From Silos to Systems: The Evolution of {University’s} College of Engineering PreCollege Outreach

Betsy Chesnutt; Anne Skutnik; Laura Knight; Jessica Danielle Jeffers

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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: Pre-College Engineering Education Division (PCEE) Technical Session 1: Partnerships Making It Real!
Tagged Division: Pre-College Engineering Education Division (PCEE)
Page Count: 7
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--43757
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/43757
Download Count: 160

Paper Authors

biography

Betsy Chesnutt University of Tennessee at Knoxville

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Betsy Chesnutt is a lecturer in Engineering Fundamentals at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. She is interested in understanding how to prepare pre-service teachers to teach engineering, as well as how to support current K-12 teachers so that they can implement engineering into K-12 classrooms more effectively.

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biography

Anne Skutnik Tickle College of Engineering

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Anne Skutnik is the Director of Student Success for Tickle College of Engineering

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biography

Laura Knight University of Tennessee at Knoxville

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Laura Knight is an Assistant Professor of Practice in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and an advocate for expanding the numbers of future engineers through education and community outreach.

Laura returned to academia after over 25 years of working in locations across the country and raising a family. She held engineering and manufacturing leadership roles with a variety of private and public companies, including President/Owner of a developing children’s discovery museum, which brought outreach programs to underserved populations.

Collaborating across communities, industries, and academic disciplines and developing innovative, effective methods of actively involving learners are both integral parts of her efforts and success.

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Jessica Danielle Jeffers University of Tennessee at Knoxville

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Abstract

For many years, K-12 outreach in {University}’s College of Engineering existed in silos: departments and organizations operated independently of each other, overlapping only when additional support was needed for the execution of large-scale outreach events. Collaboration never occurred at the planning stage, meaning that faculty, staff, and students interested in outreach had to navigate roadblocks to engage in meaningful outreach with K-12 populations. A change of leadership and operating philosophy in 2019 brought about a reorganization of priorities and allowed the authors of this paper the ability to create a new vision of outreach for the college of engineering. In this paper, we will elaborate on how we moved from our silos to a purposeful system of outreach that has allowed us to expand our outreach into student ambassadors, service learning coursework, free pre-college lessons, and more that others can use to help drive change in their units.

Utilizing a systems-view allows a standardization of activities and can eliminate wasted time and effort spent reinventing the wheel for every activity. Organizations have utilized systems-thinking to successfully operate and improve activities, building synergies and creating innovative techniques to achieve greater goals. We have leveraged this concept for our outreach activities, by collaborating across the system and state, and immediately saw greater involvement from our college students, increased engagement with K-12 populations and improved outcomes (e.g. new school partnerships, new grant funding, new variety of events).

One way that we leveraged our new system was to structure our outreach subcommittee as a one-stop for outreach requests: requests sent to one member were forwarded to everyone, so that events could be shared between departments and units. Additionally, the existence of the subcommittee gave a point-of-contact for referrals from college faculty and staff.

Once we began to streamline and work together, we were able to leverage existing opportunities and build our programs. {Named redacted}, a service learning course focused on engineering education in K-12, partnered with the STEM nights and other outreach initiatives that previously ran through departments or centers. This gave students the opportunity to develop lessons in their class then take them to local schools, afterschool programs, or other out-of-school-time events. For example, in Spring 2021 the students in {name redacted} hosted a Virtual STEM night for students from local elementary schools. Supply kits were provided to the students at the schools and families logged on to Microsoft Teams to watch undergraduates demonstrate activities like how to make a lava lamp using food coloring, cooking oil, water, and alka seltzer tablets. The event was a huge success, and many of the activities were used again in our subscription box summer program and at STEM nights the following year. Additional activities from that class have been used at another local elementary school’s afterschool program and in the {redacted} internal grant which sent subscription box activities to middle school clubs and 4-H groups.

Citation
Format

Chesnutt, B., & Skutnik, A., & Knight, L., & Jeffers, J. D. (2023, June), From Silos to Systems: The Evolution of {University’s} College of Engineering PreCollege Outreach Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--43757

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - For many years, K-12 outreach in {University}’s College of Engineering existed in silos: departments and organizations operated independently of each other, overlapping only when additional support was needed for the execution of large-scale outreach events. Collaboration never occurred at the planning stage, meaning that faculty, staff, and students interested in outreach had to navigate roadblocks to engage in meaningful outreach with K-12 populations. A change of leadership and operating philosophy in 2019 brought about a reorganization of priorities and allowed the authors of this paper the ability to create a new vision of outreach for the college of engineering.  In this paper, we will elaborate on how we moved from our silos to a purposeful system of outreach that has allowed us to expand our outreach into student ambassadors, service learning coursework, free pre-college lessons, and more that others can use to help drive change in their units. 

Utilizing a systems-view allows a standardization of activities and can eliminate wasted time and effort spent reinventing the wheel for every activity. Organizations have utilized systems-thinking to successfully operate and improve activities, building synergies and creating innovative techniques to achieve greater goals.  We have leveraged this concept for our outreach activities, by collaborating across the system and state, and immediately saw greater involvement from our college students, increased engagement with K-12 populations and improved outcomes (e.g. new school partnerships, new grant funding, new variety of events). 

One way that we leveraged our new system was to structure our outreach subcommittee as a one-stop for outreach requests: requests sent to one member were forwarded to everyone, so that events could be shared between departments and units. Additionally, the existence of the subcommittee gave a point-of-contact for referrals from college faculty and staff.  

Once we began to streamline and work together, we were able to leverage existing opportunities and build our programs.  {Named redacted}, a service learning course focused on engineering education in K-12, partnered with the STEM nights and other outreach initiatives that previously ran through departments or centers.  This gave students the opportunity to develop lessons in their class then take them to local schools, afterschool programs, or other out-of-school-time events. For example, in Spring 2021 the students in {name redacted} hosted a Virtual STEM night for students from local elementary schools.  Supply kits were provided to the students at the schools and families logged on to Microsoft Teams to watch undergraduates demonstrate activities like how to make a lava lamp using food coloring, cooking oil, water, and alka seltzer tablets.  The event was a huge success, and many of the activities were used again in our subscription box summer program  and at STEM nights the following year.  Additional activities from that class have been used at another local elementary school’s afterschool program and in the {redacted} internal grant which sent subscription box activities to middle school clubs and 4-H groups.


AU  - Betsy Chesnutt
AU  - Anne Skutnik
AU  - Laura Knight
AU  - Jessica Danielle Jeffers
CY  - Baltimore , Maryland
DA  - 2023/06/25
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - From Silos to Systems: The Evolution of {University’s} College of Engineering PreCollege Outreach 
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/43757
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--43757
ER  -