wereregistered with the Office for Students with Disabilities. Of those, forty-four (44), or nearly 11%,were engineering majors.6 National data at that time reflected enrollment of students fromunderrepresented groups in
students.Figures 1 and 2 illustrate the relationship between ACT, College Readiness Index (CRI), andTotal Economic Disadvantage (TED) for COE applicants from different feeder high schoolsbetween 2008 and 2013. The College Readiness Index and Economic Disadvantage factors ofdifferent feeder high schools were obtained from US News. The horizontal axis representscollege readiness (in Figure 1) or economic disadvantage (in Figure 2). The left vertical axis ineach figure is the average ACT for the corresponding college readiness or economicdisadvantage. The right vertical axis in each figure is the number of applicants for that index. Forexample, as read from Figure 1, there were about 800 applicants from high schools with aCollege Readiness index of 94. The
. Surveys of the student attendees as well as some of the presenters wereperformed to assess various measures of self-efficacy. Surveys indicated that the event wassuccessful in promoting self-efficacy.IntroductionThis paper discusses the Robotics Competition and Family Science Fair for grades 4-8 sponsoredby the Latino STEM Alliance, which was held at the end of the school year in an inner cityneighborhood in Boston.. In it, we will discuss the motivation for this event, its planning, itsexecution, its assessment, and next steps in the partnership between Latino STEM Alliance andSuffolk University.BackgroundEvidence has shown that robotics programs can encourage interest among underrepresentedgroups and others in studying STEM 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
understood to drive an increase in their representation in this labor market segment. With (1-3)minority groups currently accounting for the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population ,American global technical leadership and economic vitality will increasingly depend on minority (4)demographics succeeding in science and technology fields . However, minority and femalestudents face particular challenges in university settings, often finding themselves one among few,if any, in STEM courses . Freshman and sophomore “gateway” courses typical of STEM
gender mix of students in traditional courses for the ElectricalEngineering program in our college versus the gender mix and race of students choosing othermayors such as humanities, business or arts programs [1]. In particular, four cohorts of the seniordesign classes were used to perform the investigation, with about a total of 120 studentsparticipating. The student population was as follows: Women (of any race) comprised about9.3% of the total class population for these senior design course offerings, while male African-American comprised 23%, and Hispanic students comprised 5.3%. On the other hand, inhumanities, business and arts programs, women comprised over 50.2%, African- American 27%,and Hispanic 2.61% of the student population. We also
on the experiences of African-Americans onmultiracial teams and this study aims to fill that gap.This qualitative study employs a phenomenological approach, using a three-interview sequencewith eight African-American male engineering students across academic levels (average age =19) as they worked on team projects at a large research-intensive, predominantly whiteinstitution (PWI). The project durations ranged from two weeks to two full semesters. The semi-structured interviews 1) gathered background information about participants, 2) exploredparticipant descriptions of the team functionality during the project, and 3) asked participants toreflect on the experience in the context of their engineering education and identities. Followingthe
urgent need to develop a well-qualifiedand diverse STEM workforce, underrepresented racial/ethnic minorities (URMs) such as Blacksand Latinos continue to make up only 7-10% of the science and engineering workforce.1 Evenwhen URMs enroll in engineering and related majors, they are more likely to switch to non-STEM majors and much less likely to complete their degree within 6 years than their Whitepeers.2-4 URM students in STEM report feelings of alienation and invisibility, difficulty applyingtheory and curriculum to practice, and a lack of pre-college preparation in STEM majors – all ofwhich may contribute to the aforementioned enrollment and departure trends.5To reverse these trends and address many of the challenges and barriers facing URMs
occupations: African Americans make up less than 5% ofscientists and engineers, and Hispanics 6% [1]. We are particularly interested in the lack of pre-college engineering and design emphasis inSTEM education. Currently, there is an engineering renaissance across the country that iscapturing the imagination of young innovators. This interest includes coding, hardware andsoftware hackathons, and the bourgeoning “Maker” movement. The Next Generation ScienceStandards (NGSS), which are increasingly becoming part of K-12 curricula, emphasizesengineering and design principles. The NAE and NRC Center for Education established theCommittee on K-12 Engineering Education. This committee stresses that STEM educationshould include engineering design training
). We do note, however, that thissituation did not emerge as a theme in our interviews, probably because—as Meadows andSekaquaptewa argue—students saw their assignment to non-technical work as self-determined,and therefore not an issue they thought to complain about.Part I ResultsStudents routinely encounter problems in their teamsConsistent with the EC2000 criteria, 98% of students (n=664) reported participating on at leastone team, with the average student participating in three teams in the most recent year.Table 1 shows that team problems are very common: 85% of engineering students reported atleast one team problem in their STEM classes in the most recent year. Moreover, many of theseissues appear to have limited students’ opportunities to
of Texas Rio Grande Valley Expertise in water quality and algal physiology and culture. Interest in use of algae as biofuel. c American Society for Engineering Education, 2016 Engaging Minority Students in Sustainable Bioenergy and Water Quality through an Education and Research Network Krystel K. Castillo-Villar1, Mauricio Cabrera-Rios2, Michael Persans3, Hudson Deyoe3 1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at San Antonio, One UTSA Circle, San Antonio, TX 78249 2 Department of Industrial Engineering, The University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez, PO BOX 9000, Mayaguez, PR 00681 3 Department of Biology, The University of Texas
) workforce andattracting diverse students into STEM disciplines have become issues of national importance.One method to aid in achieving this goal is through offering pre-college interventions tounderserved students. This paper discusses and examines a novel pre-college STEM interventionthat occurs at a technical engineering research conference. The intervention consists of a mini-workshop that has six components: (1) an introduction of graduate student mentors, (2) a generalintroduction to the engineering field of Smart Material and Structures through a PowerPointpresentation and live demonstrations of smart materials, (3) a low-cost design and buildengineering activity that uses smart materials to demonstrate the applicability of the field
Information Technology (NCWIT) AspireITprogram.Over the course of the 4-night (middle school) and 5-night (high school) programs, camperswere invited to participate in voluntary survey and interview research. This paper analyzes asmall portion of the data from 65 participants in order to better understand (1) participants’motivations for applying to a residential computing camp, (2) participants’ access totechnological tools and education prior to the camp, and (3) participants’ desired access tocomputing education at the end of the camp. Such knowledge is integral to the increasing amountof computer science education initiatives across the nation, such as President Obama’s recentlyannounced Computer Science For All initiative.1BackgroundComputing is
research with over 80 papers published in refereed journals and conferences. He has been the principal investigator on several major research projects on industrial applications of sensing and Control with focus on Energy Efficiency. He is a senior member of IEEE, ISA, and a member of ASEE. Page 26.1156.1 c American Society for Engineering Education, 2015 Minority-focused Engagement through Research and Innovative Teaching (MERIT) 1. Introduction:This paper will present the implement of MERIT, a Department of Education funded project toengage, mentor and
total workforce, but held 71% of STEM jobs.Asians held 15% of the STEM jobs compared with 6% of all jobs. African Americans held 6% ofSTEM-related jobs, Native American held 0.4% of STEM jobs, and those of “Some Other Race” held 1% of STEM jobs, while representing 27% of all jobs”[1]. According to 2013 data from the Computer Research Association, 4.5% of all new computer science or computer engineering degree holders were African American, and 6.5% were Hispanic. Between 2009 and 2013, the number of ethnic minority engineering graduates increased by 12.3%, compared to increases of 22.75% and 19.72% for White and Asian graduates. North Carolina has a number of nationally and internationally recognized universities producing STEM graduates
increased interest in STEM content and STEM careers, aswell as increased interest in attending college. Our research question for investigating thishypothesis is: To what extent does participation in the MMM Program increase students’ interestin STEM content, STEM careers, and college attendance? The theoretical perspectives thatundergird the MMM program design include experiential learning theory8, mentorship throughethnically matched mentors9,10 and developing 21st Century skills11,12 such as creativity andtechnology proficiency (Figure 1).Experiential Learning Theory, posited by Kolb (1984), has five phases: 1) Experience – do theactivity, 2) Share – reactions and observations in a social context, 3) Process – analyze andreflect upon what
study. Participants signed Institutional Review Board (IRB) consent forms and wereinterviewed twice on two separate occasions with at least a week and no more than three monthsin between the first and the second interview. Two interview protocols were developed fromquestions sampled and reframed from a research study conducted by Reddick (2011) 15 (see Page 26.1146.3Table 1). The first interview focused on learning about the participants’ life history and thesecond interview focused on helping a participant reflect about their mentoring relationships withtheir African-American undergraduate protégés. Each interview lasted approximately 45 to
mathematicalidentity constructs. Major themes and sub-themes that run through these articles will bediscussed in detail in this work to bring meaning and closer answers to the question of how doracial and mathematical identities shape the transfer experience of African American engineeringmale students who attend 4-year institutions. The author includes their own critique of this bodyof literature.1. Introduction This work provides a review of the literature around five scholarly topics: racial identitydevelopment theory, mathematical identity in higher education, and transfer and engineeringexperience. The strands of literature that is used in this study intersect at race and racism andunderstanding the overall experiences of AAMs in
African-American engineering faculty members. Starting in 2008 the growth stopped. The percentage ofAfrican-American engineering faculty is the same as it was in 2007, 2.5%11. This is even morealarming when you place it in the context of women engineering faculty experiencing acontinued growth since 2003, with a 2011 number reported at 13.2%. However, findings byBerry, Cox, and Main, while exploring the disaggregated data in the ASEE database, uncoveredthat “African American women comprise 4% of all women currently in the engineeringprofessoriate, an increase of 1%, since 2001”10. Despite the incongruence in the numbers, it isevident that growth has been slow. Nelson disaggregated the numbers in her report of survey data, self-reported
helpEngineering majors acquire a strong foundation in core competencies; i.e., in: (1) analysis, (2)applications, (3) design and modeling, (4) communication, and (5) professionalism. Thecurriculum has also been designed to provide cohesiveness between the different courses in agiven term so that students can focus on common topics from the perspective of each of the fivecompetency-areas and see the interconnectedness of the material they are learning in all fiveclasses. Although, the integrated curriculum approach was developed in the late-80s, it has notbeen widely adopted due to various obstacles at the individual, departmental, and institutionallevels. Many of these obstacles are common to strategies that require major transformation in anengineering
some key properties of real world orbits that are relevant to our metaphor.Orbits are made possible by the force of attraction of between two objects, determined by theirmass and their distance from one another known as gravity. The equation for the force of gravitybetween two objects is given by, 𝐺∙𝑀1 ∙𝑀2 𝑓𝑔 = (1) 𝑟2where, M1 and M2 are the masses of Object 1 and Object 2 respectively. G is a gravitationalconstant, and r is the radial distance between the center of masses of the two objects.25Equation 1 shows that the force of gravity increases with
successful interactions and learning outcomes.1-3 One important challenge centers onthe interactions between students from groups negatively stereotyped as poor performers inengineering (e.g., women and under-represented racial minorities) and others. A body of researchin psychology indicates that students from these marginalized groups may have qualitativelydifferent group work experiences compared to others, which may contribute to their self-selection from engineering and thus their group’s under-representation in engineering fields.Recent research suggests that the negative experiences of people from marginalized groups onengineering student design teams can influence many factors that contribute to persistence andsuccess, such as development of
close the achievement gaps of underrepresented minority(URM) students pursuing engineering degrees as compared to non-minority students. URM inthe sciences or engineering is defined as a student who has self-identified as Black or AfricanAmerican, a Hispanic, or American Indian/Alaskan [1]. Summer bridge programs vary perinstitution and can be structured to offer different types of experiences for participants. Traditionalsummer bridge programs provide incoming first year URM students the opportunity to participatein an intensive academically enriching programming as a remediation in foundational courses suchas mathematics, chemistry, and computer programming. Some universities may offer summerbridge programs for academically prepared students