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This research-to-practice full paper presents and approach to bringing convergence to the undergraduate engineering context. Convergence is the process of integrating a variety of ideas, skills, and methods to create new ideas, skills, and methods in order to address complex, socially relevant challenges like the UN Sustainable Development Goals [1] and the National Academy of Engineering's (NAE) Grand Challenges [2]. In the US, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has been a major driver of convergence related research and has focused on work primarily at the graduate level and beyond. To explore how convergence concepts translate to an undergraduate engineering context this research to practice paper describes a taxonomy that translates convergent knowledge, skills, and mindsets into the domain of undergraduate engineering education. While we do not believe it is reasonable to expect undergraduates to engage with convergence in the same way as graduate students or postdoctoral scholars, we believe that they can develop in areas that will allow them to engage in convergent work later in their careers. This paper first defines convergence and then examines the challenges and opportunities related to developing a student's ability to do convergent work in an undergraduate context. The developed taxonomy outlines the knowledge, skills, mindsets, and structures that support convergent work from the larger research literature, and adapts these to an undergraduate context. The taxonomy is then used to conduct a gap analysis of an undergraduate electrical and computer engineering degree program. This analysis is based on the syllabi. This work was conducted in the context of an electrical and computer engineering department situated in a medium-sized primarily undergraduate liberal arts institution in the mid-Atlantic region. As the challenges and opportunities are similar to but also unique to this institution this work forms a rich case study that can inform similar efforts in other institutions and contexts where a similar gap analysis may be beneficial. The goal of this work is to enable others to analyze an their existing student experience to see what aspects of convergence are currently included.
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The future of work and play: From automated vehicles to working from home
How can technology support workers in our rapidly changing world? How can we help them be productive and creating, and how can we support their overall wellbeing? Our team explores these broad questions for two specific areas: working in future automated vehicles, and working from home. We argue that making progress in these areas will require convergent research – the type of research in which experts from multiple backgrounds create new languages of expression and new approaches that integrate disciplines. In this document we present our own steps towards such a convergent research approach to the future of work and play.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1840085
- PAR ID:
- 10186623
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- New Future of Work
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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