Asee peer logo

Lessons Learned as Lessons Were Learned: Teaching Engineering to a Minority Student Population Isolated by Geography but Crowded by Competition for Electronic Access (Experience)

Download Paper |

Conference

2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

Location

Virtual Conference

Publication Date

July 26, 2021

Start Date

July 26, 2021

End Date

July 19, 2022

Conference Session

Minorities in Engineering Division Technical Session 1

Tagged Division

Minorities in Engineering

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

16

DOI

10.18260/1-2--37435

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/37435

Download Count

296

Paper Authors

author page

Danny Luecke

biography

Robert V. Pieri North Dakota State University

visit author page

Dr. Robert Pieri is Professor of Mechanical Engineering at North Dakota State University (NDSU) in
Fargo, ND. He has many conference publications on engineering education and design. His primary
interest areas include: Engineering Education, CADD, Design, Fracture Mechanics, Materials Science and
Alternative Energy Options. Prior to joining NDSU, he worked for Allied-Signal Corporation and in the
aircraft supply industry. Prior to his industrial experience he taught for 10 years at the US Air Force
Academy. Prior to his time at USAFA, Bob was a Research & Development Engineer with the US Air
Force, studying problems of pollution in the earth’s atmosphere. One of his dissertations involves the
environment and policy decisions that could affect it. Dr. Pieri has degrees from the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst, Thayer School at Dartmouth College and Carnegie – Mellon University in
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. For the academic year 2003- 2004, Bob was on the faculty at Turtle Mountain
Community College in Belcourt,N.D. where he taught Math and Engineering classes. This is the basis for
his current interest in Native Americans into Engineering. Bob, originally from the northeast area of the
USA, has been a resident of Fargo, ND since 1996.

visit author page

biography

Austin James Allard Turtle Mountain Community College

visit author page

Austin Allard is an Engineering Instructor at Turtle Mountain Community College. He earned a doctorate degree in Civil Engineering from Texas A&M University. His work deals with using manufactured drones to map ecological areas. He is dedicated to using engineering solutions to investigate environmental issues close to home.

visit author page

author page

Paula Comeau North Dakota State College of Science

biography

Michael Maloy Parker Cankdeska Cikana Community College

visit author page

Mike Parker received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from North Dakota State University. He served in the US Army as a reliability engineer and vehicle test officer. He has been an agricultural producer in his home state of ND as well as being involved in local manufacturing and oil well hydraulic fracturing. He is currently an instructor at Cankdeska Cikana Community College in the Pre-engineering program.

visit author page

biography

Karl Haefner

visit author page

Cankdeska Cikana Community College
Karl Haefner, Collaborative Team Member
University of Phoenix, M.A.e.d., Secondary Education, 2008
Grand Valley State University, B.S. Geology, 2004
Saginaw Valley State University, B.S. Mechanical Engineering, 1988

Mr. Haefner is an engineering instructor at Cankdeska Cikana Community College, where he is actively working to build the Pre-Engineering Department. He assisted with writing the AMI accreditation report to the HLC, wrote several successful grants, and managed CCCC’s Advanced Manufacturing Curriculum and Pre-Engineering Educational Consortium. In addition the Advanced Manufacturing initiative at CCCC has hired two undergraduates to run the 3-D/Scanner Laboratory. The aforementioned gives the students hands on training in a STEM related field.

Mr. Haefner has 13 years’ experience teaching college STEM courses. He has taught construction management at Westwood College in Chicago; mathematics at Mid-Michigan Community College and Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, MI. Mr. Haefner has taught algebra, engineering statics, several HVAC courses, several CMT classes, as well as AutoCAD and Advanced Manufacturing using SolidWorks. Mr. Haefner also has over 15 years; experience in the fields of civil, geo-technical and environmental engineering at companies including: Testing Service Corporation in Carol Stream, IL; Singh & Associates in Chicago, IL, Weaver, Boos and Gordon in Chicago, IL; STS Ltd. In Grand Rapids, MI.

visit author page

author page

Alexa D. Azure United Tribes Technical College

Download Paper |

Abstract

As much as people would like to forget the circumstances related to changes forced upon education and particularly engineering education, due to steps taken to reduce the impact of the Corona virus pandemic, valuable lessons can be learned by careful consideration of the events in a particular context and the resulting outcomes. This paper will focus and comment on the operational variability introduced to a long-standing pre-engineering program aimed at a particular underrepresented population when things went haywire. The rather unique situation in this context is that the program had already been doing 10 years of distance-based education when the pandemic hit and courses flooded the airways. Interesting situations and unexpected consequences were experienced in the spring of 2020 as other learners were forcibly crowded into the same teaching mode with minimal preparation. Situations discussed will include items such as: student reaction to various instructor’s level of competency with the new media, operational constraints on physical access to the web, lifestyle chaos and impact on learning, the potential role of students helping students, etc. Data will be presented in the form of persistence rates in various courses prior to the spring of 2020 compared to the performance of students in those courses in that spring semester. The paper will include discussions of critical activities that may have influenced student reactions and outcomes. Impact on instructors and learning objectives will also be described and discussed. Suggestions for future strategies will be presented and described. In addition to scheduled semester courses, discussion will also include the impact of isolation and travel restrictions upon a two-week experiential pre-engineering preparation camp conducted on the mainstream State University in the collaboration. This camp had become a fixture of the program was positive anticipation from both participants and instructors. The impacts on planning, desired outcomes and the role of instructors and student mentors to the program will be described and potential impacts discussed. Potential impact to other groups of rural and minority will be discussed. (Some details omitted due to considerations of double-blind review.)

Luecke, D., & Pieri, R. V., & Allard, A. J., & Comeau, P., & Parker, M. M., & Haefner, K., & Azure, A. D. (2021, July), Lessons Learned as Lessons Were Learned: Teaching Engineering to a Minority Student Population Isolated by Geography but Crowded by Competition for Electronic Access (Experience) Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--37435

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: © 2021 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