An Assessment of Students’ Perceptions in Curriculum Development Integrating Entrepreneurship and STEAM with Designing Green (Bio-inspired) Roofs

Nadia Al-Aubaidy

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Conference: 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Portland, Oregon
Publication Date: June 23, 2024
Start Date: June 23, 2024
End Date: June 26, 2024
Conference Session: Entrepreneurship & Engineering Innovation Division (ENT) Technical Session 4
Tagged Division: Entrepreneurship & Engineering Innovation Division (ENT)
Page Count: 23
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--46544
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/46544
Download Count: 211

Paper Authors

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Nadia Al-Aubaidy Norwich University

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Dr. Nadia Al-Aubaidy is an Associate Professor at the David Crawford School of Engineering at Norwich University. She earned a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Al-Aubaidy is certified in Dispute Prevention and Resolution from the School of Law at The University of Texas at Austin. She is also a LEED Green Associate. Dr. Al-Aubaidy is the recipient of the Excellence in Teaching 2024 of Region 1 awarded by the Associated Schools of Construction. She is geared toward modernizing the architecture, engineering, and construction management curricula by integrating VDC/BIM, AI, and other cutting-edge technologies into architecture and engineering education.

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Abstract

CONTEXT: Over the past several decades, sustainability has reshaped engineering education and motivated scholars to implement it into academic curricula and research. Educating engineering students in sustainable (bio-inspired) design helps them to understand the impacts of their decisions on the environment and natural resources and empowers them to make positive changes. On the other hand, entrepreneurship enables students to learn how to spot, evaluate, and explore opportunities, build a prototype, and test it to design a project that satisfies clients' needs and aesthetic preferences. Unfortunately, educational institutions and researchers lag, particularly when integrating an entrepreneurial mindset with green building. Thus, this study emerged to overcome this contemporary interdisciplinary challenge and prepare green entrepreneurs and T-shaped engineers.

PURPOSE OR GOAL: This study aims to prepare future green entrepreneurs and T-shaped engineers by creating a curriculum that integrates entrepreneurship and STEAM with construction projects' sustainable (bio-inspired) design and assessing students' perceptions of this curriculum development. The guiding research question is: What are the assessment themes of students' perceptions of integrating entrepreneurship and STEAM with sustainability in a curriculum in which students design green (bio-inspired) roofs? These themes help to understand student voices and interpret the information they share at a deeper level toward continuous improvement to curriculum development. Subsequently, the researcher can gain more significant insights into educational effectiveness's who, what, and how.

APPROACH OR METHODOLOGY/METHODS: This study was conducted at the Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Management Department at a University in the United States. The study was a four-week assignment integrated into two senior-level courses: 1. the capstone project course in two semesters, 2. the pre-construction management course in one semester. This study uses participatory action research (PAR) as a data collection instrument. PAR is a qualitative approach in which researchers work collaboratively with the participant subject population to collect data, reflect and take action. Photovoice, commonly linked to PAR, is used to collect and explore qualitative data, give a unique depth of understanding to the research questions identified, and offer new insights and perspectives toward making improvements. Data obtained are analyzed using thematic analysis, a fundamental qualitative method for finding patterns within the data set using a step-by-step process.

ACTUAL OUTCOME: After analyzing the qualitative data, six core themes related to this study were identified, including (1) curriculum design, (2) students, (3) entrepreneurship, (4) sustainable (bio-inspired) design, (5) art, and (6) technology. Each one of these six themes includes subthemes.

CONCLUSIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS/SUMMARY: This study fulfills a knowledge gap by researching a novel topic that contributes to advancing interdisciplinary learning experiences in engineering curricula. In addition to green roofs, this study can be applied to all other components of green buildings and replicated by instructors of other institutions. This study concludes with recommendations for improving the curriculum design and student performance. It also recommends further studies in engineering education and the AEC (Architecture/Engineering/Construction) industry using other research methods and investigating this study topic in depth.

Citation
Format

Al-Aubaidy, N. (2024, June), An Assessment of Students’ Perceptions in Curriculum Development Integrating Entrepreneurship and STEAM with Designing Green (Bio-inspired) Roofs Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--46544

TY - CPAPER
AB - CONTEXT: Over the past several decades, sustainability has reshaped engineering education and motivated scholars to implement it into academic curricula and research. Educating engineering students in sustainable (bio-inspired) design helps them to understand the impacts of their decisions on the environment and natural resources and empowers them to make positive changes. On the other hand, entrepreneurship enables students to learn how to spot, evaluate, and explore opportunities, build a prototype, and test it to design a project that satisfies clients&#39; needs and aesthetic preferences. Unfortunately, educational institutions and researchers lag, particularly when integrating an entrepreneurial mindset with green building. Thus, this study emerged to overcome this contemporary interdisciplinary challenge and prepare green entrepreneurs and T-shaped engineers.

PURPOSE OR GOAL: This study aims to prepare future green entrepreneurs and T-shaped engineers by creating a curriculum that integrates entrepreneurship and STEAM with construction projects&#39; sustainable (bio-inspired) design and assessing students&#39; perceptions of this curriculum development. The guiding research question is: What are the assessment themes of students&#39; perceptions of integrating entrepreneurship and STEAM with sustainability in a curriculum in which students design green (bio-inspired) roofs? These themes help to understand student voices and interpret the information they share at a deeper level toward continuous improvement to curriculum development. Subsequently, the researcher can gain more significant insights into educational effectiveness&#39;s who, what, and how.

APPROACH OR METHODOLOGY/METHODS: This study was conducted at the Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Management Department at a University in the United States. The study was a four-week assignment integrated into two senior-level courses: 1. the capstone project course in two semesters, 2. the pre-construction management course in one semester. This study uses participatory action research (PAR) as a data collection instrument. PAR is a qualitative approach in which researchers work collaboratively with the participant subject population to collect data, reflect and take action. Photovoice, commonly linked to PAR, is used to collect and explore qualitative data, give a unique depth of understanding to the research questions identified, and offer new insights and perspectives toward making improvements. Data obtained are analyzed using thematic analysis, a fundamental qualitative method for finding patterns within the data set using a step-by-step process.

ACTUAL OUTCOME: After analyzing the qualitative data, six core themes related to this study were identified, including (1) curriculum design, (2) students, (3) entrepreneurship, (4) sustainable (bio-inspired) design, (5) art, and (6) technology. Each one of these six themes includes subthemes.

CONCLUSIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS/SUMMARY: This study fulfills a knowledge gap by researching a novel topic that contributes to advancing interdisciplinary learning experiences in engineering curricula. In addition to green roofs, this study can be applied to all other components of green buildings and replicated by instructors of other institutions. This study concludes with recommendations for improving the curriculum design and student performance. It also recommends further studies in engineering education and the AEC (Architecture/Engineering/Construction) industry using other research methods and investigating this study topic in depth.

AU - Nadia Al-Aubaidy
CY - Portland, Oregon
DA - 2024/06/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - An Assessment of Students’ Perceptions in Curriculum Development Integrating Entrepreneurship and STEAM with Designing Green (Bio-inspired) Roofs
UR - https://peer.asee.org/46544
DO - 10.18260/1-2--46544
ER -