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1. Lessons Learned from Teaching Culturally Relevant Engineering Design in K–12 Classrooms and Applying Them to Undergraduate Engineering Courses

   Klemetsrud, BJ ; Bowman, FM ( June 2023 , 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   When confronted with systematic racism, social justice, and equity issues, engineering and STEM education often assumes that these topics will be covered in other courses and are not relevant to STEM. However, engineering as a discipline has one of the greatest effects on society’s well-being. From the raw materials used, products created, and emissions generated, all aspects of engineering have direct and indirect impacts on humanity. Our current engineering education project works with upper elementary and middle school teachers to apply a culturally relevant engineering design (CRED) framework within their classrooms. This framework is adapted from UTeachEngineering and culturally relevant pedagogy from Gay and Billings is embedded within each step of the design process. The North Dakota Native American Essential Understandings are used to frame and inform the culturally relevant pedagogy. Tribal elder’s stories and experiences are centered along with community leaders in each of the school’s communities. Responses from students and teachers has been overwhelmingly positive. Teachers have noticed increased engagement from all students when cultural and community leaders have been invited into the classroom and involved in the engineering design process. Students who normally do not see themselves represented in STEM professions have taken active leadership roles in their group’s engineering design process. Teachers have also recognized that culturally relevant pedagogy can be utilized in all aspects of their curricula. With the success of the project in elementary and middle school classrooms, the question then became, how can we see similar success in our college classrooms? When brainstorming how to incorporate culture and community in our curricula it became apparent that best practices in engineering education have the opportunity to intentionally involve community and cultural leaders. ABET learning outcomes require the “consideration of public health, safety, and welfare” in engineering design and “the impact of engineering solutions in global, economic, environmental, and societal contexts.” When making engineering design decisions, who will be affected if there is an accidental release of chemicals to the environment? Which communities are affected by global warming? Will the public be able to afford the new product that is being produced? Will the new processes or products add value to people’s lives? And how do we train future engineers to consider all community members, not just those who look like them, but those from the most marginalized groups? This talk will introduce our culturally relevant engineering design framework, provide ways to include community and cultural leaders within courses, and how, with the help of Northwestern’s Anti-Racism, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion resources, to create homework problems that reflect social justice and equity issues within engineering 

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2. Engaging Students in Exploring Computer Hardware Fundamentals Using FPGA Board Games.

   Ramirez-Salgado, A. ; Hossain, T. ; Hoque, T. ; Bhunia, S. ; Koroly, M. J. ; Davey, B. ; Antonenko, P. ( June 2023 , 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   Electronic devices have become indispensable in everyone’s life and so the computer hardware industry is demanding skilled professionals to design and physically implement devices to satisfy the market. However, misconceptions surrounding manufacturing jobs and the increasing initiatives to motivate students with engineering majors to focus on software-related topics such as artificial intelligence and blockchain are hindering students’ interest in hardware computing. Our project, funded by the NSF’s Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) program, addresses the need to engage more students in explorations (and, eventually, design) of computer hardware by developing a set of games played on an easy-to-use hardware platform to understand and implement the fundamental concepts that are essential to modern computing systems (Figure 1). To encourage flexible and broad adoption, the games are conceived as standalone units within a curriculum design that leverages equitable pedagogical practices, experiential learning, and inquiry-based learning to cultivate engineering identity and persistence using situational interest and self-efficacy theories. We aim to offer the curriculum as an elective undergraduate course for all engineering majors at two US institutions and also research and evaluate the feasibility of implementing it as a summer program with high school students. Each module in the curriculum is divided into 5 phases: activation of prior knowledge, mini-lesson, gameplay, student-led work time, and debriefing. The games support collaboration rather than competition, and each lesson is tagged with equity spotlights, including Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies (CSP) principles. Finally, informed by the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework, each lesson includes a teacher implementation guide and teacher educative materials to facilitate implementation (Figure 2). We have tested the first two games in the curriculum for usability and feasibility with a group of high school students. The topics of these games include binary arithmetic and Boolean logic gates. Participants were challenged to solve tasks using the hardware tools at their disposal. This usability and feasibility testing study provided us with important design and implementation implications. 

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3. Toward a justice‐centered ambitious teaching framework: Shaping ambitious science teaching to be culturally sustaining and productive in a rural context

   https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21917  

   Luehmann, April ; Zhang, Yang ; Boyle, Heather ; Tulbert, Eve ; Merliss, Gena ; Sullivan, Kyle ( November 2023 , Journal of Research in Science Teaching)

   We find ourselves at a time when the need for transformation in science education is aligning with opportunity. Significant science education resources, namely the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the Ambitious Science Teaching (AST) framework, need an intentional aim of centering social justice for minoritized communities and youth as well as practices to enact it. While NGSS and AST provide concrete guidelines to support deep learning, revisions are needed to explicitly promote social justice. In this study, we sought to understand how a commitment to social justice, operationalized through culturally sustaining pedagogy (Paris, Culturally sustaining pedagogies and our futures.The Educational Forum, 2021; 85, pp. 364–376), might shape the AST framework to promote more critical versions of teaching science for equity. Through a qualitative multi‐case study, we observed three preservice teacher teams engaged in planning, teaching, and debriefing a 6‐day summer camp in a rural community. Findings showed that teachers shaped the AST sets of practices in ways that sustained local culture and addressed equity aims: anchoring scientific study in phenomena important to community stakeholders; using legitimizing students' stories by both using them to plan the following lessons and as data for scientific argumentation; introducing local community members as scientific experts, ultimately supporting a new sense of pride and advocacy for their community; and supporting students in publicly communicating their developing scientific expertise to community stakeholders. In shaping the AST framework through culturally sustaining pedagogy, teachers made notable investments: developing local networks; learning about local geography, history, and culture; building relationships with students; adapting lessons to incorporate students' ideas; connecting with community stakeholders to build scientific collaborations; and preparing to share their work publicly with the community. Using these findings, we offer a justice‐centered ambitious science teaching (JuST) framework that can deliver the benefits of a framework of practices while also engaging in the necessarily more critical elements of equity work.

    

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4. Culturally Sustaining STEM Learning in the Gullah Community

   Ciphrah, Regina ; Boyd, Fenice ; Ellis, Jamelle ( January 2022 , National Science Foundation (NSF) STEM for All Video Showcase)

   Culture plays a significant role in students’ learning and understanding. Teaching and learning are most effective when teachers make curricula relevant to students’ cultural, linguistic and experiential backgrounds, and when they take time to know and understand their students and the community they serve. The Culturally Sustaining STEM (CS-STEM) Institute is a feasibility study designed to support professional learning of in-service and preservice teachers in community-based settings. Funded by NSF AISL and ITEST programs, the study is comprised of three goals: supporting preservice and in-service teachers’ practices of culturally-sustaining STEM pedagogy, enhancing pre-adolescent learners’ knowledge of historical and current STEM practices in Gullah Geechee culture, inviting dialogue that critique and challenge perceptions of who participates in STEM agency and how through a Community-based Participatory Research (CBPR) model. A primary component of the study was a pilot summer 2021 STEM camp for fifth and sixth grade students in Georgetown, SC, located within the geographical footprint of the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor. The multi-PI team utilizes constant comparative analytic methods to analyze transcripts from observations and interviews, as well as the educators’ products to measure how the educators understand and apply culturally sustaining pedagogies (e.g., lesson plans). They also measure how the youth convey their understandings of culturally-embedded scientific content and practices by using constant comparative and multimodal analysis of transcripts from interviews and observations, as well as youth-generated artifacts. This research addresses why CS-STEM is important, development and enactment of CS-STEM curriculum, and how CS-STEM increases STEM literacy. 

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5. Eco-STEM: Transforming STEM Education using an Assetbased Ecosystem Model

   Menezes, G. ; Bowen, C. ; Dong, J. ; Thompson, L. ; Warter-Perez, N. ; Heubach, S. ; Galvan, D. ; Mijares, J. ; Schiorring, E. ; Allen, E. ( January 2022 , 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   A 2019 report from the National Academies on Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) concluded that MSIs need to change their culture to successfully serve students with marginalized racial and/or ethnic identities. The report recommends institutional responsiveness to meet students “where they are,” metaphorically, creating supportive campus environments and providing tailored academic and social support structures. In recent years, the faculty, staff, and administrators at California State University, Los Angeles have made significant efforts to enhance student success through multiple initiatives including a summer bridge program, first-year in engineering program, etc. However, it has become clear that more profound changes are needed to create a culture that meets students “where they are.” In 2020, we were awarded NSF support for Eco-STEM, an initiative designed to change a system that demands "college-ready" students into one that is "student-ready." Aimed at shifting the deficit mindset prevailing in engineering education, the Eco-STEM project embraces an asset-based ecosystem model that thinks of education as cultivation, and ideas as seeds we are planting, rather than a system of standards and quality checks. This significant paradigm and culture transformation is accomplished through: 1) The Eco-STEM Faculty Fellows’ Community of Practice (CoP), which employs critically reflective dialogue[ ][ ] to enhance the learning environment using asset-based learner-centered instructional approaches; 2) A Leadership CoP with department chairs and program directors that guides cultural change at the department/program level; 3) A Facilitators’ CoP that prepares facilitators to lead, sustain, update, and expand the Faculty and Leadership CoPs; 4) Reform of the teaching evaluation system to sustain the cultural changes. This paper presents the progress and preliminary findings of the Eco-STEM project. During the first project year, the project team formulated the curriculum for the Faculty CoP with a focus on inclusive pedagogy, community cultural wealth, and community building, developed a classroom peer observation tool to provide formative data for teaching reflection, and designed research inquiry tools. The latter investigates the following research questions: 1) To what extent do the Eco-STEM CoPs effectively shift the mental models of participants from a factory-like model to an ecosystem model of education? 2) To what extent does this shift support an emphasis on the assets of our students, faculty, and staff members and, in turn, allow for enhanced motivation, excellence and success? 3) To what extent do new faculty assessment tools designed to provide feedback that reflects ecosystem-centric principles and values allow for individuals within the system to thrive? In Fall 2021, the first cohort of Eco-STEM Faculty Fellows were recruited, and rich conversations and in-depth reflections in our CoP meetings indicated Fellows’ positive responses to both the CoP curriculum and facilitation practices. This paper offers a work-in-progress introduction to the Eco-STEM project, including the Faculty CoP, the classroom peer observation tool, and the proposed research instruments. We hope this work will cultivate broader conversations within the engineering education research community about cultural change in engineering education and methods towards its implementation. 

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