Using Backwards Design to Redesign a First-Year Engineering Seminar to Serve a Diverse Student Population

Matilde Luz Sánchez-Peña; Jennifer L Zirnheld; Kevin M. Burke; Julia Latorre; Carl F. Lund; Andrew Olewnik

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Conference: 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Baltimore , Maryland
Publication Date: June 25, 2023
Start Date: June 25, 2023
End Date: June 28, 2023
Conference Session: First-Year Programs Division (FYP) - Technical Session 1: Course Design
Tagged Division: First-Year Programs Division (FYP)
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 12
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--44568
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/44568
Download Count: 236

Paper Authors

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Matilde Luz Sánchez-Peña University at Buffalo, The State University of New York orcid.org/0000-0002-3511-0694

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Dr. Matilde Sánchez-Peña is an assistant professor of Engineering Education at the University at Buffalo – SUNY where she leads the Diversity Assessment Research in Engineering to Catalyze the Advancement of Respect and Equity (DAREtoCARE) Lab. Her research focuses on the development of cultures of care and well-being in engineering education spaces, assessing gains in institutional efforts to advance equity and inclusion, and the use of data science for training socially responsible engineers.

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Carl F. Lund University at Buffalo, The State University of New York orcid.org/0000-0003-2151-9330

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Carl Lund earned a B.S. from Purdue University and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, both in chemical engineering. He worked at the Exxon Corporate Research Labs prior to joining the faculty of the Chemical Engineering Department at the University

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Andrew Olewnik University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

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Andrew Olewnik is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at the University at Buffalo. His research includes undergraduate engineering education with focus on engineering design, problem-based learning, co-curricular involvement and its impact on professional formation, and the role of reflection practices in supporting engineering undergraduates as they transition from student to professional.

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Abstract

A first-year seminar required for students at the University at Buffalo aims to provide students with the necessary tools for academic success and a suitable introduction to their field of interest. Therefore, the first-year engineering seminar aims to provide students with an introduction to engineering thinking and engineering design. The depth and rigor of the seminar were considered a barrier to those that might have been interested but not committed yet to an engineering path. In the late 2000’s it was deemed appropriate to provide students that were exploring the possibility of pursuing an engineering degree with a specific type of first-year engineering seminar with a comparable but different depth and rigor. The two different seminars were deemed for (a) accepted and (b) intended students. In its first editions, the number of students in the intended group was small. However, the size of this group increased throughout the years, and it became evident that it was a more diverse group in terms of race/ethnicity and first-generation status than that of the accepted students. In addition, the proportion of students that applied to be in the engineering major but were not accepted that were in the intended group increased. This resulted on a deficiency perception that intended students had to manage. In summary, what was planned to expand the participation of those that were considering engineering only as an option ended up being perceived as an unfair differentiation determined significantly by inequities in the educational pipeline. With the goal to advance the equity goals of the school, a policy change in 2022 was made to integrate the two groups of students in the same cohort of first-year engineering students. Getting rid of the accepted/intended dichotomy led to instructional challenges as both versions of the course had to come to a revamped version that would serve both groups of students equitably. In Spring 2022, a committee started to work on revamping towards the first edition of this new course version that was launched in Fall 2022. The team included diverse faculty in terms of their backgrounds and experiences. This paper will report on the experience of implementing Backwards Design to redesign a 3-credit first-year seminar for engineering students with the goal of providing equitable training of first-year engineering students joining SEAS for years to come. We present the rationale supporting the selection of enduring outcomes and learning objectives and report on the challenges of building them cooperatively within a diverse team of educators. Finally, we offer our reflections on the growth the team members experienced as educators and co-designers of educational experiences during this exercise.

Citation
Format

Sánchez-Peña, M. L., & Zirnheld, J. L., & Burke, K. M., & Latorre, J., & Lund, C. F., & Olewnik, A. (2023, June), Using Backwards Design to Redesign a First-Year Engineering Seminar to Serve a Diverse Student Population Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--44568

TY - CPAPER
AB - A first-year seminar required for students at the University at Buffalo aims to provide students with the necessary tools for academic success and a suitable introduction to their field of interest. Therefore, the first-year engineering seminar aims to provide students with an introduction to engineering thinking and engineering design. The depth and rigor of the seminar were considered a barrier to those that might have been interested but not committed yet to an engineering path. In the late 2000’s it was deemed appropriate to provide students that were exploring the possibility of pursuing an engineering degree with a specific type of first-year engineering seminar with a comparable but different depth and rigor. The two different seminars were deemed for (a) accepted and (b) intended students.
In its first editions, the number of students in the intended group was small. However, the size of this group increased throughout the years, and it became evident that it was a more diverse group in terms of race/ethnicity and first-generation status than that of the accepted students. In addition, the proportion of students that applied to be in the engineering major but were not accepted that were in the intended group increased. This resulted on a deficiency perception that intended students had to manage. In summary, what was planned to expand the participation of those that were considering engineering only as an option ended up being perceived as an unfair differentiation determined significantly by inequities in the educational pipeline.
With the goal to advance the equity goals of the school, a policy change in 2022 was made to integrate the two groups of students in the same cohort of first-year engineering students. Getting rid of the accepted/intended dichotomy led to instructional challenges as both versions of the course had to come to a revamped version that would serve both groups of students equitably. In Spring 2022, a committee started to work on revamping towards the first edition of this new course version that was launched in Fall 2022. The team included diverse faculty in terms of their backgrounds and experiences. This paper will report on the experience of implementing Backwards Design to redesign a 3-credit first-year seminar for engineering students with the goal of providing equitable training of first-year engineering students joining SEAS for years to come. We present the rationale supporting the selection of enduring outcomes and learning objectives and report on the challenges of building them cooperatively within a diverse team of educators. Finally, we offer our reflections on the growth the team members experienced as educators and co-designers of educational experiences during this exercise.

AU - Matilde Luz Sánchez-Peña
AU - Jennifer L Zirnheld
AU - Kevin M. Burke
AU - Julia Latorre
AU - Carl F. Lund
AU - Andrew Olewnik
CY - Baltimore , Maryland
DA - 2023/06/25
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Using Backwards Design to Redesign a First-Year Engineering Seminar to Serve a Diverse Student Population
UR - https://peer.asee.org/44568
DO - 10.18260/1-2--44568
ER -