WIP: Teams for Creating Opportunities for Revolutionizing the Preparation of Students (TCORPS) at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M University

Arun Srinivasa; Andreas Polycarpou; Emma Edoga; Mindy Bergman; M Cynthia Hipwell; David Seets

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Conference: 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Publication Date: August 23, 2022
Start Date: June 26, 2022
End Date: June 29, 2022
Conference Session: Faculty Development Division Technical Session 4
Page Count: 7
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--41298
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/41298
Download Count: 190

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Paper Authors

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Arun Srinivasa Texas A&M University

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Dr Srinivasa is the Holdredge Paul professor and Associate Head of the Department for the UG progam at the Mike Walker '77 Department of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University. He obtained his Phd in Mechanics from UC Berkeley and has been active in pedagogical research and faculty development apart from his research work in Mechanics. He was the recipient of the ASEE Archie Higdon Award for his contributions to Mechanics Education and the Worchester Reed Warner Medal from the ASME for his for seminal contribution to the permanent literature of engineering. He is very interested in the use of technology to enhance education and in empowering faculty to experiment in pedagogical methods

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Abstract

WORK IN PROGRESS: Teams for Creating Opportunities for Revolutionizing the Preparation of Students (TCORPS)

This work in progress (WIP) paper describes a National Science Foundation funded RED (Revolutionizing Engineering Departments) Adaptation and Implementation (A&I) grant focussed on changing the culture of a large traditional mechanical engineering department at Texas A&M University (TAMU) and is an adaptation of the “Additive Innovations” model developed by Arizona State University in their RED project. The TAMU project is focused entirely on culture change via faculty development; this culture change is aimed at teaching. Specifically, the goal is to shift from a culture where teaching is deprioritized and courses change via sporadic, undocumented, individual intuitive innovations to one that values teaching and its role in both faculty and student success and encourages a sustained process of incremental improvement and responsiveness to student learning through experimentation, measurement, and sharing. Ultimately, the goal of this project is to enhance a departmental culture in Mechanical Engineering where faculty regularly dialogue about current curricular effectiveness, and are empowered to set student learning outcomes that enable all students to thrive.

The major objectives of the project are

Extend the iterative build-test-learn-share mentality of the maker culture that exists for research to curricular and pedagogical improvements. The logic of this goal is that faculty are already used to experimental approaches to improvement and knowledge generation (even for teaching faculty, who have advanced degrees), but this experimental approach and, particularly, the data that are collected in experiments are rarely collected for teaching innovation. Without these data, it is difficult to know if the changes were fruitful.

Empower the faculty to create their own bottom-up team structure based on mutual trust and sharing where the faculty work in soft-wired groups. By soft-wired, we mean that across semesters, some faculty rotate in and out of the groups depending on who is teaching and who is engaged in the experimentation and innovation cycle; additionally, faculty from other courses could be added to the team to collect assessment data (e.g., pre-requisite courses or next level courses). This effort is focused on breaking the sense that courses are “handed down” in a set structure that faculty cannot deviate from, even if they have a lay hypothesis of a change that might be beneficial for student learning. .

Support the soft-wired teams and their iterative course development by means of a distributed change percolation approach rather than a centralized broadcast of training. By emphasizing proactive innovation, we plan to change the faculty mindset from “identifying, mitigating and fixing problems in teaching” to a sense of experimentation and excitement in iteratively innovating all aspects of curricula so that faculty are prepared to think of pedagogical changes as being experimental, iterative, and incremental rather than comprehensive and episodic. That is, the goal is to distribute change both across people and over time, rather than through major and rare overhauls of courses and curricula.

4. Encourage team members to participate and contribute at their pace and according to their comfort level. The main objective is to reduce the faculty effort and risk of curricular and pedagogical change.

Restructure the departmental annual evaluations of faculty in order to recognize and reward pedagogical risk-taking and iterative improvement.

To evaluate the success of the project, we evaluate several key hypotheses: 1) that facilitation of small-batch iterative experimentation and sharing among peers will lower risk and time commitment and increased documentation and systematic incorporation of innovations; 2) that change can be better achieved in a large department through the distributed percolation based upon trained facilitators and change agents, supported by departmental resources and revised faculty performance evaluation criteria; 3) that an improved shared vision can be achieved through use of the new Educational Value Canvas facilitated using the Antigua Forum meeting format; and 4) that if we as faculty, model proactive innovation behavior in both our research and teaching, then we will improve this capability in our students as well.

In this work in progress paper we will describe our milestones, activities and learnings in year one and future plans for the subsequent two years . We plan to present this as a five minute Lightning Talk

Citation
Format

Srinivasa, A., & Polycarpou, A., & Edoga, E., & Bergman, M., & Hipwell, M. C., & Seets, D. (2022, August), WIP: Teams for Creating Opportunities for Revolutionizing the Preparation of Students (TCORPS) at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M University Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41298

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - WORK IN PROGRESS: Teams for Creating Opportunities for Revolutionizing the Preparation of Students (TCORPS)


This work in progress (WIP) paper describes a National Science Foundation funded RED (Revolutionizing Engineering Departments) Adaptation and Implementation (A&I) grant focussed on changing the culture of a large traditional mechanical engineering department at Texas A&M University (TAMU) and is an adaptation of the “Additive Innovations” model developed by Arizona State University in their RED project. The TAMU project is focused entirely on culture change via faculty development; this culture change is aimed at teaching. Specifically, the goal is to shift from a culture where teaching is deprioritized and courses change via sporadic, undocumented,  individual intuitive innovations to one that values teaching and its role in both faculty and student success and encourages a sustained process of incremental improvement and responsiveness to student learning through experimentation, measurement, and sharing. Ultimately, the goal of this project is to enhance a departmental culture in Mechanical Engineering where faculty regularly dialogue about current curricular effectiveness, and are empowered to set student learning outcomes that enable all students to thrive.  


The major objectives of the project are 

    Extend the iterative build-test-learn-share mentality of the maker culture that exists for research to curricular and pedagogical improvements. The logic of this goal is that faculty are already used to experimental approaches to improvement and knowledge generation (even for teaching faculty, who have advanced degrees), but this experimental approach and, particularly, the data that are collected in experiments are rarely collected for teaching innovation. Without these data, it is difficult to know if the changes were fruitful.

     Empower the faculty to create their own bottom-up team structure based on mutual trust and sharing where the faculty work in soft-wired groups. By soft-wired, we mean that across semesters, some faculty rotate in and out of the groups depending on who is teaching and who is engaged in the experimentation and innovation cycle; additionally, faculty from other courses could be added to the team to collect assessment data (e.g., pre-requisite courses or next level courses). This effort is focused on breaking the sense that courses are “handed down” in a set structure that faculty cannot deviate from, even if they have a lay hypothesis of a change that might be beneficial for student learning. .

    Support the soft-wired teams and their iterative course development by means of a distributed change percolation approach rather than a centralized broadcast of training. By emphasizing proactive innovation, we plan to change the faculty mindset from “identifying, mitigating and fixing problems in teaching” to a sense of experimentation and excitement in iteratively innovating all aspects of curricula so that faculty are prepared to think of pedagogical changes as being experimental, iterative, and incremental rather than comprehensive and episodic. That is, the goal is to distribute change both across people and over time, rather than through major and rare overhauls of courses and curricula.

4. Encourage team members to participate and contribute at their pace and according to their comfort level. The main objective is to reduce the faculty effort and risk of curricular and pedagogical change. 

    Restructure the departmental annual evaluations of faculty in order to recognize and reward pedagogical risk-taking and iterative improvement.

To evaluate the success of the project, we evaluate several key hypotheses: 1) that facilitation of small-batch iterative experimentation and sharing among peers will lower risk and time commitment and increased documentation and systematic incorporation of innovations; 2) that change can be better achieved in a large department through the distributed percolation based upon trained facilitators and change agents, supported by departmental resources and revised faculty performance evaluation criteria; 3) that an improved shared vision can be achieved through use of the new Educational Value Canvas facilitated using the Antigua Forum meeting format; and 4) that if we as faculty, model proactive innovation behavior in both our research and teaching, then we will improve this capability in our students as well.

In this work in progress paper we will describe our  milestones,  activities and learnings in year one and future plans for the subsequent two years . We plan to present this as a five minute Lightning Talk
AU  - Arun Srinivasa
AU  - Andreas Polycarpou
AU  - Emma Edoga
AU  - Mindy Bergman
AU  - M Cynthia Hipwell
AU  - David Seets
CY  - Minneapolis, MN
DA  - 2022/08/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - WIP: Teams for Creating Opportunities for Revolutionizing the Preparation of Students (TCORPS) at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M University
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/41298
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--41298
ER  -