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Work in Progress: How do Students Describe Engineering and Engineers After Taking a Sociotechnical Energy Course?

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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

Multidisciplinary Engineering Division Technical Session - Integrated Engineering and Interdisciplinary Impacts

Page Count

9

DOI

10.18260/1-2--40523

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/40523

Download Count

250

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Paper Authors

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Marissa Forbes University of San Diego

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Susan Lord University of San Diego

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Susan Lord is Professor and Chair of Integrated Engineering at the University of San Diego. She received a BS from Cornell University in Materials Science and Electrical Engineering (EE) and MS and PhD in EE from Stanford University. Her research focuses on the study and promotion of diversity in engineering including student pathways and inclusive teaching. She has won best paper awards from the Journal of Engineering Education and IEEE Transactions on Education. Dr. Lord is a Fellow of the IEEE and ASEE and received the 2018 IEEE Undergraduate Teaching Award. She is a coauthor of The Borderlands of Education: Latinas in Engineering. She is a co-Director of the National Effective Teaching Institute (NETI).

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Gordon Hoople University of San Diego

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Diana Chen University of San Diego

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Joel Mejia The University of Texas at San Antonio

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Dr. Joel Alejandro (Alex) Mejia is an Associate Professor with joint appointment in the Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering and the Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies at The University of Texas at San Antonio. His current work seeks to analyze and describe the assets, tensions, contradictions, and cultural collisions many Latino/a/x students experience in engineering through testimonios. He is particularly interested in approaches that contribute to a more expansive understanding of engineering in sociocultural contexts, the impact of critical consciousness in engineering practice, and the development and implementation of culturally responsive pedagogies in engineering education. He received the NSF CAREER Award for his work on conocimiento in engineering spaces.

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Abstract

The University of San Diego (USD) integrated engineering department offered a new sociotechnical energy course for second-year students in 2020; the course ran for a second time in 2021. The Integrated Approach to Energy course differs from traditional engineering energy courses by introducing students to modern energy concepts through a sociotechnical paradigm, informed by culturally sustaining pedagogies (CSPs), and emphasizing examples and learning experiences that deviate from the traditional masculine, White, Western discourse. For this case study, we interviewed students who had taken the course to explore whether and how their conceptions of engineering and engineers included sociotechnical elements. In this work-in-progress, we share some preliminary findings that emerged from the four interview themes: 1) Why Engineering? (student motivations for studying engineering), 2) What is Engineering? 3) Who are Engineers?, and 4) What Engineers Do. The students had burgeoning conceptions of engineering/engineers with traces of sociotechnical perspectives. These preliminary findings reiterate that students will not simply ‘get’ sociotechnical engineering after a single course experience. If we want students to truly integrate these concepts into their own conceptions about engineers/engineering, we must do the same as an engineering education collective and integrate them fully into the entirety of their engineering education experiences.

Forbes, M., & Lord, S., & Hoople, G., & Chen, D., & Mejia, J. (2022, August), Work in Progress: How do Students Describe Engineering and Engineers After Taking a Sociotechnical Energy Course? Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--40523

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