The Two Worlds of Engineering Student Teams

Shane Paul Lorona; Susan Bobbitt Nolen; Milo Koretsky

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Conference: 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
Publication Date: June 23, 2018
Start Date: June 23, 2018
End Date: July 27, 2018
Conference Session: Mentoring Practices and Project Teams
Tagged Division: Educational Research and Methods
Page Count: 15
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--31129
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/31129
Download Count: 532

Professor of Learning Sciences & Human Development

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biography

Milo Koretsky Oregon State University

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Milo Koretsky is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at Oregon State University. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from UC San Diego and his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, all in Chemical Engineering. He currently has research activity in areas related engineering education and is interested in integrating technology into effective educational practices and in promoting the use of higher-level cognitive skills in engineering problem solving. His research interests particularly focus on what prevents students from being able to integrate and extend the knowledge developed in specific courses in the core curriculum to the more complex, authentic problems and projects they face as professionals. Dr. Koretsky is one of the founding members of the Center for Lifelong STEM Education Research at OSU.

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Abstract

This research paper is part of a larger reform effort intended to shift student activity from abstract decontextualized assignments to meaningful, consequential learning where students are placed in the role of practicing engineers working on teams. We believe this shift will more effectively develop the next generation of engineering practitioners, innovators, and entrepreneurs. In this study, we analyze video data to compare the ways that three student teams take up work in one reform activity that we have developed. Our research questions are:

1. To what degree do student teams engage in engineering world and in school world as they complete the microfluidic energy balance activity? 2. How do these figured worlds influence their sociotechnical processes towards task completion?

We frame analysis in terms of overlapping “figured worlds” - the social systems of identities, relationships, and positions that participants take on as they work. The activity studied here asks students to step into "engineering world," using engineering principles and practices to make progress on a meaningful task. However, the activity also resides in “school world” where tasks have an exchange value: successfully completed work can translate into a desired grade. For student engineers, the two figured worlds co-exist but the skills and approaches that lead to success in each do not necessarily coincide.

In this clinical study, we analyzed video data of several teams engaging with an engineering task: the design a heat exchanger system for a microfluidic device to automate a bioreaction process for point of care use. Study participants were current students who had recently completed a required core sophomore-level undergraduate course, Energy Balances, at a large public university. The participants were placed in teams of three to four while two faculty members with engineering education expertise facilitated. In this way, we attempted to mimic elements of our studio classroom setting but in a more controlled manner. Three teams were selected for analysis based on their differing levels of participation in each of the figured worlds. An emergent coding process was iteratively developed as a collaboration between a learning scientist and two chemical engineering educators.

While the activity was developed to provide an authentic context and the clinical setting enabled a low stress and supportive environment, teams constructed an understanding of the task on a spectrum from school world to engineering world. Team 1 showed accountability primarily to school world norms; self, sequential, and co-construction reasoning and sense-making processes were minimized by strategic thinking to “get an answer.” Team 2 spent most of their time in engineering world, negotiating periods of confusion and contributing different perspectives, leading to constructive overt activities and accountability to engineering norms. Team 3 initially approached the task in school world, where significant periods of confusion led to a “jumping around” of procedural activity. With time their activity shifted more to engineering world. Across teams, we found that the richness of technical design discourse (hypotheses, justifications, reflections…), heuristics used, and social interactions were directly affected by the figured world (engineering world or school world) in which the student team was situated. Moreover, inclination towards a figured world depended, in part, on the resources the students bring (e.g., procedural competency, conceptual fluency) as well as the instructional practices of the facilitator.

Citation
Format

Lorona, S. P., & Nolen, S. B., & Koretsky, M. (2018, June), The Two Worlds of Engineering Student Teams Paper presented at 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--31129

TY - CPAPER
AB - This research paper is part of a larger reform effort intended to shift student activity from abstract decontextualized assignments to meaningful, consequential learning where students are placed in the role of practicing engineers working on teams. We believe this shift will more effectively develop the next generation of engineering practitioners, innovators, and entrepreneurs. In this study, we analyze video data to compare the ways that three student teams take up work in one reform activity that we have developed. Our research questions are:

1. To what degree do student teams engage in engineering world and in school world as they complete the microfluidic energy balance activity?
2. How do these figured worlds influence their sociotechnical processes towards task completion?

We frame analysis in terms of overlapping “figured worlds” - the social systems of identities, relationships, and positions that participants take on as they work. The activity studied here asks students to step into &quot;engineering world,&quot; using engineering principles and practices to make progress on a meaningful task. However, the activity also resides in “school world” where tasks have an exchange value: successfully completed work can translate into a desired grade. For student engineers, the two figured worlds co-exist but the skills and approaches that lead to success in each do not necessarily coincide.

In this clinical study, we analyzed video data of several teams engaging with an engineering task: the design a heat exchanger system for a microfluidic device to automate a bioreaction process for point of care use. Study participants were current students who had recently completed a required core sophomore-level undergraduate course, Energy Balances, at a large public university. The participants were placed in teams of three to four while two faculty members with engineering education expertise facilitated. In this way, we attempted to mimic elements of our studio classroom setting but in a more controlled manner. Three teams were selected for analysis based on their differing levels of participation in each of the figured worlds. An emergent coding process was iteratively developed as a collaboration between a learning scientist and two chemical engineering educators.

While the activity was developed to provide an authentic context and the clinical setting enabled a low stress and supportive environment, teams constructed an understanding of the task on a spectrum from school world to engineering world. Team 1 showed accountability primarily to school world norms; self, sequential, and co-construction reasoning and sense-making processes were minimized by strategic thinking to “get an answer.” Team 2 spent most of their time in engineering world, negotiating periods of confusion and contributing different perspectives, leading to constructive overt activities and accountability to engineering norms. Team 3 initially approached the task in school world, where significant periods of confusion led to a “jumping around” of procedural activity. With time their activity shifted more to engineering world. Across teams, we found that the richness of technical design discourse (hypotheses, justifications, reflections…), heuristics used, and social interactions were directly affected by the figured world (engineering world or school world) in which the student team was situated. Moreover, inclination towards a figured world depended, in part, on the resources the students bring (e.g., procedural competency, conceptual fluency) as well as the instructional practices of the facilitator.

AU - Shane Paul Lorona
AU - Susan Bobbitt Nolen
AU - Milo Koretsky
CY - Salt Lake City, Utah
DA - 2018/06/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - The Two Worlds of Engineering Student Teams
UR - https://peer.asee.org/31129
DO - 10.18260/1-2--31129
ER -