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1. Northeast Cyberteam - Building an Environment for Sharing Best Practices and Solutions for Research Computing

   https://doi.org/10.1109/HPEC43674.2020.9286254  

   Goodhue, John ; Ma, Julie ; Del Masetro, Adrian ; Najafi, Sia ; Segee, Bruce ; Valcourt, Scott ; Zottola, Ralph ( September 2020 , 2020 IEEE High Performance Extreme Computing Conference (HPEC))

   null (Ed.)

   The Northeast Cyberteam Program is a collaborative effort across Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts that seeks to assist researchers at small and medium-sized institutions in the region with making use of cyberinfrastructure, while simultaneously building the next generation of research computing facilitators. Recognizing that research computing facilitators are frequently in short supply, the program also places intentional emphasis on capturing and disseminating best practices in an effort to enable opportunities to leverage and build on existing solutions whenever practical. The program combines direct assistance to computationally intensive research projects; experiential learning opportunities that pair experienced mentors with students interested in research computing facilitation; sharing of resources and knowledge across large and small institutions; and tools that enable efficient oversight and possible replication of these ideas in other regions. Each project involves a researcher seeking to better utilize cyberinfrastructure in research, a student facilitator, and a mentor with relevant domain expertise. These individuals may be at the same institution or at separate institutions. The student works with the researcher and the mentor to become a bridge between the infrastructure and the research domain. Through this model, students receive training and opportunities that otherwise would not be available, research projects get taken to a higher level, and the effectiveness of the mentor is multiplied. Providing tools to enable self-service learning is a key concept in our strategy to develop facilitators through experiential learning, recognizing that one of the most fundamental skills of successful facilitators is their ability to quickly learn enough about new domains and applications to be able draw parallels with their existing knowledge and help to solve the problem at hand. The Cyberteam Portal is used to access the self-service learning resources developed to provide just-in-time information delivery to participants as they embark on projects in unfamiliar domains, and also serves as a receptacle for best practices, tools, and techniques developed during a project. Tools include Ask.CI, an interactive site for questions and answers; a learning resources repository used to collect online training modules vetted by Cyberteam projects that provide starting points for subsequent projects or independent activities; and a Github repository. The Northeast Cyberteam was created with funding from the National Science Foundation, but has developed strategies for sustainable operations. 

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2. The Facilitator Model: Investigating a Novel Dual Credit Experience for Open-Ended Design Coursework

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s41979-022-00075-5  

   Thorne, Scott ; Strimel, Greg J. ; Mentzer, Nathan ; Sears, David ( September 2022 , Journal for STEM Education Research)

   This study explored the implementation of a novel approach to dual credit referred to as the facilitator model that can be suited for STEM-focused coursework such as courses focused on engineering, design, technology, and innovation. Unlike other models, high school teachers facilitate the implementation of a college course for both high school and college credit in collaboration with a university instructor who evaluates student learning. This novel approach was specifically implemented for an open-ended undergraduate design course within an engineering technology college, similar to many first-year engineering course experiences that emphasize project based learning, from a large research-intensive public university. For this study, the facilitator model was piloted with five high school teachers as facilitators of an undergraduate design course for dual credit at two innovative, STEM-focused public charter schools. The qualitative research design focused on examining (1) teacher needs while implementing, and perceptions of, the dual credit facilitator model for an undergraduate design course in urban public charter schools and (2) the impact of this model on student learning. This study included the collection and analysis of over 90 h of interviews, focus groups, surveys, and observations. Results provide a promising outlook for the use of the facilitator model when delivering dual credit content that is open ended and within the context of design, technology, and engineering by (1) navigating multiple institutional policies and processes related to dual-credit implementation, (2) providing ongoing support and fostering collaboration between high schools and university, (3) enabling students to earn directly transcripted college credits that count as a required course toward degree completion, and (4) increasing affordability and access to dual credit coursework. These potential advantages over other dual credit models can help address barriers that may limit access to dual credit coursework, specifically for underserved high schools. 

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3. Institutional Change Efforts to Improve the Environment for Both Instructors and Students in Foundational Engineering Courses

   Grohs, J.R. ; Knight, D.B. ; Soledad, M.M. ; Murzi, H. ; Smith, N. ( June 2019 , ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   Foundational engineering courses are critical to student success in engineering programs. The conceptually challenging content of these courses establishes the requisite knowledge for future classes. Thus, it is no surprise that such courses can serve as barriers or gatekeepers to successful student progress through the undergraduate curriculum. Although the difficulty of the courses may be necessary, often other features of the course delivery such as large class environments or a few very high-stakes assessments can further exacerbate these challenges. And especially problematic, past studies have shown that grade penalties associated with these courses and environments may disproportionately impact women. On the faculty side, institutions often turn to non-tenure track instructional faculty to teach multiple sections of foundational courses each semester. Although having faculty whose sole role is dedicated to quality teaching is an asset, benefits would likely be maximized when such faculty have clear metrics for paths to promotion, some autonomy and ownership regarding the curriculum, and overall job satisfaction. However, literature suggests that faculty, like students, note ill effects from large classes, such as challenges connecting and building rapport with students and having time to offer individualized feedback to students. Our NSF IUSE project focuses on instructors of large foundational engineering students with the belief that by better understanding the educational environment from their perspective we can improve the quality of the teaching and learning environment for all engineering students. Our project regularly convenes faculty teaching an array of core courses (e.g,. Mathematics, Chemistry, Mechanics, Physics) and uses insights from these meetings and individual interviews to identify possible leverage points where our project or the institution more broadly might affect change. Parallel to this effort, we have been working with data stewards on campus to gain access to institutional data (e.g., student course and grade histories, student evaluations of faculty teaching) to link and provide aggregate deidentified results to faculty to feed more information in to their decision-making. We are demonstrating that regular engagement between faculty and institutional leaders around analyzed and curated data is essential to continuous and systematic improvement. Efforts to date have included building an institutional data explorer dashboard (e.g., influences of pre-requisite courses on future courses) and drafting reports to be sent to department heads and associate deans which gather priorities identified in the first year of our research. For example, participating instructors identified that clarity of promotion paths across non-tenure track teaching faculty from different departments varied greatly, and the institution as a whole could benefit from clarified university-wide guidance. While some findings may be institution-specific (NSF IUSE Institutional Transformation track), as a large public research institution, peer-institutions with high engineering enrollments often face similar challenges and so findings from our change efforts potentially have broad applicability. 

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4. We Are Thriving: Increasing the Number of Women in Engineering

   https://doi.org/strategy.asee.org/41518  

   Redmond, K. ; Panther, G ; Asadollahipajouh, M. ; Evans, R. ; Kulesza, S. ; Liang, G. ( August 2022 , 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   An ongoing focus of engineering education research is on increasing the number of women in engineering. Previous studies have primarily focused on examining why the number of women enrolled in engineering colleges remains persistently low. In doing so, while we have gained better understanding of the challenges and barriers that women encountered and factors that contribute to such negative experiences, it also, as some scholars have pointed out, has cast a deficit frame on such matters. In this study, we take on a positive stand where we focus on women undergraduate students who not only “stay” but also succeed in engineering programs (that is, our definition of thriving) as a way to locate the personal and institutional factors that facilitate such positive outcomes. Our initial pilot study involved two female engineering undergraduate students at an R1 university. Each student was interviewed three times. While each of the interviews in the sequence had a slightly different focus, the overall goal was to understand the women’s autobiographic and educational experiences leading to their paths to engineering and participation in the engineering project teams. The inductive thematic analysis revealed several primary findings which subsequently played a major role in developing a codebook for the current study. Building upon what is learned from the pilot study, the current study uses a layered multi-case study design involving three institutions: a public/private Ivy League and statutory land-grand research university in the Northeast, a public land-grant research university in the Midwest, and a public land-grant research university in the Southwest which is also designated as MSI/HSI. In addition to the interview method, data collection also contains documents and artifacts. For this paper, we zone in onto the data collected in the first interviews, known as the “life history” where we mainly learn about the women undergraduate participants’ personal-familial contexts that contribute to their entry to majoring in engineering as identified by the women themselves. Preliminary findings indicate that: (1) our participants tend to have supportive families; (2) while all experienced gender biases, not everyone has formed a critical consciousness of sexism; and (3) being able to actually engage by “doing” something and creating a product is key to the women’s finding joy in engineering and associating themself with the field/profession. It is important to note that the second interviews, which focus on the educational journey of the participants in relation to engineering identity development and project team experiences, are underway. The ultimate goal for the study is to develop a theoretical framework speaking to a multifaceted model of forces (micro as autobiographic, macro as institutional, and in-between or middle-level as team-based) in shaping women’s entry and advance in engineering programs. This framework will recognize the variations in institutional type, resource availability, and structural and cultural characteristics and traditions in teams. It will also use such differences to show possibilities of more versatile ways for diversifying pathways for women and other minoritized groups to thrive in engineering. 

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5. Uncomfortable Conversations with Faculty and Students in Zoom: Experiences with diversity and inclusion spurred by police brutality and racial injustice in the U.S.

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--39149  

   White, Lance ; Hammond, Tracy ; Ray, Samantha ; Jaison, Donna ; Stanley, Christine ( February 2022 , 2022 CoNECD (Collaborative Network for Engineering & Computing Diversity))

   The culture within engineering colleges and departments has been historically quiet when considering social justice issues. Often the faculty in those departments are less concerned with social issues and are primarily focused on their disciplines and the concrete ways that they can make impacts academically and professionally in their respective arena’s. However, with the social climate of the United States shifting ever more towards a politically charged climate, and current events, particularly the protests against police brutality in recent years, faculty and students are constantly inundated with news of injustices happening in our society. The murder of George Floyd on May 25th 2020 sent shockwaves across the United States and the world. The video captured of his death shared across the globe brought everyone’s attention to the glaringly ugly problem of police brutality, paired with the COVID-19 pandemic, and US election year, the conditions were just right for a social activist movement to grow to a size that no one could ignore. Emmanuel Acho spoke out, motivated by injustices seen in the George Floyd murder, initially with podcasts and then by writing his book “Uncomfortable Converstations with a Black Man” [1]. In his book he touched on various social justice issues such as: racial terminology (i.e., Black or African American), implicit biases, white privilege, cultural appropriation, stereotypes (e.g., the “angry black man”), racial slurs (particularly the n-word), systemic racism, the myth of reverse racism, the criminal justice system, the struggles faced by black families, interracial families, allyship, and anti-racism. Students and faculty at Anonymous University felt compelled to set aside the time to meet and discuss this book in depth through the video conferencing client Zoom. In these meetings diverse facilitators were tasked with bringing the topics discussed by Acho in his book into conversation and pushing attendees of these meetings to consider those topics critically and personally. In an effort to avoid tasking attendees with reading homework to be able to participate in these discussions, the discussed chapter of the audiobook version of Acho’s book was played at the beginning of each meeting. Each audiobook chapter lasted between fifteen and twenty minutes, after which forty to forty-five minutes were left in the hour-long meetings to discuss the content of the chapter in question. Efforts by students and faculty were made to examine how some of the teachings of the book could be implemented into their lives and at Anonymous University. For broader topics, they would relate the content back to their personal lives (e.g., raising their children to be anti-racist and their experiences with racism in American and international cultures). Each meeting was recorded for posterity in the event that those conversations would be used in a paper such as this. Each meeting had at least one facilitator whose main role was to provide discussion prompts based on the chapter and ensure that the meeting environment was safe and inclusive. Naturally, some chapters address topics that are highly personal to some participants, so it was vital that all participants felt comfortable and supported to share their thoughts and experiences. The facilitator would intervene if the conversation veered in an aggressive direction. For example, if a participant starts an argument with another participant in a non-constructive manner, e.g., arguing over the definition of ethnicity, then the facilitator will interrupt, clear the air to bring the group back to a common ground, and then continue the discussion. Otherwise, participants were allowed to steer the direction of the conversation as new avenues of discussion popped up. These meetings were recorded with the goal of returning to these conversations and analyzing the conversations between attendees. Grounded theory will be used to first assess the most prominent themes of discussion between attendees for each meeting [2]. Attendees will be contacted to expressly ask their permission to have their words and thoughts used in this work, and upon agreement that data will begin to be processed. Select attendees will be asked to participate in focus group discussions, which will also be recorded via Zoom. These discussions will focus around the themes pulled from general discussion and will aim to dive deeper into the impact that this experience has had on them as either students or faculty members. A set of questions will be developed as prompts, but conversation is expected to evolve organically as these focus groups interact. These sessions will be scheduled for an hour, and a set of four focus groups with four participants are expected to participate for a total of sixteen total focus group participants. We hope to uncover how this experience changed the lives of the participants and present a model of how conversations such as this can promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and access activities amongst faculty and students outside of formal programs and strategic plans that are implemented at university, college, or departmental levels. 

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