Paper ID #32207Removing barriers and preparing students for STEM majors throughpartnerships with local public schoolsDon Wittrock, University of Cincinnati CEAS Office of Inclusive Excellence and Community Engagement Don has over 25 years in working with science and community based youth programs. His education background is in Human Development and Family Studies at Colorado State University and a Master’s from Miami University. My focus has been synthesizing research to put into practice for programs which focus on increasing the diversity in STEM for young people.Dr. Whitney Gaskins, University of Cincinnati Dr
Board for the GEM National Consortium and on the Boards of Directors for The Commonwealth Center Advanced Manufacturing (CCAM) and the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Center. American c Society for Engineering Education, 2021WIP: Preparing Graduate Students to Engage in Multicultural EnvironmentsOverviewIt is widely accepted that there is a need to improve research mentoring experiences amongengineering graduate students and transform a perceived unwelcoming culture of engineeringcolleges (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2018). In response to thisneed, the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech (VT) has started an initiative designed toaddress
institutions have struggled to adapt to the diversity oftheir student bodies, especially minority students’ needs [9]. Even though literature indicatesthat oral communication has been identified as a learnable skill, and some institutions attemptto provide extracurricular communication skills training sessions, such training remainsseparate from the technical curriculum. Moreover, most of the STEM coursework is heavilyskewed towards writing, which ultimately hinders active engagement [10]. Due to this recentincrease attention on changing expectations from practicing STEM professionals, there is anurgent need to successfully develop new skills sets throughout students’ academic careers[12]. Although communications have recently been incorporated into
facilitator in Azraqnoted, ‘I think we need to be flexible, if the students can go on with the same timetable, then it'sgood, if not then we will act accordingly.’ This quote expresses his concern with course pacingsince a few students were not ready to move on to a new course topic like their peers. Figure 4. Slide example using during the teaching certification trainingDiscussion and future plans This paper is impactful and contributes in two dimensions. First, the novelty of the LEDadds to the engineering education community and education in displacement by examiningeffective teaching and learning in refugee settings. Specifically, this paper contributes to theapplication of diverse pedagogical theories and learning environments
from the Coalition for Life-TransformativeEducation (CLTE). CLTE is a consortium of university leadersinterested in exploring ways to provide college students with atransformative educational experience that addresses their well-being and promotes their understanding of their life’s purpose. Thevast majority of the CLTE mini-grant was spent on StudentTrainers’ stipends and materials.The RE3 Program is grounded upon the research relating to values affirmation andSTEM success. Over the past decade, researchers have shown that when STEMcollege students who feel at risk of upholding stereotypes or being judged basedon stereotypes (students of color, women, first-gen students) engage withvalues affirmation in a STEM environment, their performance
the success of this programfor the education of our undergraduate engineering students. 2 Research Question How do intensive and affordable short-term study abroad programs (such as EDGES) impact the cultural awareness and competence of undergraduate engineering students?This is the central question that our study seeks to address, and we use a mixed-methodsapproach to answer this question. There is already some research on long-term studyabroad and its impact for the growth of cultural awareness in students. This question ismeant to address the existing research gap for the use of diversity and
Generation Z students are looking for larger-scaleopportunities that target societal root causes of problems. These are students that have their sights seton making lasting impact; on changing the world for the better. They envision using theirentrepreneurial tendencies to help eradicate problems at their source and bring about social change[14]. “For example, why tutor one third grader in reading when developing and instituting a literacyprogram could help all third graders in a community?” [4, p.275]. Generation Z comes to college with high rates of volunteerism already on their resumes,largely due to preset requirements as part of a class or society. In fact, almost 90 percent of highschool seniors indicated that they were frequently
marginalization in engineering spaces. Manystudents experience a chilly climate and feel the need to navigate engineering spaces using avariety of techniques, such as passing, covering, and compartmentalizing (Cech & Waidzunas,2011; Hughes, 2017; Farrell, 2017; Cech & Rothwell, 2018; Yoshino, 2006). This identity workcauses significant strain on LGBTQ+ engineering students, often resulting in a lowered sense ofbelonging in engineering, higher levels of anxiety and stress, less engagement with engineeringactivities, and poorer academic performance (Cech and Waidzunas, 2011). To alleviate this chilly climate, universities and engineering departments are creatingdesignated diverse and inclusive spaces that intend to foster community among
from http://knowledgecenter.csg.org/drupal/system/files/FF_Women_STEM.pdfDeCastro-Ambrosetti, D., & Cho, G. (2002). Technology— panacea or obstacle in the education of diverse student populations. Multicultural Education 10: 25–30.Finkel, L. (2017). Walking the path together from high school to STEM majors and careers: Utilizing community engagement and a focus on teaching to increase opportunities for URM students. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 26(1), 116–126. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-016-9656-yFraleigh-Lohrfink, K. J., Whittington, D., & Feinberg, A. P. (2013). Increase in science research commitment in a didactic and laboratory-based program targeted to gifted minority high-school
faculty. Story 3 centers on Alice’s experienceswith a medical emergency and the faculty’s treatment of students’ personal lives.Implications: This paper has implications for faculty members, including differentiating theintent the faculty member perceives from the enactment of the events that occur and from theoften outsized impact that small moments can have on minoritized individuals. We suggest thatinclusive communication and acts of perspective taking can help faculty members proactivelycreate inclusive classrooms that make it easier for students’ to bring their whole selves toengineering.IntroductionWithin efforts to broaden participation in engineering, creating inclusive cultures inundergraduate engineering is a challenging and important
engineering programs strive to recruit and retain increasingly diverse student bodies, theyoften struggle to create an environment where students from historically excluded identities canthrive. While many universities have implemented interventions, training programs, and othermechanisms to reduce micro-aggressions and foster the creation of a more welcomingenvironment, to our knowledge, little research has been conducted on how common technicaljargon of engineering can influence feelings of inclusion and acceptance among a diverseengineering student population.This paper reports specifically on student reactions to the “master-slave” terminology in theclassroom, and the self-reported impacts of these terms on students’ sense of community
additionalinformation about identity.Case Study # 1: “Kelsea” – Junior Mechanical Engineering Major: “In my classes, seeing howprofessors respond to students, interact with students, I feel like it's pretty equal footed betweenrace and gender.”Kelsea is a junior mechanical engineering major at PWI-State who aspires to work in privateindustry in the area of design or research and development. Kelsea scored in the low range of theMIBI (28 out of 56). When reflecting on her identity circle, she stated that the she felt that herchoices reflected those things that “can impact how you, those experience and qualifiers impacthow you move through the world and express different information and viewpoints.” In the innercircle, closest to her core, Kelsea placed
a worldwide concern because of the shortage of professionals in STEM fields. Whilethere is a high need for computer professionals in industry, enrollment in computing programs hasnot kept pace with that demand. This is further exacerbated when the data is disaggregated on thebasis of race and gender. Exploring patterns regarding race/ethnicity and gender can helpeducation researchers and the computing community to reveal the hidden stories that help themprovide guidelines, strategies, and/or mechanisms that lead to enhancing the persistence ofunderrepresented minority students in these fields. This study was conducted using a subset of alongitudinal database - Multiple-Institution Database for Investigating Engineering
campuses. She has collaborated with other faculty and departments across the nation to develop graduate programs with clear course objectives, learning outcomes and engaging, rigorous cur- riculum that leads to student achievement. Dora has been an international literacy trainer with a focus on linguistics, literacy development, and second language learners. In addition, she has served on the boards of directors for the Association of Hispanic School Administrators, Texas Reading Association, and Chess for Humanity. Dora is a former fellow of the Teaching Trust Executive Leadership Teams Program where she learned how to lead with trust and influence in order to achieve results and increase technical competence of her
defining components relevant to the institutional engagementactivities in the social facet of belongingness among undergraduate students are replaced by thestudents’ academic and professional engagement in their field of academic specialty (e.g.,academic conference, research meeting, etc.) [1].Regarding the academic facet of sense of belonging, student belongingness research is closelyrelated to graduate student socialization in graduate education [4],[13]. Socialization in graduateeducation refers to the process of becoming a member of the academic community throughlearning the knowledge, skills, and values of the academic unit [31]. It has been regarded to beimportant in graduate education literature due to its impact on student persistence and
Work-In-Progress: Broadening Participation in Engineering: Exploring the Burdens and Benefits of Student VolunteerismAbstractAcross the United States, organizations are engaged in ongoing efforts to broaden participation inengineering (BPE). Because of the lack of persistent representation in engineering, these efforts focusacross the elementary, secondary, and postsecondary levels of education, primarily targeting women andpeople of color. Although extensive literature has documented the impacts of BPE efforts on participantsthemselves, less research examines the experiences of those who engage in efforts to broadenparticipation. Such an investigation is important because much of the labor that goes into BPE is
investigating the role of professional organizations(NSBE and BLGOs) in the success of Black engineering students. Professional organizationshave long served as spaces of support for the Black community. The larger project focused onthese two specific types of entities to understand how organizations centered on the professionaland civic commitment might differentially support engineers with a shared racial identity.However, there are many different types of spaces that students can engage in for support andcommunity, this study was designed to uncover the various spaces the Black engineeringstudents describe as counterspaces. This work sought to address the following researchquestions: RQ1: Through their stories, what are identified as
what we’ve learned about creating and implementing a 3-day summer experience for newly admitted women first year engineering students. We will explain a little about what this program is at our campus and what we know about it, then we will share some of the context of the ecosystem related to supporting communities of diverse engineering scholars and why the program was launched. We will talk about the program components and logistics as well. Then we will share the assessment data and consider the measures we have to indicate the value and impact of the program. Finally, we will discuss with you the key things that might be important for transferability and aim tolearn from each other ideas for enhancing or adapting the initiative for
marginalization in the form of social disadvantage which may bein terms of income, services, and/or participation. If engineers are to work effectively with andfor marginalized communities both locally and abroad, they should be sensitized to social justiceissues and have sophisticated ethical reasoning skills. This research explored the perspectivesand practices related to social justice issues among engineering educators who integrate ethicsand societal impact issues (ESI) into their courses. A survey found that among 1268 instructorswho embed ESI in their courses, 27% include social justice and/or poverty topics. The majorityof individuals who taught social justice and/or poverty believed that the ESI education ofundergraduate and graduate students in
; and 3)connect STEM learning across all settings (National Research Council, 2015). Researchliterature assessing the impact of summer engineering camps for elementary-aged children havehighlighted children’s attitudinal and STEM learning gains with as little as 40 contact hours(Bottomley, Lavelle, D’Amico & LaPorte, 2015; Nugent, Barker, Grandgenett, & Adamchuck,2010). The specific program we are focusing on is the Summer Engineering Experiences forKids (SEEK) program. Organized by the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), SEEK isa three-week summer program that engages children who have recently completed grades 3-5 indaily hands-on, team-based engineering design projects led by collegiate mentors and teachers.Since its
connection betweenunderrepresented students’ strong sense of “classroom belonging,” their engineering identity,and their academic performance [20]. Strayhorn [10] compared white and Latinx students’sense of belonging drawing on data from a large survey of students in four-year institutions. Hefound that “academic and social experiences influence Latino college students’ sense ofbelonging. For instance, it was found that grades and time spent studying positively influenceLatino students’ sense of belonging; time spent studying had a more powerful impact thangrades. Taken together, findings may suggest that Latino students who excel academically (e.g.,high achievers) feel more connected to campus than those who perform less well” (p. 313).Moreover
sexism, racism, harassment, bullying, hazing and unwanted touching. These behaviors canlead to many minority and under-represented minority students in engineering experiencing achilly climate [1].The impact of a chilly climate and disruptive behavior (such as micro-aggressions, harassment andunkind acts) mounts up and can leave students feeling unwelcome or even unsafe on campus [2].This can have a negative impact on their health, self-esteem, education and quality of life [2] [3].On the other side, if the students engaging in this inappropriate behavior are not made aware thattheir behavior is unacceptable, this may lead to more serious misconduct while at University. Inaddition, if this behavior continues in the workforce, they are at risk of
this day. Therefore, these conversations and actions to enactchange must continue with adequate support for teachers. To that extent, the E4USAinstructional team and teacher educators will engage in multiple reflections and discussionsthroughout the remainder of the project. Educators will be asked to reflect upon how theirpreparation for the academic year has been impacted by reading the Whistling Vivaldi [17] text.At the end of the school year, educators will be asked to share how their plans aligned or neededto be altered based on increased rapport with students as well as the actions they may have takento create an inclusive engineering classroom culture with an intention of mitigating implicitbiases and stereotype threats. Furthermore
academicsettings. The results obtained by surveying undergraduate and graduate women, who havesuccessfully passed many filters towards achieving a degree in engineering, may help researchersand policymakers create impactful approaches concerning gender stereotyping and bias in academicand workplace environments.MethodsResearch questionThe following research question was used to conduct the research study: • What are the strategies for dealing with gender stereotype or bias used by female undergraduate and graduate engineering students?Data collectionThe data were collected using an online survey, powered by Qualtrics, that was filled outanonymously by the participants. The assessment instrument was comprised of 14 multiple-choicequestions and one
Technology Lana Verschage is the Director of the Women in Computing program at the B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences at RIT. Women in Computing at RIT (WiC at RIT) provides an interdisciplinary networking forum for students, faculty, staff and alumni involved in the field of com- puting at Rochester Institute of Technology through professional, leadership, mentorship, and technical development opportunities. WiC at RIT will also encourage the advancement of women in computing through community outreach. Through her efforts Verschage has engaged more local women and girls in computing through outreach efforts, conferences, guidance, courses, and hackathons. Verschage helped create the all
of social indicators. In otherwords, students decide who is smart by watching what happens in the classrooms or in the schoolmore broadly. Our participants described their smartest peers as those who engage in socialsettings in particular ways. For example, they know who is smart because they “sound smart,”are confident, get the highest grades on tests, participate in class, etc. We further broke downthese interpretations of social indicators of smartness into informal and formal aspects. Thisaligns with extant literature indicating that smartness can be assessed through artifacts such asgrades but also more informally based on social interactions [3]. The participants discussed howthey interpreted several informal social indicators which
involvement in the UNR PRiDE Research Lab and engagement with the UNR and Reno, NV STEM Education community, he studied student motivation, active learning, and diversity in engineering team- ing experiences, developed K-12 engineering education curriculum, and advocated for socioeconomically just access to STEM education. As a Ph.D. Candidate with the STRiDE Research Lab at Purdue Univer- sity, Justin’s current research focuses on the study of Intersectionality Theory and the intersectionality of socioeconomic inequality in engineering education, use of critical quantitative methodology and narrative inquiry to understand the complex stories of engineering students from minoritized backgrounds, and the pursuit of a
., "Doctoral initiative on minority attrition and completion.," Washington, DC, 2015.[3] N. Curtin, J. Malley and A. J. Stewart, "Mentoring the Next Generation of Faculty: Supporting Academic Career Aspirations Among Doctoral Students," Journal of Research in Higher Education, vol. 57, no. 6, pp. 714-738, 2016.[4] J. Gordon, Haynes, C. and May, G., "Impact of mentoring and enrichment activities on the academic careers of underrepresented STEM doctoral students," in Proceedings of the 122nd ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Seattle, WA, 2015.[5] J. Mondisa and S. A. McComb, "The role of social community and individual differences in minority mentoring programs," Mentoring and Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, vol. 26
ofEngineering in 2018.The Summit/Town Hall originally had three major goals: 1. Engage all engineering students in the college in discussions on diversity and inclusion. 2. Promote diversity and inclusion among students, staff, and faculty. 3. Increase the sense of belonging and engagement of underrepresented students.BackgroundAs previously mentioned, the first summit was precipitated by ongoing national, local, and on-campus events. The movement and need for the event were articulated by student leaders in thecollege. Based on the voiced concerns, the deans of the college recommended a town hall/summit-type event. While the college has good programmatic activity to support students, evidence hasshown both programmatic activity and events impact
engaged in the field by exposing them to a broader view of the field and theimpact that they can have on technology.Each year, the PC program is housed within the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers(IEEE) International Microwave Symposium (IMS). IMS is the flagship conference of theMicrowave Theory and Techniques (MTT) Society and is based in North America. The typicalattendance at the conference is over 9,000 and there is an associated industry exhibition withmore than 700 companies. PC hosts approximately two dozen underrepresented students for fourdays of community building and professional development, most of whom are juniors or seniorsin undergraduate programs, along with a smaller cohort of first year students in