Storytelling In Engineering Education
- Conference
- Location
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Honolulu, Hawaii
- Publication Date
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June 24, 2007
- Start Date
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June 24, 2007
- End Date
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June 27, 2007
- ISSN
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2153-5965
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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New Engineering Educators
- Page Count
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17
- Page Numbers
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12.1302.1 - 12.1302.17
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--2904
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/2904
- Download Count
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1366
Paper Authors
Robin Adams Purdue University
Robin S. Adams is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at Purdue University. She also leads the Institute for Scholarship on Engineering Education (ISEE) as part of the Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education (CAEE). Dr. Adams received her PhD in Education, Leadership and Policy Studies from the University of Washington, a MS in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Washington, and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Dr. Adams' research is concentrated on design cognition and learning (particularly iterative cycles in design), interdisciplinary thinking, conceptions of engineering, building capacity in engineering education researhc, and strategies for connecting research and practice.
Cheryl Allendoerfer University of Washington
Cheryl Allendoerfer is a Research Scientist at the Center for the Advancement for Engineering Education (CAEE), based at the University of Washington. Within CAEE, she works on the Institute for the Scholarship of Engineering Education (ISEE). She received her Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction and MA in cultural anthropology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a BA in sociology/anthropology from Carleton College. Her research interests include multicultural education, identity construction, and interdisciplinarity.
Tori Rhoulac Smith Howard University
David Socha University of Washington
David Socha studies the human side of software development. He currently is Software Project Manager on the UrbanSim project, and a Lecturer at the Computer Science & Engineering department, both at the University of Washington, Seattle where he received his Ph.D. in 1991.
After his Ph.D. he spent 11 years in the software industry, 6 of those managing teams of software developers, before joining UrbanSim.
Dawn Williams Howard University
Dawn G. Williams is an Assistant Professor and Master's Program Coordinator in the Department of Educational Administration and Policy at Howard University. She serves as a researcher on the longitudinal study conducted by the Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education (CAEE) as well as a team member for the Institute for Scholarship on Engineering Education (ISEE). Her primary research interests lie in K-12 educational policies targeted for urban school reform.
Ken Yasuhara
Ken Yasuhara is a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington at Seattle and a graduate research assistant with the Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education. His interests include recruitment/retention, gender equity, and mixed-methods education research in computer science.
Abstract
NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract
Storytelling in Engineering Education
Abstract
Storytelling has a long tradition. In education and psychology, stories support learning and cognitive development and are an inquiry method for eliciting folk knowledge. In organizational and professional settings, stories are being used to facilitate change and innovation. A common thread is that stories are an effective tool for eliciting insider knowledge, engaging communities of learners around shared practices, and building new knowledge. We have been exploring the use of storytelling in engineering education. One aspect of our work is conducting research on pathways (stories) for becoming interdisciplinary engineering education researchers. Another aspect of our work is using stories to make visible what we as a community are learning about engineering education. In 2005 we designed and implemented an interactive session at the Frontiers in Education (FIE) conference called “Communities in Practice – What are We Learning”. The goal of the interactive session was to make visible and shared what we as a community are learning – a form of knowledge that is typically outside the realm of public presentations and publications. We did this by creating an interactive “poster story forum” on challenges experienced in engineering education research and strategies for success. In this paper, we provide an overview on storytelling, describe our use of stories for building community in engineering education, and summarize results from the evaluation of our interactive FIE storytelling session.
Introduction
The engineering education research community is evolving. Some evidence of this is the growth of capacity building programs such as year-long mentored or collaborative research experiences[1-4] and departments of engineering education (e.g., Purdue University, Virginia Tech). At a smaller scale are workshops and interactive sessions at engineering education conferences that focus on research skill development [5-7]. Venues for disseminating engineering education scholarship are also changing such as the recent transformation of the Journal of Engineering Education into the premiere journal for engineering education research [8]. Central to these changes are conversations around envisioning engineering education as a new professional discipline [9-11]. These conversations focus on such issues as frameworks for new disciplinary endeavors [12], guidelines for rigorous research [13], and research agendas [14].
One challenge emerging from all these conversations is how to share what we as a community are learning about the process of conducting engineering education research, ways to make an impact on engineering education, and strategies for successfully navigating an engineering education career. As an interdisciplinary endeavor, engineering education research is evolving through practice and the community is at a point of time where this kind of focused dialogue and community building are crucial. By making knowledge visible and explicit we are helping
Adams, R., & Allendoerfer, C., & Rhoulac Smith, T., & Socha, D., & Williams, D., & Yasuhara, K. (2007, June), Storytelling In Engineering Education Paper presented at 2007 Annual Conference & Exposition, Honolulu, Hawaii. 10.18260/1-2--2904
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