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Community Voices in the Spotlight: Students’ Engagement in the Literacies of Human-Centered Engineering Design

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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

July 12, 2024

Conference Session

Empowering Students and Strengthening Community Relationships

Tagged Division

Community Engagement Division (COMMENG)

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/48476

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Paper Authors

biography

Gianina Morales University of Pittsburgh; Universidad de Valparaíso, Chile Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-0144-7942

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Gianina Morales is a Faculty at the Universidad de Valparaíso, Chile. She has an M. Ed degree and is currently a Fulbright Ph.D. student at the School of Education at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research focuses on disciplinary literacy in engineering and the improvement of instructional practices to foster persistence and equity in undergraduate engineering education.

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Emily C. Rainey University of Pittsburgh

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Emily Rainey is an associate professor of literacy education at the University of Pittsburgh.

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Abstract

Human-centered design is an approach to design that places human needs at the forefront and values the thoughts and experiences of users as crucial elements of the design process. The method provides a framework for addressing wicked social problems, from environmental to accessibility issues. In this paper, we present partial findings from an exploratory qualitative case study of disciplinary literacies teaching and learning in an undergraduate project-based engineering course grounded on human-centered design. We focus on the engineering literacies enacted by a team of focal students who collaborated with a local school for visually impaired children to address the problem “How might we increase the accessibility of music to visually impaired people?”. Through the qualitative analysis of students’ interviews and artifacts, recordings, and observational notes from team meetings, we examine the students’ engineering literacies learning. Findings show how students used literacies of human-centered engineering design as tools for centering the perspectives of the recipients of the designed products, unseating traditional top-down design approaches. The paper discusses the potential of human-centered engineering design for 1) supporting and engaging students with community needs as they learn disciplinary practices and 2) advancing social change through the teaching and learning of engineering.

Morales, G., & Rainey, E. C. (2024, June), Community Voices in the Spotlight: Students’ Engagement in the Literacies of Human-Centered Engineering Design Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/48476

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