Seattle, Washington
June 14, 2015
June 14, 2015
June 17, 2015
978-0-692-50180-1
2153-5965
Shaping the Future: Structured Mentoring for Today's Diverse Engineering Student Populations
Minorities in Engineering
Diversity
16
26.311.1 - 26.311.16
10.18260/p.23650
https://peer.asee.org/23650
691
Jessica is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Teaching and Learning: Mathematics Education at the University of South Florida. Jessica has a Bachelors of Science and a Masters of Science in Mathematics from Tennessee State University. Jessica’s professional experience includes teaching developmental mathematics courses and college level mathematics courses at the University of South Florida, Tennessee State University, Nashville State Community College, and ITT Technical Institute-Nashville. Jessica also has experience in teaching teacher preparation courses in mathematics at the University of South Florida. Additionally, she has spent time substitute teaching for K-12 school and has taught mathematics in multiple Summer Academy Programs servicing high school students. She is a member of the American Society for Engineering Education, America Education Research Association (AERA), Research on Women and Education also a special interest group of the AERA, Critical Educators for Social Justice a special interest group of the AERA, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Florida Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and the American Association of Teaching and Curriculum. Jessica’s research interest includes factors contributing to high mathematics achievement, historically undeserved and underrepresented student learners in mathematics, culturally responsive mathematics teaching, transitioning from secondary to undergraduate level mathematics, and service learning mentor programs in STEM.
Jonathan E. Gaines is faculty in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of South Florida. He is the Principle Investigator for Bulls Engineering Youth Experience (Bulls-EYE Mentoring) a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math service learning program sponsored by the Motorola Solutions Foundation.
Deonte currently work for the University of South Florida under the Engineering Department. He is the Bulls-Eye Director of Training of Mentoring & Engagement. Bulls-Engineering Youth Experience provides a service learning and professional development structure for student organizations actively involved in outreach programs at the University of South Florida. He also works as the Advisor/Academic Liaison of the USF Students and Technology in Academia, Research and Service (STARS) Program. The STARS Student leadership Corps (SLC) is a multi-year experience providing students with support throughout their academic years. The SLC uses civic engagement, mentoring, and professional development and/or research experiences to promote a healthy student community among academia. He have worked as the Program Coordinator of Promoting Academic Success for Boys of Color (PASBOC). This program examined the relationships of college mentors with elementary mentees to better understand their experiences and outcomes. He earned my undergraduate degree in Psychology from USF. His main focuses are to recruit, engage and graduate underrepresented students from college. His research interest include mentoring relationships, multicultural awareness, game making, K-12 outreach, service learning, app building and robotics.
A Service-learning Mentor Program’s influence on Retention in the College of Engineering The University of South Florida Foundation, Inc. is developing a Science, Technology,Engineering and Math (STEM) mentoring program called Bulls-Engineering Youth Experience(Bulls-EYE Mentoring) in accordance with a received 2014 Motorola Solutions InnovationGeneration award. In partnership with student chapters of the National Society of BlackEngineers (NSBE) and Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), Bulls-EYEMentoring targets underrepresented students to serve as mentors. Mentors are trained and thenhired to facilitate a summer program for local black and Hispanic middle school aged youth.The technical curriculum focuses on robotic systems but uniquely provides opportunities forrapport building, personal development, understanding of community, and life skills. Theprogram also relies on reciprocity between mentors and mentees to effectively establishmeaningful relationships. The primary goal of the program is to improve the likelihood ofsuccess in STEM for both mentors and mentees. The program has two components: mentor training, which is completed during theacademic year, and the five-week Robotics Summer Academy. One hypothesis for this researchis engineering students’ involvement in a service learning mentor program (Bulls-EYE) willpositively influence retention rates in the college of engineering, retaining students until theyobtain their degrees. Furthermore, Bulls-EYE will positively influence retention of historicallyunderrepresented students in engineering disciplines. Undergraduate engineering students willparticipate in the mentor training and 12 of these students will be hired as mentors for theRobotics Summer Academy. Also, 24 rising 5th and 6th graders in transition into an establishedEngineering magnet program at Bartels K-8 STEM Academy, will be selected as menteesparticipating in the Robotics Summer Academy. The Mentor Training will be implementedduring the Fall of 2014 and Spring of 2015 school years. The Robotics Summer Academy will beimplemented in the Summer of 2015, providing an opportunity for undergraduate engineeringstudents to mentor in a technical discipline, while improving their life and technical skills.Training has begun for the first cohort of Bulls-EYE mentors in preparation for the first RoboticSummer Academy in July 2015. This mixed methods inquiry will quantitatively assess the programs effect on mentorsmotivation, self-efficacy, attitudes toward engineering and perceptions of engineering. Thefollowing instruments will be adapted to assess these measures: perceptions of instrumentality(PI) scale, Student Perceptions of Classroom Knowledge-Building (SPOCK) survey, motivationstrategies for learning questionnaire (MSLQ) (Pintrich & DeGroot, 1990; Pintrich, Smith, Garcia& McKeachie, 1991), self-efficacy scale (Chen, Gully & Eden, 2001), and the PittsburghFreshman Engineering Attitudes Survey (Besterfield-Sacre, Atman & Shuman, 1997). A mixedmethods approach of summative and formative evaluation measures is used to assess theinfluence of Bulls-EYE on mentors knowledge and understanding of engineering. Finally, wewill assess mentor participation as members of the mentor cohort and reciprocal relationshipsbuilt between mentors and mentees. We will use qualitative methods including interviews, pre-and post-surveys, mentor self-assessments, mentor/mentee/staff reflections, and mentor onlineweekly reports to assess how these relationships influence mentor identity.
Wilson, J. A., & Gaines, J. E., & Cooper, D. (2015, June), Bulls-Eye Mentoring: Developing a Program Intervention in the College of Engineering Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.23650
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