Transdisciplinary STEAM education: Advocating for compassion as a core value in engineering
- Conference
- Location
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Minneapolis, MN
- Publication Date
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August 23, 2022
- Start Date
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June 26, 2022
- End Date
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June 29, 2022
- Conference Session
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Technological and Engineering Literacy - Philosophy of Engineering Division Technical Session 2
- Page Count
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9
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--40498
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/40498
- Download Count
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313
Paper Authors
Cristian Vargas Ordonez Purdue University at West Lafayette (COE)
Cristián (Cris) Vargas-Ordóñez (he/his/él) is a Colombian third-year PhD student in Engineering Education at Purdue University. Raised around the life of photography and as an amateur contact improv dancer and yoga teacher, he is interested in integrating the arts and engineering in educational settings to promote and protect universally recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms. His research with his advisor, Dr. Morgan Hynes, includes literature reviews, calls for action, and qualitative studies understanding how to make this kind of integration from a perspective of critical theories. As a result, he has developed and taught curricular initiatives such as Purdue’s honors course Compassionate Engineering and K-12 theater and engineering activities related to bullying prevention. As an international student in the US, Cristián is convinced that it is needed to bring a voice to this frequently overlooked population. He was director and producer of the podcast “We, the Aliens” and is currently one of the receivers of the CILMAR seed grant. His goal is to advocate for international students while developing and improving his research.
As a chemical engineer, he has worked in various sectors and private and public companies. He also has belonged to Colombian educational formal and informal settings as a pedagogy consultant at the Planetarium of Bogotá: Innovation, Science, and Technology instructor and consultant at the science and technology museum Maloka, and secondary school teacher in Chemistry. As part of his research in Spanish, he has explored Colombian chemical engineers’ social representations about science and technology, their conceptions and attitudes about chemical engineering, and their identity as chemical engineers. Cristián is a Master in Education from the University of Los Andes in Colombia, a Master in Science, Technology, and Society from the National University of Quilmes in Argentina, and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of America in Colombia.
Morgan Hynes Purdue University at West Lafayette (COE)
Abstract
Transdisciplinary STEAM education would help construct more compassionate engineering, fostering the introduction of new core values to its practice and discourse. Blurring the boundaries between disciplines would make visible the different voices hidden by the exclusivity that expertise and hierarchy related to knowledge imposes. Under an ethical and political analysis of the foundations of the disciplines and how they have been taught, we argue that the current core internal values of engineering promote suffering, supported by what is taught in engineering education settings. Firstly, we describe the relationship between engineering and technology, considering the last one as a language representing engineering as a subculture with its values. We argue that engineering follows a utilitarian ethical approach and a Rawlsian sense of justice, provoking suffering in humanity due to its focus on efficiency. Secondly, we contrast this engineering conception with a Deweyan approach to ethics and justice as an alternative way to introduce compassion as an internal value in engineering. Finally, we propose STEAM education as a frame to teach compassion-based engineering via transdisciplinary activities.
Vargas Ordonez, C., & Hynes, M. (2022, August), Transdisciplinary STEAM education: Advocating for compassion as a core value in engineering Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--40498
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