Work in Progress: Development of an Integrated Place-Based Learning Community for First-Year Precalculus-Level Engineering Students

Eric Davishahl; Anna Wolff; Pat Burnett; Anna Fay Booker; Tran M. Phung; Mei P. Luu; Seth Greendale

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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) - WIPS 2: Advising & Mentoring
Tagged Division: First-Year Programs Division (FYP)
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 13
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--44225
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/44225
Download Count: 282

Paper Authors

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Eric Davishahl Whatcom Community College orcid.org/0000-0001-9506-2658

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Eric Davishahl serves as professor and engineering program coordinator at Whatcom Community College in northwest Washington state. His current project involves developing and piloting an integrated multidisciplinary learning community for first-year engineering. More general teaching and research interests include designing, implementing and assessing activities for first-year engineering, engineering mechanics, and scientific computing. Eric has been an active member of ASEE since 2001. He was the recipient of the 2008 Pacific Northwest Section Outstanding Teaching Award and currently serves on the ASEE Board of Directors as Zone IV Chair.

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Anna Wolff

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Pat Burnett Whatcom Community College

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Pat currently teaches engineering at Whatcom Community College after 13 years of teaching in the Engineering Department at Edmonds Community College, including holding the chair position. He earned an MS in Physics from Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, and a BS in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois of Urbana-Champaign.
Over the past 7 years, Pat has been working with various K-12 organizations to incorporate engineering practices in classrooms as they incorporate Next Generation Science Standards into their curriculum.
Pat has served as co-PI on NSF S-STEM and STEP grants.
Pat is currently serving as the chair for the Washington Council on Engineering and Related Technical Education (WCERTE).

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Abstract

This Work in Progress paper describes early development of an innovative learning community program to welcome and support new precalculus-level students into their engineering academic pathway. The project features cross-disciplinary collaboration of engineering, math, physics, English, and history faculty working together toward design, implementation, and assessment of a two-quarter long first-year experience learning community program consisting of six different courses. The place-based curriculum will include contextualized precalculus and English composition, regional Pacific Northwest history, orientation to the engineering profession, and introductory skills such as problem-solving, computer programming, and team-based design. The course sequence will also include community-engaged project-based learning in the first quarter and a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) in the second quarter, both with an overarching theme of energy and water resources. The approach leverages multiple high-impact educational practices to promote deep conceptual learning, motivate foundational skill development, explore social relevance and connection, and ultimately seeks to strengthen students’ engineering identity, sense of belonging, and general academic preparation for success in an engineering major.

Curriculum development work to date has followed a collaborative Backward Design approach as articulated by Wiggins and McTighe (2005). The faculty team worked together to craft Essential Questions and Understandings with which they will seek to engage students through multiple touchpoints, activities, projects, and perspectives throughout the two-quarter experience. Some example Essential Questions include: What is the work of engineering? Who decides what problems engineers work on? And how does the engineered world affect how we live? In exploring these questions and others, the instructional design aims to promote Understandings in students such as: theoretical knowledge gives engineers the breadth and depth to work in a variety of workplaces and leverage a wide array of skills for creative problem solving; the most innovative engineering work leverages a diversity of skills, knowledge, experiences, and perspectives in a multidisciplinary team; and engineers have shaped land and resource use in the Pacific Northwest, and conversely their designs have been shaped by their perceptions of the landscape and environmental policies. The team mapped existing outcomes of the constituent courses to these program-level learning goals as an exercise to explore how the courses will fit together and synthesize a coherent and connected learning experience.

We plan to pilot the learning community for four years and compare a variety of student outcomes measures with those of a demographically matched sample of students progressing through the engineering program under the traditional a la carte model. We will also measure changes in socioemotional measures such as sense of belonging and identity with a mixed methods approach combining surveys, coding of reflective writing assignments, and focus groups. This WIP paper presents the program-level development work introduced above as well as the envisioned methodologies for evaluating the impact on student success.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding By Design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Citation
Format

Davishahl, E., & Wolff, A., & Burnett, P., & Booker, A. F., & Phung, T. M., & Luu, M. P., & Greendale, S. (2023, June), Work in Progress: Development of an Integrated Place-Based Learning Community for First-Year Precalculus-Level Engineering Students Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--44225

TY - CPAPER
AB - This Work in Progress paper describes early development of an innovative learning community program to welcome and support new precalculus-level students into their engineering academic pathway. The project features cross-disciplinary collaboration of engineering, math, physics, English, and history faculty working together toward design, implementation, and assessment of a two-quarter long first-year experience learning community program consisting of six different courses. The place-based curriculum will include contextualized precalculus and English composition, regional Pacific Northwest history, orientation to the engineering profession, and introductory skills such as problem-solving, computer programming, and team-based design. The course sequence will also include community-engaged project-based learning in the first quarter and a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) in the second quarter, both with an overarching theme of energy and water resources. The approach leverages multiple high-impact educational practices to promote deep conceptual learning, motivate foundational skill development, explore social relevance and connection, and ultimately seeks to strengthen students’ engineering identity, sense of belonging, and general academic preparation for success in an engineering major.

Curriculum development work to date has followed a collaborative Backward Design approach as articulated by Wiggins and McTighe (2005). The faculty team worked together to craft Essential Questions and Understandings with which they will seek to engage students through multiple touchpoints, activities, projects, and perspectives throughout the two-quarter experience. Some example Essential Questions include: What is the work of engineering? Who decides what problems engineers work on? And how does the engineered world affect how we live? In exploring these questions and others, the instructional design aims to promote Understandings in students such as: theoretical knowledge gives engineers the breadth and depth to work in a variety of workplaces and leverage a wide array of skills for creative problem solving; the most innovative engineering work leverages a diversity of skills, knowledge, experiences, and perspectives in a multidisciplinary team; and engineers have shaped land and resource use in the Pacific Northwest, and conversely their designs have been shaped by their perceptions of the landscape and environmental policies. The team mapped existing outcomes of the constituent courses to these program-level learning goals as an exercise to explore how the courses will fit together and synthesize a coherent and connected learning experience.

We plan to pilot the learning community for four years and compare a variety of student outcomes measures with those of a demographically matched sample of students progressing through the engineering program under the traditional a la carte model. We will also measure changes in socioemotional measures such as sense of belonging and identity with a mixed methods approach combining surveys, coding of reflective writing assignments, and focus groups. This WIP paper presents the program-level development work introduced above as well as the envisioned methodologies for evaluating the impact on student success.

Wiggins, G., &amp;amp; McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding By Design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

AU - Eric Davishahl
AU - Anna Wolff
AU - Pat Burnett
AU - Anna Fay Booker
AU - Tran M. Phung
AU - Mei P. Luu
AU - Seth Greendale
CY - Baltimore , Maryland
DA - 2023/06/25
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Work in Progress: Development of an Integrated Place-Based Learning Community for First-Year Precalculus-Level Engineering Students
UR - https://peer.asee.org/44225
DO - 10.18260/1-2--44225
ER -