How Diversifying / Updating the Teaching Team Has Positively Affected Teaching

Sara Al Humidi; Alena Sloan; Andrea Atkins; Rania Al-Hammoud

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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: Equity, Culture & Social Justice Technical Session
Tagged Divisions: Equity and Culture & Social Justice in Education Division (EQUITY)
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 14
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--43357
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/43357
Download Count: 245

Andrea Atkins is a lecturer in Architectural Engineering at the University of Waterloo. Previously, she was a structural designer at Blackwell Structural Engineers in Toronto.

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biography

Rania Al-Hammoud University of Waterloo

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Rania Al-Hammoud is a lecturer and the current associate chair of undergraduate studies at the civil & environmental engineering department at university of waterloo. Dr. Al-Hammoud has a civil engineering background with research focusing on materials and the rehabilitation of reinforced concrete structures. She also has passion for engineering education and has published widely in this area. She cares about the success and well-being of her students, thus always being creative with the teaching methods in the classroom.

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Abstract

Diversity is a key concern for universities, especially in the engineering field. North American universities have been recently pushing for diversity, equity, and inclusion in their education system. University X started by diversifying the teaching team in one of its engineering programs to check the effectiveness of diversifying the teaching team on the education system. It replaced the teaching team for two courses from white males of European descent to racialized females with no other instructions on how to deliver their courses. Both teams were given the same teaching notes and instructions to teach from, however it was fascinating to see what levels these courses were taken to by just diversifying the teaching team.

In one of the studio courses, the principals of universal design have never been included explicitly in years past. The previous lecture material, which served to introduce a similar project that focused on furniture design in past years, included slides that referenced “man as the universal standard” and contained many slides of architectural graphic standards based on the average European man’s body proportions. In 2022, the teaching team is entirely female, bringing more diversity to the presentation of materials than ever before. The instructors are focusing on human-centered design and universal design methods in multiple lectures over the course, encouraging students to design equitable user experiences and empathize with the diversity of the greater public.

In another mechanics course, the female instructor transformed the activities delivered in the class to include the ethical and social impact effects. She did so by transforming the delivery of the same hands-on activity from a simple report to a presentation to middle school kids in the community around them. The aim was to present the mechanics concepts learned in class through hands-on activities to middle-school kids while focusing on how such structures affect society. They need to do so through well guided ethical behavior guidelines taking into consideration their audience and engaging all students with their different capabilities. The aim was to increase the engagement of women and marginalized students and kids in such activities as they get to clearly relate to the benefits to the society for these structures and the engineering disciplines in general.

This paper discusses in detail the transformation done through these two courses by the simple fact of diversifying the teaching team as well as the effects noticed on the education system

Citation
Format

Al Humidi, S., & Sloan, A., & Atkins, A., & Al-Hammoud, R. (2023, June), How Diversifying / Updating the Teaching Team Has Positively Affected Teaching Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--43357

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Diversity is a key concern for universities, especially in the engineering field. North American universities have been recently pushing for diversity, equity, and inclusion in their education system. University X started by diversifying the teaching team in one of its engineering programs to check the effectiveness of diversifying the teaching team on the education system. It replaced the teaching team for two courses from white males of European descent to racialized females with no other instructions on how to deliver their courses. Both teams were given the same teaching notes and instructions to teach from, however it was fascinating to see what levels these courses were taken to by just diversifying the teaching team. 

In one of the studio courses, the principals of universal design have never been included explicitly in years past. The previous lecture material, which served to introduce a similar project that focused on furniture design in past years, included slides that referenced “man as the universal standard” and contained many slides of architectural graphic standards based on the average European man’s body proportions. In 2022, the teaching team is entirely female, bringing more diversity to the presentation of materials than ever before. The instructors are focusing on human-centered design and universal design methods in multiple lectures over the course, encouraging students to design equitable user experiences and empathize with the diversity of the greater public. 

In another mechanics course, the female instructor transformed the activities delivered in the class to include the ethical and social impact effects. She did so by transforming the delivery of the same hands-on activity from a simple report to a presentation to middle school kids in the community around them. The aim was to present the mechanics concepts learned in class through hands-on activities to middle-school kids while focusing on how such structures affect society. They need to do so through well guided ethical behavior guidelines taking into consideration their audience and engaging all students with their different capabilities. The aim was to increase the engagement of women and marginalized students and kids in such activities as they get to clearly relate to the benefits to the society for these structures and the engineering disciplines in general. 

This paper discusses in detail the transformation done through these two courses by the simple fact of diversifying the teaching team as well as the effects noticed on the education system
AU  - Sara Al Humidi
AU  - Alena Sloan
AU  - Andrea Atkins
AU  - Rania Al-Hammoud
CY  - Baltimore , Maryland
DA  - 2023/06/25
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - How Diversifying / Updating the Teaching Team Has Positively Affected Teaching
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/43357
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--43357
ER  -