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1. Analyzing Youth’s Problem Solving in Computational Making through a Community-Engaged Maker Program

   Zhang, E. ( April 2023 , American Educational Research Association)

   This paper describes preliminary findings from NSF-funded research conducted at the New York Hall of Science with an established after school maker education and social entrepreneurship program called Innovation Institute. Using social entrepreneurship (Peredo & McLean, 2006) and hands–on making activities in a maker space environment, participants address community-focused problems they identify on their own in low-income neighborhoods in Queens,, New York. This project studied whether and how specific aspects of this nine-month, after-school computational making (defined by Rode, et al [2015] as combining computational thinking with skills in aesthetics, creativity, constructing, visualizing multiple representations, and understanding materials) program for 13–17-year-olds from recent immigrant populations may influence participants’ perceptions of the relevance, usefulness and accessibility of computer science and engineering as potential academic and career pathways. 

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2. Methods for Conducting a Scoping Literature Review on Institutional Culture and Transformational Change in Engineering Education

   Fernandez, K. ; Buhler, A. G. ; Rivera-Jimenez, SM ( June 2023 , American Society for Engineering Education, 2023)

   There are a variety of urgent calls for institutional initiatives and actions to transform engineering education. For a transformational change to occur, the initiatives must alter the culture of the institutions (Eckel, Hill, and Green, 1998). In this work in progress, we detail the methods used to conduct a scoping literature review (ScR) concerning the current state of the literature surrounding institutional culture and transformational change in engineering education at institutions of higher learning in the United States. As institutional culture and transformational change are currently underexplored topics in the engineering education literature, we investigated the larger body of computer science and engineering literature in the United States. Once completed, this study aims to reveal the current trends, theories, and potential gaps in the literature regarding these topics. Arksey and O’Malley’s methodology for conducting scoping reviews informed the development of our scoping review protocol, which similarly includes five stages: (1) identify the research questions, (2) identify relevant studies, (3) select relevant studies, (4) chart the data, and (5) collate, summarize, and report results (Arksey and O’Malley, 2005). University librarians who specialize in conducting systematic reviews aided in the refinement of this protocol. From the research question and aim of the study, three main inclusion criteria were created: (1) the literature must discuss both organizational culture and transformational change, (2) discussion of transformational change must describe the institution where the change happened, and (3) the literature must emphasize the agents of transformational change. Additional inclusion and exclusion criteria were created in collaboration with both the librarians and reviewers. These criteria guided the search for existing literature in the following online databases: Elsevier (Engineering Village – Compendex and Engineering Village – INSPEC), ProQuest (ERIC and Education Database), Scopus, and Web of Science. These six databases were selected as they often include publications relevant to the field of engineering education. After the search was conducted, the inclusion and exclusion criteria were turned into questions to inform a three-step screening process (title, abstract, and full text) used by reviewers to determine whether a publication was eligible for the study. Reviewers were assigned to review papers through Covidence, a cloud-based systematic literature review management platform. There are currently two primary reviewers and a third additional reviewer to resolve any conflicts or disagreements if they should arise. Before each review cycle, the inclusion and exclusion criteria are revisited, revised, and agreed upon by the three reviewers. This screening process is performed iteratively, allowing for critical reflection at each stage to drive the resulting findings by the reviewers in consultation with content matter experts. We are currently conducting our first round of screening in the study selection (third stage) of the scoping review protocol. After the removal of duplicates, 999 publications were found by searching in the six selected databases. This number is expected to be further reduced with each step of the screening process. When this scoping review is complete, the resulting publication will contain an analysis of the literature and synthesis of our findings, and present the prominent themes, theories, and potential gaps in the literature. This publication is expected to unite disparate lines of research on institutional culture and transformational change, challenge the assumptions in the field, and change the way engineering education views transformational change. 

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3. Design Process Geometries: Shapes and Learning Trajectories of Engineering Students’ Design Process Concept Maps

   Lande, Micah ; Liu, Yue ( June 2019 , ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   The research objective of this NSF-funded study is to explore and understand how open-ended, hands-on making work and activities can reflect student learning trajectories and learning gains in the product-based learning, undergraduate engineering classroom. The aim is to expand understanding of what making learning in the context of engineering design education might be and to illustrate educational pathways within the engineering education curriculum. Making is rooted in constructionism – learning by doing and constructing knowledge through that doing. Aspects of making work and activities that are unique to making that could appear in the engineering classroom or curriculum include: sharing, practical ingenuity, personal investment, playful invention, risk taking, community building and self-directed learning. The main research questions of this work is: How do engineering students learn and apply making? What are the attributes of making in the engineering classroom? Empirical evidence of what making in the engineering classroom looks like, and how it changes over time, and how students conceptualize making through making, designerly, and engineering ways of knowing-doing-acting will come from revisiting and additional qualitative analysis of student project data collected during a product-based learning course engineering design course. To best address the research question, this proposed study proposes multiple qualitative methods to collect and analyze data on engineering students learning making. We aim to triangulate what students think they are learning, what they are being taught, and what students are demonstrating. This work is exploratory in nature. In our approach to understanding making outside of formal engineering education, at events like Maker Faires in the Maker Community, it does seem evident that there is a lot of overlap between a making mindset and a designerly way of knowing or engineering way of knowing. In the sphere of formal engineering education however, making is regularly viewed as lesser than engineering, engineering design without the engineering science or analysis. Making is not yet valued as part of formal engineering education efforts. If making is something that can be connected to beneficial student learning and is additive to the required technical content and provides a means for students to figure out what area of problems they want to tackle in the studies and beyond, it would make for a student-centered making revolution. This study advances the knowledge of the learning pathways of making by capturing empirical evidence of such learning trajectories. This study will advance the currently limited knowledge of learning in the making community and making in the engineering classroom. Initial findings generated during this study describe the learning trajectories of engineers learning making. By examining the engineering student making learning experience through the lens of cognitive science and illustrating empirical making learning trajectories, this work may impact the quality of engineering design teaching. By sharing learning trajectories across multiple communities, we seek to change the conversation by illuminating pathways for a wider array of student makers to become the makers and engineers of the future. 

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4. Design Process Geometries: Shapes and Learning Trajectories of Engineering Students’ Design Process Concept Maps

   Lande, Micah ; Liu, Yue ( June 2019 , ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   The research objective of this NSF-funded study is to explore and understand how open-ended, hands-on making work and activities can reflect student learning trajectories and learning gains in the product-based learning, undergraduate engineering classroom. The aim is to expand understanding of what making learning in the context of engineering design education might be and to illustrate educational pathways within the engineering education curriculum. Making is rooted in constructionism – learning by doing and constructing knowledge through that doing. Aspects of making work and activities that are unique to making that could appear in the engineering classroom or curriculum include: sharing, practical ingenuity, personal investment, playful invention, risk taking, community building and self-directed learning. The main research questions of this work is: How do engineering students learn and apply making? What are the attributes of making in the engineering classroom? Empirical evidence of what making in the engineering classroom looks like, and how it changes over time, and how students conceptualize making through making, designerly, and engineering ways of knowing-doing-acting will come from revisiting and additional qualitative analysis of student project data collected during a product-based learning course engineering design course. To best address the research question, this proposed study proposes multiple qualitative methods to collect and analyze data on engineering students learning making. We aim to triangulate what students think they are learning, what they are being taught, and what students are demonstrating. This work is exploratory in nature. In our approach to understanding making outside of formal engineering education, at events like Maker Faires in the Maker Community, it does seem evident that there is a lot of overlap between a making mindset and a designerly way of knowing or engineering way of knowing. In the sphere of formal engineering education however, making is regularly viewed as lesser than engineering, engineering design without the engineering science or analysis. Making is not yet valued as part of formal engineering education efforts. If making is something that can be connected to beneficial student learning and is additive to the required technical content and provides a means for students to figure out what area of problems they want to tackle in the studies and beyond, it would make for a student-centered making revolution. This study advances the knowledge of the learning pathways of making by capturing empirical evidence of such learning trajectories. This study will advance the currently limited knowledge of learning in the making community and making in the engineering classroom. Initial findings generated during this study describe the learning trajectories of engineers learning making. By examining the engineering student making learning experience through the lens of cognitive science and illustrating empirical making learning trajectories, this work may impact the quality of engineering design teaching. By sharing learning trajectories across multiple communities, we seek to change the conversation by illuminating pathways for a wider array of student makers to become the makers and engineers of the future. 

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5. Student Learning Trajectories from Making and Engineering Activities

   Lande, M ( January 2018 , Review & directory - American Society for Engineering Education)

   The research objective of this NSF-funded study is to explore and understand how open-ended, hands-on making work and activities can reflect student learning trajectories and learning gains in the product-based learning, undergraduate engineering classroom. The aim is to expand understanding of what making learning in the context of engineering design education might be and to illustrate educational pathways within the engineering education curriculum. Making is rooted in constructionism – learning by doing and constructing knowledge through that doing. Aspects of making work and activities that are unique to making that could appear in the engineering classroom or curriculum include: sharing, practical ingenuity, personal investment, playful invention, risk taking, community building and self-directed learning. The main research questions of this work is: How do engineering students learn and apply making? What are the attributes of making in the engineering classroom? Empirical evidence of what making in the engineering classroom looks like, and how it changes over time, and how students conceptualize making through making, designerly, and engineering ways of knowing-doing-acting will come from revisiting and additional qualitative analysis of student project data collected during a product-based learning course engineering design course. To best address the research question, this proposed study proposes multiple qualitative methods to collect and analyze data on engineering students learning making. We aim to triangulate what students think they are learning, what they are being taught, and what students are demonstrating. This work is exploratory in nature. In our approach to understanding making outside of formal engineering education, at events like Maker Faires in the Maker Community, it does seem evident that there is a lot of overlap between a making mindset and a designerly way of knowing or engineering way of knowing. In the sphere of formal engineering education however, making is regularly viewed as lesser than engineering, engineering design without the engineering science or analysis. Making is not yet valued as part of formal engineering education efforts. If making is something that can be connected to beneficial student learning and is additive to the required technical content and provides a means for students to figure out what area of problems they want to tackle in the studies and beyond, it would make for a student-centered making revolution. This study advances the knowledge of the learning pathways of making by capturing empirical evidence of such learning trajectories. This study will advance the currently limited knowledge of learning in the making community and making in the engineering classroom. Initial findings generated during this study describe the learning trajectories of engineers learning making. By examining the engineering student making learning experience through the lens of cognitive science and illustrating empirical making learning trajectories, this work may impact the quality of engineering design teaching. By sharing learning trajectories across multiple communities, we seek to change the conversation by illuminating pathways for a wider array of student makers to become the makers and engineers of the future. 

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