Columbus, Ohio
June 24, 2017
June 24, 2017
June 28, 2017
Women in Engineering
Diversity
22
10.18260/1-2--28481
https://peer.asee.org/28481
798
Kaitlin received her BS in Materials Science and Engineering with a concentration in biomaterials from Michigan State University in 2012. She is currently working on her PhD at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign under Professor Paul Braun. Her research focuses on manipulating eutectic material microstructures for optical applications. She is also one of the co-coordinators for Girls Learning About Materials (GLAM), a summer camp for high school girls interested in engineering.
Nicole received her B.S. in Engineering Physics at the Colorado School of Mines (CSM) in May 2013. She is currently working towards a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) under Professor Angus Rockett and Geoffrey Herman. Her research is a mixture between understanding defect behavior in solar cells and student learning in Materials Science. Outside of research she helps plan the Girls Learning About Materials (GLAM) summer camp for high school girls at UIUC.
Jessica A. Krogstad is an assistant professor in the Department of Material Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She received her PhD in Materials at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2012. Between 2012 and 2014, she held a postdoctoral appointment in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Her current research explores the interplay between phase or morphological evolution and material functionality in structural materials under extreme conditions. She is also one of the co-coordinators for Girls Learning About Materials (GLAM), a summer camp for high school women interested in engineering.
Although women make up a significant portion of the college educated population, there remains a sizable gap between the number of men and women pursuing degrees and careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. The gender gap begins at middle school and widens considerably in later high school years. One major factor for this gap is the lack of belonging women can feel towards engineering. As one approach to developing and improving this sense of belonging, we focused on improving students’ comprehension of engineering topics during a weeklong materials science and engineering summer camp for high school girls. We took a two-prong approach: a unifying paradigm and a design project. The purpose of this was to allow for transfer of learning throughout the week, allowing the students to build and showcase their own comprehension. The paradigm, the materials science tetrahedron, provided cohesion throughout an otherwise broad and seemingly disconnected field, while the design project allowed for students to implement what they learned during the week in a group setting. This approach concomitantly enhances confidence and their sense of belonging within engineering. In this paper we highlight lessons learned from incorporating this approach into our program, including our perception of its effectiveness and feedback from the girls. The preliminary results show that our summer camp is a unique and well-suited opportunity to study how comprehension can engender a sense of belonging amongst female students with the ultimate goal of closing the gender gap in engineering fields.
Tyler, K. I., & Johnson-Glauch, N., & Krogstad, J. A. (2017, June), Implementing Design Thinking into Summer Camp Experience for High School Women in Materials Engineering Paper presented at 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Columbus, Ohio. 10.18260/1-2--28481
ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2017 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015