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Efforts to provide pre-college students with engineering or engineering-related experiences are on the rise in the United States. These efforts are typically undertaken independently of one another and are often in competition to garner greater participation. e4usa+FIRST is a first-of-its-kind collaboration between two pre-college engineering/STEM education efforts that aims to break down existing silos between programs. The project was piloted in nine US high schools within underserved areas. The following study examines high school teacher’s preparedness to teach a blended offering between engineering and robotics curricula following a summer professional development (PD) program. Pilot teachers (n = 10) participated in focus groups to share their perceptions of readiness to implement the blended e4usa+FIRST curriculum. Data was analyzed using open coding and constant comparison methods. Most teachers reported confidence in teaching the blended offering, shared their plans and expectations, and brought up concerns regarding time and sustaining student interest especially during a time of pandemic. This project has implications for precollege engineering education efforts as it could provide a foundational understanding of how two successful programs can be blended, playing a critical role in educating high school students in underserved communities to experience engineering.
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WIP: Initial Investigation of Effective Teacher Professional Development Among Experienced and Non-experienced Engineering Teachers
The Bureau of Statistics identified an urgent demand for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professionals in the coming years. In order to meet this demand, the number of students graduating with STEM degrees in the United States needs to increase by 34% annually [1]. Engineering for US All (E4USA): A National Pilot Program for High School Engineering Course and Database is a NSF-funded first-of-its-kind initiative designed to address this national need. The E4USA project aims to make engineering more inclusive and accessible to underrepresented minorities, while increasing racial, ethnic, and gender representation in higher education and the workforce. The “for us all” mission of E4USA encompasses both students and educators. The demand for engineering educators has increased, but relying on practicing engineers to switch careers and enter teacher preparation programs has been insufficient [2, 3, 4]. This has led schools to turn to educators with limited training in engineering, which could potentially have a significant national impact on student engineering education [5, 6, 7]. Part of the E4USA pilot year mission has been to welcome educators with varying degrees of experience in industry and teaching. Paramount to E4USA was the construction of professional development (PD) experiences and a community of practice that would prepare and support teachers with varying degrees of engineering training instruction as they implemented the yearlong course. The perspectives of four out of nine educators were examined during a weeklong, intensive E4USA PD. Two of four educators were considered ‘novices’; one with a background in music and the other in history. The remaining two educators were deemed ‘veterans’ with a total of 15 years of experience as engineers and more than 20 years as engineering educators. Data sources consist of focus groups, surveys, and artifacts created during the PD (e.g., educators’ responses to reflection prompts and letters written to welcome the next cohort). Focus group data is currently being analyzed using inductive coding and the constant comparative method in order to identify emergent themes that speak to the past experience or inexperience of educators with engineering. Artifacts were used to: 1) Triangulate the findings generated from the analysis of focus group, and 2) Further understand how the veteran educators supported the novice educators. We will also use quantitative survey data to examine descriptive statistics, observed score bivariate correlations, and differences in mean scores across novices and veterans to further examine potential common and unique experiences for these educators. The results aim to highlight how the inclusion of educators with a broad spectrum of past experiences with engineering and engineering education can increase educators’ empathy towards students who may be equally hesitant about engineering. The findings from this study are expected to result in implications for how PD and a community of practice may be developed to allow for reciprocal support and mentoring. Results will inform future efforts of E4USA and aim to change the structure of high school engineering education nationwide.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1849430
- PAR ID:
- 10175379
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Experience
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Pre-college engineering education still struggles to implement curricula that engage a diverse range of students. Engineering for US All (e4usa) aims to fill this gap through a course that demystifies engineering while catering to a broad range of students. This paper examines the influence of the e4usa course on students’ engagement with engineering design, and their understanding of engineering as a potential future educational and career pathway. Focus group sessions were conducted with students from 12 participating schools during the 2020-21 school year to examine how their interests and understanding of engineering were influenced by the course. There were four main question categories for the focus groups, including: (1) students’ perceptions of engineering, (2) engagement in the e4usa course, (3) influences of the e4usa course, and (4) experiences as a female in engineering. Focus group data were analyzed using open coding and constant comparison methods. Themes emerged from each of the main question categories, giving insight into students’ experiences in the e4usa course. Understanding student experiences in the e4usa course has the potential to impact the future design of pre-college engineering experiences that can lead to a more diverse engineering workforce.more » « less
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Students with disabilities (SWDs) and neurodiverse students are underrepresented at all points along the educational pathway in engineering. One potential entry point for engaging SWDs and broadening future participation in engineering is through the role of stakeholder in engineering design challenges, and specifically during high school, which is a crucial part of the pathway to engineering. High school teachers and students engaged in Engineering for US All (e4usa) have completed several engineering design projects involving SWDs as stakeholders. These projects represent a human-centered approach to engineering that emphasizes a comprehensive understanding of stakeholders. This work in progress will present results from surveys completed by e4usa teachers and students who have engaged in disability-centered engineering design challenges, with SWDs serving as the stakeholder to understand their experiences. Additionally, SWDs serving as stakeholders and those that support them (e.g., special education teachers, paraprofessionals, related service providers, families) will be interviewed about their experiences engaging in their project. Potential implications of the research findings include the impact of engaging SWDs in engineering design, especially as it relates to increased knowledge of general education teachers and students about inclusive practices and supports (e.g., evidence-based practices, alternative communication strategies, prompting). Additionally, the outcomes may contribute to efforts to broaden the participation of SWDs in engineering. Doing so, will help support the e4usa mission, which aims to demystify and democratize the learning and practice of engineering by increasing engineering literacy for all and expand opportunities for those traditionally underserved and marginalized in engineering to pursue careers as engineers and expand the STEM workforce pipeline.more » « less
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African Americans, Latinos/Latinas, and other traditionally underserved ethnic/racial groups are needed for the next generation of engineers, scientists, and STEM educators. Women of color (WOC), in particular, represent a tremendous untapped human capital that could further provide a much-needed diversity of perspective essential to sustain technological advantages and to promote positive academic climate. Recently engineering educators have questioned the STEM community commitment towards increasing the participation of WOC. Indeed, national reports of domestic students studying and completing STEM degrees show marginal improvement in broadening participation with significant lag in engineering, despite the known benefits of diversity. Therefore, more must be done by the STEM community to attract and retain WOC. For students of color, campus climate issues around race, class, and gender are critical components shaping their higher education learning environment. Research suggests hostile campus climates are associated with students of color leaving STEM fields before graduating. Such barriers can be more pronounced for WOC who often experience a “double bind” of race and gender marginalization when navigating the STEM culture. Therefore, it is important that educators understand experiences of WOC and what is needed to improve students’ experiences in order to minimize the performance gap in key indicators (e.g., retention, achievement, and persistence). We seek to address this STEM need through the guiding research question: “How does the double bind of race and gender impact the experience of women of color in engineering?” The data reported here is part of a larger, sequential mixed-methods study that is informed by the Womanist and intersectionality theoretical frameworks. For the first time, we introduce the Womanist Identity Attitude scale to engineering education research, which provides an efficient way to understand gender and racial identity development of WOC along with the intersection of identities. Intersectionality provides a means to produce scholarship that investigates the connection between social identity dimensions and educational conditions. Social identity models that adhere to intersectionality concepts acknowledge that multiple oppressed identities have a cumulative, not additive, impact. Although intersectionality is used to understand the experiences of students of color in higher education, few engineering education studies apply an intersectionality framework, particularly for WOC. After a short pilot study, we anticipate the survey results will generate three outcomes. First, the survey results will show what intersecting identities most impact the experience of WOC in engineering. Second, interview question and potential themes will be created by grouping results into clusters of intersectionality types or exemplars of intersecting identities. Finally, we will generate strategies to overcome the challenge of the double bind for WOC in engineering by examining the context and scope of intersecting identities emphasized by participants in the survey to. Overall, the results presented here will provide the foundation for a larger study that will lead to a deeper understanding of the challenges WOC face in the engineering culture and expose areas to improve inclusion efforts that target WOC.more » « less
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African Americans, Latinos/Latinas, and other traditionally underserved ethnic/racial groups are needed for the next generation of engineers, scientists, and STEM educators. Women of color (WOC), in particular, represent a tremendous untapped human capital that could further provide a much-needed diversity of perspective essential to sustain technological advantages and to promote positive academic climate. Recently engineering educators have questioned the STEM community commitment towards increasing the participation of WOC. Indeed, national reports of domestic students studying and completing STEM degrees show marginal improvement in broadening participation with significant lag in engineering, despite the known benefits of diversity. Therefore, more must be done by the STEM community to attract and retain WOC. For students of color, campus climate issues around race, class, and gender are critical components shaping their higher education learning environment. Research suggests hostile campus climates are associated with students of color leaving STEM fields before graduating. Such barriers can be more pronounced for WOC who often experience a “double bind” of race and gender marginalization when navigating the STEM culture. Therefore, it is important that educators understand experiences of WOC and what is needed to improve students’ experiences in order to minimize the performance gap in key indicators (e.g., retention, achievement, and persistence). We seek to address this STEM need through the guiding research question: “How does the double bind of race and gender impact the experience of women of color in engineering?” The data reported here is part of a larger, sequential mixed-methods study that is informed by the Womanist and intersectionality theoretical frameworks. For the first time, we introduce the Womanist Identity Attitude scale to engineering education research, which provides an efficient way to understand gender and racial identity development of WOC along with the intersection of identities. Intersectionality provides a means to produce scholarship that investigates the connection between social identity dimensions and educational conditions. Social identity models that adhere to intersectionality concepts acknowledge that multiple oppressed identities have a cumulative, not additive, impact. Although intersectionality is used to understand the experiences of students of color in higher education, few engineering education studies apply an intersectionality framework, particularly for WOC. After a short pilot study, we anticipate the survey results will generate three outcomes. First, the survey results will show what intersecting identities most impact the experience of WOC in engineering. Second, interview question and potential themes will be created by grouping results into clusters of intersectionality types or exemplars of intersecting identities. Finally, we will generate strategies to overcome the challenge of the double bind for WOC in engineering by examining the context and scope of intersecting identities emphasized by participants in the survey to. Overall, the results presented here will provide the foundation for a larger study that will lead to a deeper understanding of the challenges WOC face in the engineering culture and expose areas to improve inclusion efforts that target WOC.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--35547
