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Engagement in Practice: Maximizing the Impact of Service-learning Activities Through Collaboration with K–12 Educators

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Conference

2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Baltimore , Maryland

Publication Date

June 25, 2023

Start Date

June 25, 2023

End Date

June 28, 2023

Conference Session

Community Engagement Division 2 - Engagement in Practice Lightning Round: Equitable Engagement and Transformative Education

Tagged Division

Community Engagement Division (COMMENG)

Page Count

7

DOI

10.18260/1-2--43301

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/43301

Download Count

196

Paper Authors

biography

Yuting W. Chen University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

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Dr. Yuting W. Chen received the B.S. degree from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2007, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2009 and 2011, all in Electrical Engineering. She is currently a Teaching Associate Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her current interests include recruitment and retention of under-served students in STEM, professional development for graduate students, curriculum innovation in computing, and service-learning.

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biography

Blake Everett Johnson University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

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Dr. Blake Everett Johnson is a Teaching Assistant Professor and instructional laboratory manager in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research interests include experimental fluid mechanics, measurement science, engineering education, engineering leadership, and professional identity development.

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biography

Saadeddine Shehab University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

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I am currently the Associate Director of Assessment and Research team at the Siebel Center for Design (SCD) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I work with a group of wonderful and talented people at SCD’s Assessment and Research Laboratory to conduct research that informs and evaluates our practice of teaching and learning human-centered design in formal and informal learning environments.

My Research focuses on studying students’ collaborative problem solving processes and the role of the teacher in facilitating these processes in STEM classrooms.

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biography

Marcia Pool University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-2813-4217

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Dr. Marcia Pool is a Teaching Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Programs in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). She has been active in improving undergraduate education including developing laboratories to enhance experimental design skills and mentoring and guiding student teams through the capstone design and a translational course following capstone design. In her Director role, she works closely with the departmental leadership to manage the undergraduate program including: developing course offering plan, chairing the undergraduate curriculum committee, reviewing and approving course articulations for study abroad, serving as Chief Advisor, and representing the department at the college level meetings. She is also engaged with college recruiting and outreach; she coordinates three summer experiences for high school students visiting Bioengineering and co-coordinates a weeklong Bioengineering summer camp. She has worked with the Cancer Scholars Program since its inception and has supported events for researcHStart. Most recently, she was selected to be an Education Innovation Fellow (EIF) for the Academy for Excellence in Engineering Education (AE3) at UIUC. At the national level, she served as the Executive Director of the biomedical engineering honor society, Alpha Eta Mu Beta (2011-2017) and is an ABET evaluator (2018-present).

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Abstract

A team at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has been working with local schools and community partners to deliver service-learning STEM activities for K–12 students since 2020. These activities were developed by graduate students in engineering with guidance from engineering faculty members, an outreach specialist, and an education specialist. It has been a challenge to interact with K–12 educators as part of the development process, largely due to educators’ reluctance of taking on more work on top of their already heavy workload during the regular school year. To address this issue, the team offered a paid summer workshop to engage them to provide feedback on the current process of developing and delivering service-learning activities. More than twenty-five educators applied after recruitment emails were sent to local school district contacts. In July 2022, a one-day workshop was held at UIUC with a group of fifteen K–12 educators from twelve different local schools, ranging from pre-K to high school. After the initial introduction, workshop participants were divided into five groups based on their teaching role and grade level. A human-centered design approach was then used to guide a series of group activities, which focused mainly on connecting all stakeholders to create better support between service-learning project developers (university students) and receivers (K–12 students). Lessons learned from the summer workshop include: (1) having a long-term (3–5 years) commitment for partnership between local schools and UIUC is highly desired and (2) having university students conduct observations at K–12 classrooms before starting the service-learning project would build trust and mutual understanding between the two sides. For the next steps, the team started classroom observations with three workshop participants during the current academic year and plans to engage more units within the university to ensure a lasting service-learning partnership with local schools.

Chen, Y. W., & Johnson, B. E., & Shehab, S., & Pool, M. (2023, June), Engagement in Practice: Maximizing the Impact of Service-learning Activities Through Collaboration with K–12 Educators Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--43301

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