Integrative Pedagogical Framework to Support Construction Students' Professional Skills and Engagement
- Conference
- Location
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Virtual On line
- Publication Date
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June 22, 2020
- Start Date
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June 22, 2020
- End Date
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June 26, 2021
- Conference Session
- Tagged Divisions
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Architectural Engineering and Construction Engineering
- Page Count
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11
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--34856
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/34856
- Download Count
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681
Paper Authors
Piyush Pradhananga Florida International University
Piyush Pradhananga is a Ph.D. student in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Florida International University (FIU). Piyush holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Tribhuwan University (TU). Following his graduation in 2016, he joined a leading real estate corporation in Nepal as the site engineer working on a multi-million project. He later joined a research firm based in London where he worked as an Engineering Graduate Researcher. Piyush is currently a Graduate Research Assistant at the Moss School of Construction, Sustainability, and Infrastructure at FIU where he focuses on multidisciplinary research that harmonizes sustainability in construction. His other research interests include Sustainable Construction, Construction Safety, Engineering Education, Green Building, and Energy Efficiency Measures.
Mohamed ElZomor Florida International University
Dr. Mohamed ElZomor is an Assistant Professor at Florida International University (FIU), College of Engineering and Computing and teaches at the Moss School of Construction, Infrastructure and Sustainability. Dr. ElZomor completed his doctorate at Arizona State University (ASU), Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. Prior to attending ASU, Dr. ElZomor received a master’s of science degree in Architecture from University of Arizona, a master’s degree in Engineering and a bachelor of science in Construction Engineering from American University in Cairo. Dr. ElZomor moved to FIU from State University of New York, where he was an Assistant Professor at the college of Environmental Science and Forestry. Mohamed’s work focuses on Sustainability of the Built Environment, Engineering Education, Construction Engineering, Energy Efficiency Measures and Modeling, Project Management, and Infrastructure Resilience. Dr. ElZomor has extensive professional project management experience as well as a diverse cross-disciplinary academic knowledge. Mohamed, distinct expertise supports fostering interdisciplinary research in addition to embracing innovative pedagogical approaches in STEM education. Dr. ElZomor has been integrating innovative and novel educational paradigms in STEM education to support student engagement, retention, and diversity.
Gabriella Santi
Gabriella Santi grew up in Caracas, Venezuela, where she pursued her Bachelor's of Science in Civil Engineering at the Universidad Metropolitana. After graduating, she worked for two years in a construction company where she was involved in various residential and infrastructure projects. As her interests shifted towards construction management, she then moved to Miami, Florida to pursue a master's degree in the Construction Management program at Florida International University. During her Master's program, she worked as a Graduate Research Assistant at Moss School of Construction Management, researching various topics related to sustainability in third world countries, robotic implementation in the construction industry and aiding STEM majors to improve their professional skills.
Arif Mohaimin Sadri
Florida International University
orcid.org/0000-0001-5571-6741
Dr. Arif Mohaimin Sadri is an Assistant Professor in the Moss School of Construction, Infrastructure and Sustainability (MSCIS) at the Florida International University (FIU). Previously he was a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and an Adjunct Professor in the Civil Engineering Dept. at the Valparaiso University. Dr. Sadri received his doctoral training from the Lyles School of Civil Engineering at Purdue University with a solid background in Civil Engineering (Transportation), Network Science, and Social Science. Dr. Sadri specializes in resilience engineering, evacuation modeling, shared mobility, social influence modeling, machine learning, agent-based modeling, and network modeling. Dr. Sadri's research focuses on the critical interdependence between social and infrastructure networks and integrates human proactive decision-making components into the civil infrastructure management challenges. Dr. Sadri develops human-centered and network-driven techniques that complement to the science of infrastructure resilience and sustainability.
Abstract
Competent Construction Management (CM) graduates require an educational paradigm that go beyond conventional approaches, to align with the evolving workforce demands. This is especially true for underrepresented minority CM students, who must overcome additional barriers to succeed. To date, STEM students in general are offered conventional engineering education that depend on ineffective techniques, tiring introductory courses, and timeworn pedagogies. Research studies indicate that a shift to innovative pedagogical techniques such as problem-based learning (PBL), flipped classrooms and vertical integration are recommended to engage learners as well as actively develop their professional skills. This research implemented a pilot integrative learning approach, which couples PBL and vertical integration to successfully prepare minority CM students to thrive in their careers. Through this approach, three courses with different educational levels and instructional forms were connected by developing a shared project that addressed genuine and current construction issues. This research initiative targeted 48 minority CM students at a minority-serving institution and were evaluated in terms of self-reported professional skills. A pre and post-course survey tracked their progress throughout the semester which is analyzed through paired t-test and graphically represented with box plots with line plots. The results of the study show that this approach has a significant positive impact on CM students, especially minorities, in terms of improving their professional skills, implicitly supporting their retention and paving for successful careers. The findings of the study contribute to the engineering education body of knowledge on the integrative learning approach and its effectiveness in improving minority students’ overall performance and professional skills.
Pradhananga, P., & ElZomor, M., & Santi, G., & Sadri, A. M. (2020, June), Integrative Pedagogical Framework to Support Construction Students' Professional Skills and Engagement Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--34856
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