A Community of Practice Approach to Becoming an Engineering Education Research Professional
- Conference
- Location
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Indianapolis, Indiana
- Publication Date
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June 15, 2014
- Start Date
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June 15, 2014
- End Date
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June 18, 2014
- ISSN
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2153-5965
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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Graduate Studies
- Page Count
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27
- Page Numbers
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24.31.1 - 24.31.27
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--19923
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/19923
- Download Count
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634
Paper Authors
Robin Adams Purdue University, West Lafayette
Robin S. Adams is an Associate Professor in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. She holds a PhD in Education, an MS in Materials Science and Engineering, and a BS in Mechanical Engineering. Her research is in three interconnecting areas: cross-disciplinary thinking, acting, and being; design cognition and learning; and theories of change in transforming engineering education.
Catherine G.P. Berdanier
Purdue University, West Lafayette
orcid.org/0000-0003-3271-4836
Catherine G.P. Berdanier is a Ph.D. student in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. She earned her B.S. in Chemistry from The University of South Dakota and her M.S. in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from Purdue University. Her current research interests include graduate-level engineering education, including inter- and multidisciplinary graduate education, innovative and novel graduate education experiences, global learning, and preparation of graduate students for future careers.
Paul Andrew Branham Purdue University, West Lafayette
Paul Branham is a graduate student at Purdue University, pursuing a M.S. in nuclear engineering and a Ph.D. in engineering education. He received a B.S. in nuclear engineering from Purdue in 2012. He was a teaching assistant for the first-year engineering program at Purdue from 2010 to 2013 where he also contributed to curriculum development and online learning module production. His research interests include big data, data visualization, and computing. He is a student member of ASEE and the American Nuclear Society. He serves on the Board of Directors for both the Purdue Alumni Association and the Purdue Engineering Alumni Association.
Neha Choudhary Purdue
Neha Choudhary, is a graduate student in Engineering Education Department at Purdue University. She did her Masters in Wireless Communication and Computing from Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad, India in 2009. Her research interests are global engineering education, community learning and cross cultural competences in engineering education.
Trina L. Fletcher
Purdue University, West Lafayette
orcid.org/0000-0002-1765-5957
Trina Fletcher is an Engineering Education doctoral student at Purdue University. Her research focus includes the recruitment and retention of underrepresented groups in STEM education with a special focus on women. Prior to Purdue, she spent time in industry along with completing research and writing on STEM education related topics. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Industrial Technology and a masters degree in Engineering Management. Follow her on Twitter at STEMGenius.
Molly H Goldstein
Purdue University, West Lafayette
orcid.org/0000-0002-2382-4745
Molly Goldstein is a first year PhD student in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. She previously worked as an environmental engineer in air quality and is interested in engineering design with environmental concerns. She obtained her BS in general engineering and MS in systems and entrepreneurial engineering from the University of Illinois.
Cole Hatfield Joslyn
Purdue University
orcid.org/0000-0001-8218-2992
Cole Joslyn is a doctoral student in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. His research interests include engineering as a socially just profession in service to humanity and holistic approaches to engineering education such as ethics of care, humanistic education, and spirituality. He holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and a M.Ed. specializing in math education and has worked as an engineer, a pastor, and a high school math teacher.
Corey A Mathis Purdue University, West Lafayette
Corey A. Mathis earned her B.S. in biology and her M.E.D. in secondary education from Northern Arizona University. Prior to returning to school to obtain a PhD in engineering education at Purdue University, Corey spent nine years as a 7-12 grade Arizona science teacher. While at Purdue she has developed a course for Engineering Technology Pathways in addition to bring statistic to science classrooms though teacher outreach programs.
Emilie A Siverling Purdue University
Emilie A. Siverling is a Ph.D. Student in Engineering Education at Purdue University. She received a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and she is a former high school chemistry and physics teacher. Her research interests are in K-12 STEM integration, primarily using engineering design to support secondary science curricula and instruction.
Natascha Trellinger Buswell
Purdue University, West Lafayette
orcid.org/0000-0001-8503-5787
Natascha Trellinger is a first year PhD student in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. She received her BS in aerospace engineering from Syracuse University. At Purdue, Natascha is a part of the Global Engineering Education Collaboratory (GEEC) and is interested in global teaching and learning at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
M. D. Wilson Purdue University
MICHAEL WILSON is an Adjunct faculty member in the College of Technology and Ph.D. candidate at Purdue University in the College of Engineering. He earned a Bachelors of Science from the University of Massachusetts and a Masters from the University of Chicago; his broad research interests include Engineering Education, Network Science, and Modeling Human Sociometrics.
Abstract
A community of practice approach to becoming an engineering education research professional Engineering education research is an emerging profession that brings together methods, tools, and concepts from many disciplines. Entering graduate students are brought into new bodies of knowledge, methods, language, and concepts that may require significant shifts in how they think about the scholarships of discovery, application, and impact. Similarly, in more established disciplines, graduate students are brought into relatively defined and stable ideas about research that may be so tacit and deeply embedded that it can be difficult to gain access to and learn about the principles that guide scholarly. In graduate education, the community of practice framework can be a useful model for designing learning experiences that bring new people into a profession and support their development of professional ways of thinking, acting, and being. The community of practice framework is a form of cognitive apprenticeship in which experts (old-‐timers) model their approaches to novices (newcomers), performing a task such that newcomers can build their own mental models on what is required to accomplish the same task. This makes visible the how, when, and about what that shapes what old-‐timers do in everyday professional work and what is involved in being a member of a community of practice. It also helps newcomers see that learning is about growth and that making mistakes is a natural part of the learning process – getting beyond naïve beliefs about “good performance” as a smooth and easy process. In this paper we describe a one credit 50-‐minute course, in which research faculty have 20 minutes each to share the behind-‐the-‐scenes backstory of one of their own research publications (including works-‐in-‐progress) – the motivation behind the study, the theories that guided the study, the collaboration experience, the process for building and substantiating findings, the choices made to communicate the impact of the work, and the various failures and false starts experienced over the study timeline. They were also encouraged to share their approaches to apprenticing protégés into the profession and any lessons learned about the research endeavor including ways to link research and practice. Students read the two papers and post a reflection on a Blackboard discussion board focusing on issues in the papers they would like to hear about, and then engage in an open and informal discussion of the behind-‐the-‐scene story of scholarly research in engineering education. We describe the critical elements of the course including the theories used to shape the course, the activities and learning objectives, and the course outcomes. Outcomes of the experience are summarized in terms of (1) the kinds of questions or issues students wanted to hear, (2) the kinds of stories faculty shared, and (3) what students took away form the course regarding what it means to be an engineering education professional and what it means to connect research and practice. Overall, our experience suggests that this apprenticeship model is a low investment but high impact approach to preparing future professionals.
Adams, R., & Berdanier, C. G., & Branham, P. A., & Choudhary, N., & Fletcher, T. L., & Goldstein, M. H., & Joslyn, C. H., & Mathis, C. A., & Siverling, E. A., & Buswell, N. T., & Wilson, M. D. (2014, June), A Community of Practice Approach to Becoming an Engineering Education Research Professional Paper presented at 2014 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Indianapolis, Indiana. 10.18260/1-2--19923
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