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1. Board 3: Engineering Technology Scholars-IMProving Retention and Student Success (ETS-IMPRESS): First Year Progress Repo

   Alaraje, Nasser; Meadows, Lorelle A.; Fiss, Laura Kasson; Amato-Henderson, Susan L.; Hambroff, Guy C.; Sergeyev, Aleksandr; Raffaelli, Kellie H.; Irwin, John L. (June 2019, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   Recognizing a national and regional need for a highly trained engineering technology STEM workforce with baccalaureate degrees, the Engineering Technology Scholars – IMProving Retention and Student Success (ETS-IMPRESS) project provides financial support and an ecosystem of high-impact curricular and co-curricular activities to increase the success of academically talented students. A total of 12 first-time students will be supported for four years and 36 students transferring from community colleges will be supported for two years. The goals of the project are to (1) increase the number and diversity of students pursuing degrees in engineering technology (first-generation, underrepresented students, women, and veterans); (2) add to the body of knowledge regarding best practices in Engineering Technology and promote employment; and (3) contribute to the literature on self-efficacy. The project brings together engineering technology academic programs that are offered through the School of Technology and programs in the Honors College, an inclusive and unique college designed around high-impact educational practices. The project provides a unique opportunity to engage academically talented engineering technology students in activities designed to foster leadership, technical know-how, and employability skills for technology fields that actively recruit and employ graduates from diverse backgrounds and communities. By focusing on a broad range of students, the project will investigate the relationship between student characteristics and student success through (1) a mixed methods pre/post research design that examines differences in motivation, self-efficacy and professional skills and (2) a matched cohort comparison study of transfer students that examines participation/non-participation in engineering technology programs of study with honors’ college elective programming. The paper will address first year project activities including the ETS-IMPRESS recruitment, and advertisement plan to recruit first-year and community college transfer students. The paper will address the student eligibility and selection process, the recruitment of the first cohort scholars, and finally the orientation program including the summer bridge undergraduate research experience. 

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2. Reflections of Undergraduate Engineering Students Completing a Cross-Disciplinary Robotics Project with Pre-Service Teachers and Fifth Graders in an Electromechanical Systems Course.

   Kaipa, K; Kidd, J; Kumi, I; Ringleb, S; Ayala, O; Gutierrez, K; Pazos, P; Cima, F; Rhemer, D (June 2024, ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   Engineering is becoming increasingly cross-disciplinary, requiring students to develop skills in multiple engineering disciplines (e.g., mechanical engineering students having to learn the basics of electronics, instrumentation, and coding) and interprofessional skills to integrate perspectives from people outside their field. In the workplace, engineering teams are frequently multidisciplinary, and often, people from outside of engineering are part of the team that brings a product to market. Additionally, teams are often diverse in age, race, gender, and in other areas. Teams that creatively utilize the contrasting perspectives and ideas arising from these differences can positively affect team performance and generate solutions effective for a broader range of users. These trends suggest that engineering education can benefit from having engineering students work on team projects that involve a blend of cross-disciplinary and mixed-aged collaborations. An NSF-funded project set out to explore this idea by partnering undergraduate engineering students enrolled in a 300-level electromechanical systems course with preservice teachers enrolled in a 400-level educational technology course to plan and deliver robotics lessons to fifth graders at a local school. Working in small teams, students designed, built, and coded bio-inspired robots. The collaborative activities included: (1) training with Hummingbird Bit hardware (Birdbrain Technologies, Pittsburgh, PA) (e.g. sensors, servo motors) and coding platform, (2) preparing robotics lessons for fifth graders that explained the engineering design process, and (3) guiding the fifth graders in the design of their robots. Additionally, each engineering student designed a robot following the theme developed with their education student and fifth-grade partners. 

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3. Engaging girls in learning engineering through building ubiquitous intelligent systems

   M. Yang, B. Tiwari (January 2022, Proc. IEEE Int’l Conf. Teaching, Assessment, and Learning (TALE))

   Women make up only 28% of the workforce in STEM fields. It’s important to engage more girls in learning STEM; however, girls’ interests in STEM careers keep declining. It is well studied that the lack of sense of belonging underlies gender differences in STEM differentiation and achievement. Researchers have found that secondary girls’ sense of belonging declines as they age. To enhance secondary female students’ interests and self-concept in computing and engineering fields, the UNLV ITEST project sets the focus on engaging Girls in Ubiquitous Intelligence and Computing (GUIC) through a constructivist learning environment. In the GUIC Summer Camp, 40 secondary female students will take three-week training courses in Arduino & Internet of Things and Robotics Design and conduct two-week engineering project development in tiered teams co-mentored by STEM teachers and college student mentors. Based on the active learning method, the training courses are designed with interactive lectures and hands-on labs/activities. The engineering projects in ubiquitous intelligent systems are designed to connect computing & engineering concepts with real-world problems. Project demo results and students’ feedbacks have confirmed the effectiveness of the project activities in enhancing female students’ interests and self-efficacy in learning engineering and STEM. The unique constructivist learning environment is helpful in improving female students’ sense of belonging in STEM. 

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4. Integrating Professional Mentorship with a 3D-Printing Curriculum to Help Rural Youth Forge STEM Career Connections.

   Bhaduri, S. (July 2021, 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference.)

   Economically disadvantaged youth residing in mountain tourist communities represent an important and understudied rural population. These communities typically include a large percentage of children that are English language learners. Our NSF STEM Career Connections project, A Model for Preparing Economically-Disadvantaged Rural Youth for the Future STEM Workplace, investigates strategies that help middle school youth in these communities to envision a broader range of workforce opportunities, especially in STEM and computing careers. This poster highlights the initial findings of an innovative model that involves working with local schools and community partners to support the integration of local career contexts, engineering phenomena, 3D printing technologies, career connections, and mentorship into formal educational experiences to motivate and prepare rural youth for future STEM careers. We focus on select classrooms at two middle schools and describe the implementation of a novel 3D printing curriculum during the 2020-2021 school-year. Two STEM teachers implemented the five-week curriculum with approximately 300 students per quarter. To create a rich inquiry-driven learning environment, the curriculum uses an instructional design approach called storylining. This approach is intended to promote coherence, relevance, and meaning from the students’ perspectives by using students’ questions to drive investigations and lessons. Students worked towards answering the question: “How can we support animals with physical disabilities so they can perform daily activities independently?” Students engaged in the engineering design process by defining, developing, and optimizing solutions to develop and print prosthetic limbs for animals with disabilities using 3D modeling, a unique augmented reality application, and 3D printing. In order to embed connections to STEM careers and career pathways, some students received mentorship and guidance from local STEM professionals who work in related fields. This poster will describe the curriculum and its implementation across two quarters at two middle schools in the US rural mountain west, as well as the impact on students’ interest in STEM and computing careers. During the first quarter students engaged in the 3D printing curriculum, but did not have access to the STEM career and career pathway connections mentorship piece. During the second quarter, the project established a partnership with a local STEM business -- a medical research institute that utilizes 3D printing and scanning for creating human surgical devices and procedures -- to provide mentorship to the students. Volunteers from this institute served as ongoing mentors for the students in each classroom during the second quarter. The STEM mentors guided students through the process of designing, testing, and optimizing their 3D models and 3D printed prosthetics, providing insights into how students’ learning directly applies to the medical industry. Different forms of student data such as cognitive interviews and pre/post STEM interest and spatial thinking surveys were collected and analyzed to understand the benefits of the career connections mentorship component. Preliminary findings suggest the relationship between local STEM businesses and students is important to motivate youth from rural areas to see themselves being successful in STEM careers and helping them to realize the benefits of engaging with emerging engineering technologies. 

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5. Developing an Engineering Design Course for Rural Middle School Students: Implementation Strategies and Lessons Learned

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--36936  

   Baldwin, Tameshia (July 2021, 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference)

   In early 2020, a research collaboration between a college of engineering, a research institute, a pre-college STEM program, a rural school district, and the local advanced manufacturing industry began. The goal of this Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) project was to create community-based engineering design experiences for underserved middle school students (grades 6-8) from rural NC aimed to improve their cognitive (STEM content knowledge and career awareness) and non-cognitive (interest, self-efficacy, and STEM identity) outcomes, and ultimately lead to their increased participation in STEM fields, particularly engineering. The project leverages strategic partnerships to create a 3-part, grade-level specific Engineering Design and Exploration course that engages middle school students in authentic engineering design experiences that allow them to research, design, and problem-solve in a simulated advanced manufacturing environment. Shortly after receiving university approval to begin the research process, progress was halted due to an unprecedented global health crisis. The school district was closed for several weeks as administrators and teachers prepared to transition to remote learning. In addition, the district experienced unexpected teacher and administrator turnover. In the wake of such uncertainty, the partners have pivoted their research design to work more closely with industry partners while still maintaining an active relationship with the school district as they rebuild. This paper will describe the challenges faced, strategies employed, and lessons learned during the course development and implementation process. 

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