More Like this

1. Give and gain: Black engineering students as near‐peer mentors

   https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20520  

   Taylor, Jr., Leonard ; Mastrogiovanni, Margaret ; Lakin, Joni M. ; Davis, Virginia ( April 2023 , Journal of Engineering Education)

   Engineering‐oriented bridge programs and camps are popular strategies for broadening participation. The students who often serve as counselors and mentors in these programs are integral to their success.

   Predicated on the belief that mentoring contributes to positive outcomes for the mentors themselves, we sought to understand how undergraduate student mentors approached and experienced their work with a 6‐day overnight, NSF‐sponsored youth engineering camp (YEC). This study was guided by the question: How did YEC camp counselors approach and experience their roles as mentors?

   We conducted an exploratory qualitative study of four Black undergraduate engineering students' experiences with and approaches to near‐peer mentorship in the YEC program. Data consisted of transcripts from two post‐program interviews and one written reflection from each participant. We analyzed data through abductive coding and the funds of knowledge framework.

   Through subsequent interpretation of code categories, we found YEC mentors: (1) engaged in altruistic motivations as YEC mentors, (2) leveraged previous experiences to guide their approaches to mentorship, and (3) engaged in self‐directed learning and development.

   This study highlights the knowledge and strategies that YEC mentors drew upon in their roles, and how they sought and achieved various personal, academic, and professional benefits. Insights from this study illustrate how near‐peer mentors can support their and others' engineering aspirations.

    

   more » « less
2. Mentoring for Making: Peer Mentors Working with Learners in a Making-Focused Engineering Course

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--47770  

   Nadelson, Louis ; Dickrell, Pamela ; DeJesus, Katherine ( June 2024 , ASEE Conferences)

   eer mentoring in college programs of study is not uncommon. However, most of the time, peer mentoring is focused on supporting students in traditional solving problems they are assigned as part of the coursework. Our work extends beyond examining conventional forms of peer mentoring by examining the work of peer mentors supporting students' work in a first-year engineering design course based in a makerspace classroom. The problems students solve in the makerspace classroom-based course typically have a wide array of possible solutions, which differs from many problems students solve in traditional courses with peer mentor support in which there is a single solution. Further, students in the makerspace classroom-based course are also expected to work in teams, which adds another layer of complexity to the role of the peer mentors working in the course. Our research goal was to empirically document the peer mentors' interactions with students and the students learning gains and development due to working with the peer mentors. To gather data from the students working with the peer mentors, we added a series of additional questions to their end-of-semester course evaluations. Note that the university's Institutional Review Board reviewed and approved this process. The questions we added included, "Please share how the peer mentors influenced your sense of belonging within the College of Engineering." "Please share how the peer mentors helped your group function as teams." and "Please share how the peer mentors helped you develop confidence in your abilities to do engineering." We also included companion Likert scale items such as "The peer mentors helped our team work together." and "The peer mentors helped us resolve conflicts in our group." We found that peer mentors tended to be perceived as a resource, supportive and reassuring to the students and meeting the students where they are. Thus, the mentors provided students with emotional, personal, and technical support to influence the students' sense of belonging to the college. The mentors helped the students function in teams by encouraging them to collaborate and include all. In their efforts to help students develop confidence in their abilities, the mentors worked to meet the students where they were at and reassured the students' capacity to succeed. They were also likely to encourage students to seek help, support their technical skill development, and encourage the students to apply their knowledge. The final focus of our research was on the mentors engaging in helping students feel part of the engineering community. We found the mentors encouraged the students to join an engineering club or attend engineering events. In our final report, we provide details of our data, both quantitative and qualitative, examples of the student's responses, the implications of our findings, and ideas for using our research to support mentor preparation programs to maximize the benefits of peer mentoring in maker spaces and other non-traditional engineering learning environments. 

   more » « less
3. Using Informed Design in Informal Computer Science Programs to Increase Youths’ Interest, Self-efficacy, and Perceptions of Parental Support

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3319445  

   Clarke-Midura, Jody ; Sun, Chongning ; Pantic, Katarina ; Poole, Frederick ; Allan, Vicki ( November 2019 , ACM Transactions on Computing Education)

   null (Ed.)

   Our work is situated in research on Computer Science (CS) learning in informal learning environments and literature on the factors that influence girls to enter CS. In this article, we outline design choices around the creation of a summer programming camp for middle school youth. In addition, we describe a near-peer mentoring model we used that was influenced by Bandura's self-efficacy theory. The purpose of this article, apart from promoting transparency of program design, was to evaluate the effectiveness of our camp design in terms of increasing youths’ interest, self-efficacy beliefs, and perceptions of parental support. We found significant gains for all three of these concepts. Additionally, we make connections between our design choices (e.g., videos, peer support, mentor support) and the affective gains by thematically analyzing interview data concerning the outcomes found in our camps. 

   more » « less
4. Utilizing Culturally Responsive Strategies to Inspire African American Female Participation in Cybersecurity American Female Participation in Cybersecurity

   Bailey, D ; Kornegay, M ; Partlow, L ; Bowens, C ; Gareis, C ; Kornegay, K ( January 2024 , Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER))

   The number of African American females participating in cyber fields is significantly low. Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education requires a new approach to student engagement to increase African American female participation in cybersecurity. The most common approach to engaging more African American females in STEM is to provide students access to professional images or role models active in STEM; however, more is needed. More race-centered strategies beyond role modeling are necessary to attract and retain African American females in STEM. Research studies show that integrating personal experiences and making cultural connections can help improve student participation in STEM from underrepresented populations. In 2021, faculty in the Center for Cybersecurity Assurance and Policy at Morgan State University developed and implemented the GenCyber ‘‘Females are Cyber Stars’’ (FACS) Summer Camp. This initiative targeted female African American students in Baltimore public middle schools. Thirty-nine girls participated in the virtual program during the summer of 2021, and 25 girls engaged in the in-person program during the summer of 2022. The program’s goals were to increase female students’ interest in cybersecurity and exposure to the security of IoT (Internet of Things) devices in a smart home environment. The GenCyber FACS Summer Camp incorporated culturally responsive strategies to engage the participants in an inclusive and interactive setting. Participants were given pre- and post-program surveys to assess learning outcomes and examine the impact of using culturally responsive teaching strategies. The results showed that the girls reported increased knowledge and a gain in interest in cybersecurity and computing. This paper discusses the summer program and curriculum, culturally responsive teaching strategies deployed, student learning outcomes, and perceptions of cultural responsiveness assessed in the GenCyber FACS Summer Camp. 

   more » « less
5. 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. 

   more » « less