: Exploring Engineering Students’ Changing Perception of Racism in Automation during a First-Year Computation CourseAbstractThis Complete Evidence-based Practice paper describes first-year engineering students’perceptions, and specifically their shifts in those perspectives, towards the role of automation anddata science in society as well as the racial implications of how those human-made systems areimplemented and deployed. As part of a larger curricular change being made to a first-yearengineering course in computation, this paper specifically examines two reflection assignmentswhere students wrote, at different points in the semester (week 2 and week 12), regarding theirpersonal questions and understandings related
the diverse individuals.Throughout the summer, students complete weekly guided reflections, and before and after theprogram, complete a pre- and post-assessment.MethodologyThis research study used mixed methods to collect data throughout the NHERI REU SummerProgram for a five (5) year period, which included five different cohorts of student researchers.The data collection is designed to follow a case study that is bound by time as studentsparticipate in the program together, attend the same events virtually, and provide the sameweekly deliverables. Although students have different experiences and perceptions based onindividual interactions at each of their sites, they are immersed as part of the community ofundergraduate researchers for the
studentteam leader and held to co-develop the process, deliverables, timeline and implementation plans.Students complete bi-weekly personal journal reflections to unpack their experience throughoutthe term. Projects are presented at the end of the term with agency representatives attending. Peerevaluations are conducted, as well as periodic surveys and focus groups to understand theefficacy of the experiences for both students and community partners. Students report highsatisfaction with the experience, pointing to several gains: deeper understanding of the plight ofcommunities in need (e.g., homeless, seniors, underprivileged kids), skills they honed during theproject (e.g., essential skills such as organizational, communication, presentation
human-centered design approach, (2) the intersection of socialjustice and design thinking, and (3) the implications of design choices on historicallymarginalized groups. Course artifacts, student reflections, and instructional team reflections areused to understand the growth in mindset of the students and instructor through this course.Additionally, these resources are used to present key learnings for future implementation.This project focused on examining systems. Groups historically excluded from engineering,including people of color, disabled, LGBTQ+, and women, were recentered through the humancentered design process. Students evaluated engineering systems for exclusion and ideated on thesource of these design flaws. In doing so, they
score (n = 178, p = 0.65), butshowed a decrease of -3.38 in P score (n = 178, p = 0.017). This suggests that over four years,there is a reduction in students prioritizing decisions that were altruistic and based on universalgood. It is challenging to predict why this occurs, but we tentatively suggest that it may reflect amore accurate representation of students' thoughts on these ethical dilemmas. Additionally, itmight indicate a deeper consideration of the complex factors typically involved in real ethicaldecisions, rather than merely an abstract evaluation of what a reasonable engineer should do.Given these results and to gain a fuller understanding of students’ changes in ethical reasoningthroughout their undergraduate programs, we contend
liberatory pedagogy in bell hooks’ Teaching to Transgress. Ibegin by summarizing some key ideas from the book and subsequent calls for more liberatorypedagogies in engineering education. Next, I provide some context for my specific course as wellas my positionality. I discuss the course redesign along four themes: creating a community oflearning, transgressing against objectivity and apoliticism in engineering, promoting legitimacyand intellectual authority, and centering critical reflection. Finally, I conclude by reflecting onmy successes and challenges, and providing some lessons learned about “teaching to transgress”in an engineering technology and society course that I hope will be useful to instructors ofsimilar courses.BackgroundTeaching to
common thread from UDL, EM, and HCD is collaboratively identifying solutions to meet theneeds of many users. As such, methods from all three frameworks were applied throughout thisproject to identify potential improvements to the bioinstrumentation lab.Background on Participatory Action ResearchOne common application of participatory action research (PAR) is developing knowledge andidentifying opportunities for quality improvement. The PAR approach combines participants andexperts in the research of social practices [12]. Generally, PAR includes cycles of reflection,planning, action, and observation. In education, PAR can be employed by instructors who wishto improve their teaching or courses by gathering evidence of teaching effectiveness
explicate thedevelopment of a professional skills certification framework for undergraduate students in amicroelectronics engineering workforce development program and creation of the mechanism(s)to assess professional skill development. The framework facilitates students’ acquisition ofprofessional skills through experiential learning as viewed through the overarching theoreticallens of both social cognitive career theory and self-determination theory. The certificationframework, rubric, and assessment development are described, and the implications arediscussed.Tags: professional skills definitions, implementation, portfolio, professional skills,microelectronics, reflections, rubricIntroductionEmployers and educators alike have recognized a lack
creating inclusive and equitable learning environments through the development and implementation of strategies geared towards increasing student sense of belonging. ©American Society for Engineering Education, 2024 GIFTS: Sharing Stories and Building Belonging in a First Year Engineering CourseAbstractThis Great Ideas for Teaching, and Talking with, Students (GIFTS) paper presents a method forfostering a sense of belonging in students through a story sharing assignment in a first-yearengineering course. The authors present how story sharing is integrated into an introductoryengineering course and provides a reflection of the experience on the successes, challenges, andimpact on student
in general – whichsome students described as illustrative of the potential worth and impact of a single engineer.The breadth of approaches, observations, and principles relating to beauty and eleganceillustrated by this limited sample is desirable, as the point of the class is not to converge on adefinition of beauty but rather for each student to find examples, methods, and possibly widerprinciples that are meaningful to them. An individual student’s findings could potentially informor expand their appreciation for what engineering can be and accomplish, offer them places tointegrate engineering with their existing identities or interests, or influence career planning.After class, students are assigned to write reflections based on prompts
/users. Student groupscollaborated and communicated to the whole group about their motivations and perspectives fortheir design choices. The students then reflected on the possible value of their designs. Studentsthen wrote reflections that described the societal benefits of creating inclusive designs. Theirreflection pieces included thoughts on unconscious bias, challenging/disrupting beliefs, norms,habits and expectations that highlights problems behind oppressive worldviews, and socialinsight/imagination of what life is like for others considering social circumstances such as culturalidentity, privilege, and positionality. A self-reflection rubric is used to assess student self-reflectionsubmissions.Overall, this module enables educators to
of Technology. ©American Society for Engineering Education, 2024 Socio-technical and culture-inspired projects in freshman engineering design course bring context and emotion to learningAbstractLearning is not an unemotional consideration of facts but emotion is integrally woven into theexperience of learning [1]. Situated cognition model [2] is a theoretical approach to learning thatsupports the idea that learning takes place when an individual is interactively doing somethingthrough situated activity that has social, cultural, and physical contexts. This paper presents post-activity reflections in student design projects with socio-technical and socio-culturalinterventions in a freshman design
benefits, and environmental sustainability.In response to these complex and interrelated challenges, The Sustainability and SocialEntrepreneurship (SSEF), a collaborative effort between the University of Waterloo in Canadaand Harvey Mudd College in the United States, launched its inaugural iteration in the summer of2023. The SSEF aims to foster innovative, human-centered, and sustainable urban designsolutions through interdisciplinary international collaboration. The SSEF reflects anunderstanding of the multifaceted nature of urban problems and seeks to bring together diverseperspectives and expertise to address these issues.The program was structured as a multi-week, multi-institutional pilot that brought together nineexceptional third-year
majors, referred to in the project and hereafter asdesigners. The designers’ perspectives, as examples of students who had chosen a STEM careerpathway, was of interest. They had gained access to STEM as a field of study and the researcherswere interested in whether their own pathways would be reflected in the activities they weredesigning. The other stakeholder group involved in the planning year was a group of teacherswho would become the afterschool facilitators of the STEM program. Those individuals valuedSTEM and students’ access to it. As a group that provided input and feedback on the activitiesthat were being developed, the researchers were interested in how their experiences andperspectives may or may not be reflected in the afterschool
experience. To assess student perceptions of thenew curriculum intervention, reflections were collected and qualitatively analyzed resulting in 3overarching themes, including creativity in user-centered design, time management, andcommunication/collaboration. These themes demonstrate that students felt they acquired orexpanded skills that are considered vital in a work environment. Therefore, applying this projectexperience on a larger scale can alleviate some of the unpreparedness that engineering studentsfeel as they leave school and enter the workforce. The intervention details will be provided toencourage other engineering instructors to implement similar real-world learning strategies in thehigher education classroom.IntroductionMany
activity–has been identified as an essential component forinstructional effectiveness [5]-[7] with highlights to the experience of mastery and socialpersuasion [7],[8]. This suggests that effective support for faculty should consist of learningcommunities that build supportive relationships between members, encourage critical reflection,and include opportunities for research partnerships [9].Faculty Communities of PracticesIn work focusing on educational and leadership development, Drago-Steverson [10] shares thateffective faculty development experiences allow faculty to experience conditions that supportadult learners through meaningful shared activities. Such activities enable faculty to experiencetransformational learning–learning that grows
disciplines, but rather require aninterdisciplinary approach. Originally conceptualized by Rittel & Webber [2], wicked problemsare problems with multiple stakeholders and competing demands, which often contain ethical,social, political, or environmental dimensions. They are challenging to frame and scope, giventhe lack of an obvious “stopping point” when the problem to solution process is complete.Wicked problems reflect pressing societal issues like climate change, transportation and urbandevelopment, healthcare and technological unemployment – problems that frequently engage thetechnical expertise of engineers but require a breadth of disciplinary knowledge outside ofengineering as well, requiring strong collaborative skills and an intellectual
by Dewey (1937) asa cyclical learning model in the education process with four components: concrete experience,reflection, abstraction, and application [5].Experiential learning refers to the transformation of experiences into applied knowledge [6] witha deliberate importance placed on the reflexive nature of learning [7]. Kolb’s experientiallearning theory is a noted example of a commonly cited learning theory presented in theliterature that maintains humanistic roots [8]. Experiential learning theory not only includes thecognitive aspects of learning, but also addresses one’s subjective experiences [9], defininglearning as “the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience”(Kolb, 1984, p. 41). This theory
Paper ID #42176Board 180: Impacting Engineering Students’ Perceptions of DEI ThroughReal-Life Narratives and In-Class Discussions with an Empathetic LensProf. Lisa K Davids, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University To continually improve the experience of the students in her courses, Lisa engages in applied pedagogical research, implementing research-based techniques in the classroom. Currently teaching Introduction to Engineering and Graphical Communications courses, Lisa has implemented active teaching techniques, team and project-based assignments, and emphasizes self-reflection in her students.Dr. Jeff R. Brown, Embry-Riddle
junioryear in undergrad through the completion of a master's degree or through the completion of theirqualifying exam within a Ph.D. program, the program provides opportunities throughout todeeply engage students in reflecting on social issues. The goal of the program is to foster theprofessional development of S-STEM scholars to develop socially conscious engineers andengineering faculty who support students and come up with innovative solutions that meet thediverse needs of different populations.Socially Conscious ProgrammingUML’s S-STEM Program is halfway through the second cohort’s first year. The programmingdescribed was offered in the first year for the first cohort and is being offered to the secondcohort during their first year in the
students experience.” Such data can contextualize the design and the delivery ofthe intervention. To examine FOI, an LR-LS fidelity rubric was developed by the research teamto score faculty on five “critical components” [1] of the LR-LS framework: 1) STEM/academicliteracy, 2) affordances for student interaction, 3) orientations to student learning, 4) reflectivepractice, and 5) faculty leadership. Our FOI rubric was intended to capture the extent to whichLR-LS components were enacted during lesson study (quality measure). The five LR-LScomponents were measured using a four-point scale. A score of “0” means the component wasnot present, “1” reflects minimal implementation, “2” reflects moderate implementation, and “3”reflects strong
ofdesigning and building technologies. However, they do this within the context of unique placesand among distinct milieu that reflects its own engineering culture [8]. Thus, engineering cultureand the development of engineering identity is inextricably tied to the places that reproduce itand contains within it specific organizational patterns, embedded norms and routines, sharedbeliefs, and values that often mediate how students engage with faculty, staff, and one another.In short, culture cannot be decoupled from the place in which it is experienced and imparted.Extant research delineates visible manifestations of culture as “ways of doing things” within theclassroom and laboratory spaces—which often prioritizes the teaching and development
reality and is characterized by varied factorsthat influence this gap to continue, even with the efforts of private, public, social, andeducational initiatives to reduce it. Among the factors are the preconceptions in relation toSTEM careers, gender stereotypes, family attitudes, lack of women leaders in these areas whoare an example to inspire or to mentorship. The lack of gender equity for women inengineering is a global problem that has implications for society, as it means losing theopportunity to have this talent that is in such high demand today. [6]This context that gives us the environment leads us to reflect on the initiatives that are beingcarried out globally to further promote and create this culture of gender equality, where
screening survey. Approximately 70instructor survey respondents have shared their personal experience and perceptions around non-traditional modes of teaching over a series of three semi-structured interviews. Specifically,participants were prompted to reflect on contextual barriers and affordances that impact theirdecision-making processes around active student engagement in the classroom. The second effortconsists of a mentoring component in which participating faculty are continuously engaged inthe innovation and development processes tied to EBIP-implementation in the classroom. Thiscollaborative development has created a supportive space in which faculty are encouraged to testnew EBIPs in their courses and reflect on the challenges and
local community while producing experiences and artifacts that allow us to developengineering education theory [12].MethodsIn this work, we borrow from aspects of autoethnography as a methodology for analyzing ourself-reflections [13], video, survey responses, and field notes. We reviewed these data sources forevidence of refinement of practice and the ideology of engineering education graduate studentsand researchers. We borrow from aspects of autoethnography and thematic analysis. However,our analysis is broad at this stage. We use aspects of thematic analysis to look for commonoccurrences across our work and artifacts [14]. In this section, we will briefly describe each ofthe research studies we have done, the types of data we collected for
deliverables reflecting a partial recognition or incompletehandling of ethical dimensions, and those that submitted deliverables reflecting thorough navigationof ethical dimensions. These performance observations were possible because the activity involvedmaking resource choices linked to ethical implications, resulting in certain materials’ use (orabsence) evident in teams’ physical deliverables. Students’ post-activity reflections, submitted afterthey participated in an activity debrief, included indications of intended learning in a majority ofcases (83% of submittals) based upon a rubric. Drawing from activity observations and reflections,we discuss how teams’ ethical decision making appears to have been strained by various intendedpressures
]. Subsequently, this pedagogical PDprogram was adapted for engineering GTAs, with an aim to enhance and support theirprofessional learning. For clarity, we use “PD program” throughout to refer to the programoffered to engineering GTAs that engaged them in professional learning about postsecondaryengineering pedagogy.This study was structured to investigate the GTA participants’ experiences and development inthe PD program intended to provide GTA opportunities to actively learn and reflect onpedagogical concepts and approaches as a community. This study was structured to investigatethe participants’ experiences in this program. The specific research questions that guided thisstudy were: ● What features and content of the program did GTA participants
, gender and sexuality studies(WGSS) or ethnic studies empowers minoritized engineering students to develop criticalconsciousness relative to the culture of engineering. Our work investigates the influence of twosuch courses on student attitudes and motivation by gathering both qualitative and quantitativedata from students in two STEM-themed courses in WGSS and ethnic studies, “Gender andSTEM” and “Race and Technology.” We argue that in these courses students acquire skills thatenable them to critically reflect on both the socially constructed nature of STEM and on thehistorical patterns within engineering culture that exacerbate existing inequities and injusticedespite claims of “neutral” objectivity. In preliminary data, students report that
professional developmentstreams, and a resolute approach to Scaffolding Instruction that leads to mastery in the student's area offocus. The last two components provide feedback and reflection: Assessment of Performance Learningquantifies students' progress, and Reflection and Evaluation, where improvement opportunities help thestudent to develop further. Incorporating personalization at every touchpoint of a graduate student'sacademic journey creates an authentic, customized, student-centered approach to graduate education.This paper describes the model, the literature behind its development, and the assessments used to guidestudents.IntroductionGraduate STEM training and career preparation has historically followed a "one size fits all" approach
community engagement programs for understanding the value propositionfor each stakeholder group. Such investigations can help researchers and practitioners betteroptimize programs to more closely meet their full potential.IntroductionLeading institutions in engineering education have been focusing on integrating experientiallearning into the undergraduate experience in recent years [1], which is a pedagogy that involveseducators purposefully engaging learners in direct experience and focused reflection [2]. Onesubset of the experiential learning approach is community-engaged learning, which is intended toincorporate the five elements of engagement, academic connection, reciprocal partnerships, mutuallearning, and reflection [3]. In engineering