published start and end dates and “hard”deadlines. Since 2014, the MOOC format has changed to “on-demand.” Students are allowed toenroll and start at any time. New class “cohorts” start about every month for every class. Thesecourses are self-paced with “soft” deadlines. The deadlines are suggested, but if the student fallsbehind they may join up with the next month’s “cohort” and continue to proceed in the classuntil completion.In-video knowledge checks are included in the module videos to stimulate learner interaction.The video pauses at various locations to allow students to reflect and answer questions on theirown about the material. An example of this type of interaction is included in Figure 1. Figure 1. Typical In
had an impact on writing competencies of engineeringundergraduate students.As an example, Teaching Writing in Engineering contained questions to gauge faculty’sperceptions of agency in their assignments – “I believe that there are opportunities in my course(s)for students to write about topics that interest them” [12], as well as a question with options toselect as many forms of writing faculty believed occurred in their course(s). “Writing in mycourse(s) is in the form of…” where options for reflection, homework, professionalcommunication, examinations, etc. are listed with definitions in a mouse-over component. Acomplete relation of variables, their definition, and questions are shown in Table 1. Table 1: Number of questions per
. Participants in four robotics sections (N=95,28% girls) were surveyed using a validated reflective assessment at the end of the program.Three sections were mixed-gender and one section was single-gender. Two different femaleSTEM educators taught four sections. The assessment measured science interest, science identityand the four 21st Century Learning Skills; critical thinking, perseverance, relationships withpeers and relationships with adults. Participants in the robotics programs experiencedstatistically significantly gains in science interest and identity. There were no statisticallysignificant differences between the genders or in the single gender section. For the 21st CenturySkills, participants had gains across all skills. Females reported a
andincrease networking opportunities, institutions might also consider improving communicationsand points of contact between future, current, and former members of women in engineeringorganizations. These opportunities might be facilitated by an enhanced social media presence(e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram) and through face-to-face events such as alumni gatheringsfor organizations’ members. Next, programs might encourage their staff to reflect on theirexperiences with various women of color in engineering throughout their academic careers.Program coordinators in particular may consider better understanding the needs and expectationsof women who come into these organizations and the ways that the organizations do or do notmeet their students’ needs
identity. The research team would like to acknowledge that theresults of this study do not reflect those that identify outside the gender binary. The survey, at thetime of this study, did not consider non-binary gender populations and have since rectified thisegregious oversight in subsequent iterations. Given the status of the survey, there was a cleardifference between genders when it came to computing identity, specifically in recognition(males scored 3.4 overall while women scored 3.0). This showed that women who were highachieving in computing still showed signs of feeling less acknowledged as computing peoplethan male students. This means that, at home, at school, and in social circles, women do not feelas if they are being recognized as
Davis et al., utilizing a 7-point scale in each ofthe 15 sections. The sections, illustrated in Figure 2, reflected the various stages of the designprocess, as well as administrative/project management components of engineering design. Inaddition to assigning each section a point value, instructors can choose from a number of generalcomments or input custom comments. This wide range of scores allows instructors to track studentprogress in each section throughout the 3-course sequence, addressing the criteria of applicabilityacross a wide range of students. By widening the scale and broadening expectations as studentsprogress from course to course, many stages of development can be accounted for [10]. Hence, toreflect increasing expectations
, the CC faculty attended 4 research seminars throughout the summer that focusedon the research being conducted by faculty on UCB campus in various areas. The CC facultyalso attended sessions by the leaders of the research topics (alternative energy, cyber security,wearable medical devices, green and sustainable manufacturing, and nanotechnology) that gavethem an overall view of current research goals and progress. The goal of hosting these seminarsis to describe real world problems being worked on, as well as providing access to leading-edgeresearch outside of their own primary laboratory.Beyond these seminars and workshops, CC faculty were asked to complete weekly homeworkassignments that asked them to reflect on their research progress and
. The paperdetails the impact of the project has on students, faculty, programs, and the department. Theseinclude strategies and co-curriculum activities that engage scholars and their fellow students,enhance their learning experience on campus, and increase their retention and timely graduationrate. In addition, reflecting on what we did, what we achieved, and the lessons we learned, weshare our categorization of the decisions and choices we have to make while preparing andwriting a successful project proposal. We also detail our experience adapting established bestpractices in STEM higher education community to an urban public large university with adiversified population of students, faculty, and staff while implementing the program.1
of the interview [12]. We then ask follow-upand probing questions as we enter the conversation phase of the interview [12]. Finally, we askedsemi-structured interview questions if the answers failed to emerge naturally during the earlierphases of the interview. These included questions about their perceived experiences making,engineering, and, in particular, navigating their engineering program and university makerspaceas a student from an URG. Final questions ask the student to reflect on and makerecommendations for improving the makerspace and/or the engineering program (see Appendixfor our interview protocol).Throughout this project, we have struggled with how to ask students about their URG status andhow that status impacts them as an
instructors led the students through a debriefing session aimedat teasing out the ethical issues of the black cards and appropriateness of the white response cards,with the goal of getting the students to reflect upon their choices. The students were alsoencouraged to submit new card suggestions to the instructor, which were curated and forwardedto the game’s creators. Out of class activities In addition to the classroom activities described above, the students were given several outof class assignments to complete. The first assignment was to choose their own engineering ethicscase study to research and analyze. In this individualized assignment, the students were taskedwith providing a summary of the case and identifying the ethical
undergraduate engineering- or science-based computing major? Analysis isexpected to reveal the experiences and stakeholders that impact their decisions to enroll in acomputing major and persist into the workforce.BackgroundWith global competitiveness and homeland security driving the need to increase United Statesparticipation in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workforce [4].In 2013, the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) reported thatonly 26% of jobs in computing were held by women; African American women represented only3% of the computing workforce [5]. This reflects the need for accessible co-curricularprogramming in the southern region of the United States (US), particularly for females and
overseas portion of their trip. Afterreturning from Germany, students meet for half a day to discuss and reflect on their learningexperiences abroad. The overseas component of the course was designed so that workingstudents could participate in a study abroad program. The GO GREEN program was specificallydesigned to be approximately one week abroad and at a low cost so that working students couldafford the program and have time to attend. The average cost for the program, not includingtuition and fees, is approximately $2,500. The classes at the university are held on Saturdays toavoid conflicts with other classes or normal work schedules. In Germany, students visit, tour andreceive lectures on sustainable practices at German companies, such as
self-reflection withopen and closed questions is required as part of the program assessment. As part of the formativeprocess, the program evaluator summarizes evaluation results, student progress, observations,and participation data to build an assessment report of the summer activity. Accordingly, the nextsection describes the assessment instruments and results for the various pre-college programcomponents.Evaluation StrategiesAn integral part of the pre-college program is the documentation and tracking of studentparticipants. As outlined in Figure 1, information from schools and participants is stored in theCenter’s management system, designed to record the participant’s involvement, including visitsto schools and summer program
group has an especially high confidencein their understanding of class topics.Table 14 shows a breakdown of final grades in the course. The highest concentration of gradesfor distance students was at the ‘C’ grade, with over 10% of distance students in the D/F/Wcategory. In contrast, no on-campus students finished in the D/F/W range and over 80% finishedin the ‘A’ or ‘B’ ranges. With the exception of the semester project, the average grade forcampus students was higher in each of the grading categories than for distance students(homework, exams, final exam). The difference was smallest on the final exam (72.9% vs.72.5%) and largest in the homework category (108.1% vs. 91.4%). The greater than 100%average on homework for campus students reflects
, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geology, or some EnvironmentalSciences. If we consider attrition from subsequent courses in these sequences, only about 33% ofstudents who enter the CHEM I and II sequence complete it, and only 40 of every 100 do so inthe Physics sequence.These attrition points reflect the reality that the vast majority of Skyline College students,including many interested in pursuing STEM-related careers, are not ready for college-levelmath when they get to the college. On the math placement test administered to students enrollingfor the first time in Fall 2014, only 16% of students placed in Transfer-Level Math(Trigonometry). Far fewer Latinos (5.4%), African Americans (7.1%), or Pacific Islanders(11.1%) did so. In fact, 60% of the
contains multiple probing questions to help participants reflect deeply ontheir experiences as they relate to the research question. The protocol includes probing questionsdesigned to discover why people behave in a certain way by uncovering the assumed, mutualknowledge, symbolic meanings, motives and rules that provide the context for their actions [42].Analysis: Grounded theory was used as an analytic methodology to identify themes, whichincludes a two-stage, open, and axial coding process to analyze the data, followed by memowriting, theoretical sampling, and theoretical saturation [37]. The content analysis consisted ofresearchers coding themes independently followed by the five-member research team meeting asa group to reach consensus about
profiles developed. In contrast to the study described in [6], wedifferentiated between two dimensions of engagement – behavioral and emotional – andseparately explored the levels of engagement in each dimension. We also used a differenttimeframe; rather than considering a single class period, we asked students to reflect on theirengagement across the entire semester. These differences allowed us to develop a comprehensivepicture of student engagement profiles, which we hope will be useful for electrical engineeringinstructors. Specifically, knowledge of students’ engagement profiles may help instructors tounderstand the various ways students engage in a course. This knowledge may also help informinstruction and course management
, active/reflective, and sequential/global.Complementary teaching styles can be matched to each of the learning styles, and the traditional“chalk and talk” style can in no way encompass all of them. Several institutions found that amixed-mode approach which balances active learning and passive learning is best for teachingstudents, especially in early stages of development [4]. Thus, in order to teach STEM topics toall students, supplementary teaching tools should be utilized.There are some assignable causes linked to the lack of engagement and success in STEMclassrooms. Many times teachers themselves do not have adequate training to teach STEMtopics. This problem was illustrated in a study done in 2007 that revealed the United Statesranked 41 out
0.05 isconsidered significant.Table 5. Parameter estimates β and their exponentiated values, and P-values for the effect ofsession, gender, and language spoken at home. Effects Estimate Exp.Estimate P.value Significance (Intercept) 0.45 1.61 3.2×10−3 Yes Gender 0.48 1.6 0.16×10−3 Yes Session Pre −0.61 0.54 0.81×10−5 Yes Session WB 0.26 1.3 0.97×10−3 Yes Language 0.41 1.5 6.4×10−3 YesTable 5 shows the parameter estimates and their exponentiated values, which reflects the
of improving students’ development along one or more of the patterns. Additionally, we believe CSR is a particularly appropriate method for this study because the method permits teaching practices to be studied in the context of a real classroom. The classroom setting within our case study contrasts the laboratory setting used by a large number of studies that have informed the development of the matrix (e.g., [6][9]). The controlled conditions of these research studies do not accurately reflect engineering practice which often requires engineers to work on teams over long durations to solve complex problems. Additionally, the clinical setting does not reflect an educational setting in which a teacher is available to help guide and
order toidentify where these conceptualizations converge with or diverge from imaginaries of“mainstream” engineering; what social order they might promote; what values they might reflect;and what impact they might have on LTS engineers’ work and, by extension, relationship withsociety. In the end, we aim to gain a better understanding about whether the branch of theengineering profession called LTS cultivates imaginaries that echo LTS’s articulated values ofequity, justice, empowerment, and transformation and bring engineers closer to the publics theyaim to serve. Ultimately, we are interested in determining whether LTS aligns itself more closelywith diverse publics’ articulations of their own visions, definitions of their own needs, andvisions
suggestion of bias againstunderrepresented groups in STEM fields (for which there is ample evidence in the literature) isdismissed, mocked, or met with shock and outrage. STEM diversity researchers, often insiders toSTEM themselves, are misrepresented as outsiders launching attacks on STEM itself.Rochelle Gutiérrez, 19 in a commentary on her own experience of alt-right harassment, reflects onthe positionality of the math education community in relation to rightwing attacks on diversityscholarship in the academy. She notes that she herself had been publishing without backlash fornearly two decades, specifically calling out White supremacist capitalist patriarchy, building onfive decades of math equity scholarship in her discipline. She asks, why now
goals [11], struggles in the transitions from secondary to postsecondary education[2], or lack of social and cultural integration [12]. We move away from this approach and insteadseek to highlight assets first-generation college students bring with them into an engineeringprogram. Our prior work has shown that first-generation college students demonstrate greaterfuture career satisfaction for inventing/designing things, developing new knowledge and skills,applying math and science, and supervising others when compared to continuing-generationcollege students [13]. The future career satisfaction measures in our prior study reflect the futureoutcomes students desire in their careers [14], which can be a source of motivation for learning[15], [16
/false/unsure). This measure reflects pilot studyfeedback about the measure’s validity and reliability: students were likely to know, with greaterconfidence, whether or not they would carry some substantive amount of student debt comparedto knowing about their exact student loan value or about specifics of their family’s wealth. Thequestion on athletics asks: “have you participated in a collegiate varsity athletics program?”(yes/no), and, “if yes, how many seasons will you have participated before graduating?” We thenconstructed a dichotomous variable of varsity athletics participation based upon 2 or moreseasons of participation. The Greek Life participation question asks: “as an undergraduate, wereyou a member of a fraternity or a sorority
for universities toidentify methods for attracting and retaining students, particularly women, in computer science.Interactionalist theory which suggests student retention to a degree is based on personal andenvironmental factors provided the framework guiding our study. In addition, career certaintymodels allowed us to investigate how experiences at the undergraduate level influenced careerinterest in computer science. Questions included prompts to reflect on environmental andpersonal factors that sustained or diminished interest in continuing within a computer sciencedegree and ultimately a career. Significant results suggest that females and males have a similarundergraduate experience and our results indicate that across institutions
, I'd say that that sense of that - that technical social dualism is reinforced throughout the curriculum, but especially in the – in two large areas of the curriculum in engineering science courses and humanities and social science courses. So, while the technical engineering science courses focus and - and privilege the technical, the humanities and social science courses in many universities do just the opposite.The separation of technical and social within the curriculum reinforces the perceivedseparation in students’ minds, which is not reflective of engineering practice where the twohave to be considered simultaneously.Requirements vs. electiveSome interviewees also commented on the challenges associated with teaching ESI inrequired
environments with the goal of improving learning opportunities for students and equipping faculty with the knowledge and skills necessary to create such opportunities. One of the founding faculty at Olin Col- lege, Dr. Zastavker has been engaged in development and implementation of project-based experiences in fields ranging from science to engineering and design to social sciences (e.g., Critical Reflective Writing; Teaching and Learning in Undergraduate Science and Engineering, etc.) All of these activities share a common goal of creating curricular and pedagogical structures as well as academic cultures that facilitate students’ interests, motivation, and desire to persist in engineering. Through this work, outreach, and
, concept generation,concept selection, design argumentation, design testing, evaluation argumentation, reportdevelopment, and reflection and discussion. Essentially the entire process each EDT involvesactive student engagement in science and engineering practices. Depending on teacherimplementation (e.g., number of design iterations), each EDT takes 300-400 minutes tocomplete.Table 2: EDT stages. EDT Stage General Components Introducing the problem Provide design challenge Identify needs and constraints Concept generation Research the problem
their appInquiry properly accomplish it. through surveys. A project having a real-world impact A class partnering with a local non-profitAuthenticity that creates a context beyond the to develop apps to help organizer their classroom. volunteers A project that allows students to A class in which students pitch app ideasStudent Voice have obtain ownership by giving to their professor and develop them forand Choice them judgement on the solution they the final project. wish to implement. Having students informally and Having students writing blog posts onReflection formally reflect on what, how
. He said, “…because I was always afraid I’d be, like, no, I’m going to becalled stupid and stuff like that.” But Troy found that he enjoyed the small group size at camp,and the friendly students as people he could relate to. When asked about the theme of the camp,he primarily focused on teamwork and cooperation. He appreciated the groupwork and time spenton sharing and reflecting at the start of each day’s session.Content AwarenessTroy was very excited to talk about rockets. He displayed a high level of understanding aboutrockets and NASA’s missions. His musings included the following comments expressed in ananimated matter: “Most of the rockets right now at this era are meant to go to the space station torefill fuel, or to resupply it, or to