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1. Faculty perceptions of and approaches towards engineering student motivation at Hispanic Serving Institutions

   Salgado, H; Kendall, M; Urquidi, Y; Coso Strong, A (July 2021, American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference)

   This research paper examines faculty perceptions of and approaches towards fostering students’ motivation to learn engineering at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs). By aligning learning experiences with what motivates Hispanic or Latinx students, the resulting higher student motivation could increase the sense of belonging for underrepresented populations in engineering, ultimately improving student retention and persistence through meaningful instructional practices. Motivation to learn encompasses individuals' perspectives about themselves, the course material, the broader educational curriculum, and their role in their own learning [1]. Students’ motivation can be supported or hindered by their interactions with others, peers, and educators. As such, an educator’s teaching style is a critical part of this process [2]. Therefore, because of the link between a faculty member’s ability to foster student motivation and improved learning outcomes, this paper seeks to explore how engineering faculty approach student motivation in their course designs at Hispanic-Serving Institutions. Humans are curious beings naturally drawn to exploration and learning. Self Determination Theory (SDT), popularized by Ryan and Deci, describes the interconnection of extrinsic (external) and intrinsic (internal) motivators, acknowledging the link between student’s physiological needs and their learning motivations [1], [3]. SDT proposes that students must experience the satisfaction of competence, autonomy, and relatedness for a high level of intrinsic motivation. Further, research indicates that appropriately structured, highly autonomy-supportive teaching styles that foster intrinsic motivation are associated with improved student outcomes [2]. However, further research is needed to observe how faculty prioritize students’ innate needs and how they seek to foster student motivation in tangible ways within their engineering classrooms. Therefore, this paper seeks to answer the following research question: What educational supports do engineering faculty at HSIs propose to embed in their curricula to increase their students’ intrinsic motivation? To answer this question, thirty-six engineering educators from thirteen two- and four-year HSIs from across the continental United States were introduced to the SDT and approaches for supporting students’ intrinsic motivation during a multi-institutional faculty development workshop series. Participants were asked to reflect on and prototype learning experiences that would promote intrinsic motivation and fulfill students’ needs for competence, relatedness, and autonomy to learn engineering [1]. Data were collected through a series of reflection worksheets where participants were asked to describe their target stakeholders, define a course redesign goal, and generate possible solutions while considering the impact of the redesign on student motivation. Qualitative analysis was used to explore participant responses. Analysis indicates that the participants were more likely to simultaneously address multiple motivational constructs when attempting to improve student motivation, rather than addressing them individually. Some of these approaches included the adoption of autonomy-supportive and structured teaching styles. As a result of this research, there is potential to influence future faculty development opportunities at HSIs and further explore intentional learning experiences that promote and foster intrinsic motivation in the engineering classroom. 

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2. Student perceptions of confidence in learning and teaching before and after teaching improvements

   Orton, S.; Yu, F.; Flores, L.; & Marra, R. (June 2023, 2023 ASEE Annual Conference)

   As part of an overall research program investigating the impact of changes in teaching strategies on students' engineering social cognitions (self-efficacy and outcome expectations), this paper investigates students' confidence in their ability to learn and their instructor's ability to teach across 6 engineering courses. A group of 6 faculty formed a learning community focused on improved teaching strategies for their classes. The faculty chose selected strategies and implemented them in their classes. Surveys asked students to rank their confidence level in "their ability to learn" the specific class material and the instructor's "ability to teach" the class material using a sliding bar scale from 0-100. Surveys were conducted before and after the improvements to the teaching strategies at both the beginning and end of the semesters. The results of the surveys are compared before and after the teaching improvements, beginning to end of semester, per course, online to in-person, and per gender. In summary, the study found that while there was no significant difference in the control group, a decrease in students’ confidence to learn and in their confidence in their instructors’ ability to teach was observed in the treatment group. This decrease was observed in specific courses that changed instructional modes due to Covid. Despite teaching improvements, students’ confidence decreased as they moved through the course material. Further research is needed to explore these findings and their implications for teaching strategies. 

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3. Examining the Implementation and Impact of Reflective Practices in Engineering Courses: Insights from Faculty and Teaching Assistants

   Salami, I; Perry, L; Diefes-Dux, H A; Panther, G (June 2024, American)

   This paper explores the implementation and impact of reflective practices in engineering courses, as perceived by faculty members and teaching assistants (TAs) who integrated these strategies in their Spring 2023 course offerings. Reflection provides a valuable opportunity for students to enhance their learning process and become more self-aware of their strengths, weaknesses, and overall progress. This study aims to investigate the experiences and perceptions of instructors who employed reflective practices and gain insights into the effectiveness and challenges associated with their implementation. The qualitative research design employed for this study involved conducting in-depth interviews with faculty members and TAs from two engineering disciplines, civil and environmental engineering, and biological systems engineering. These reflective practices encompassed six reflections over the semester, all aimed at promoting metacognition and fostering meaningful learning experiences. The interviews were structured to elicit detailed information regarding the perceived usefulness of reflective practices, the strategies employed, the perceived impact on student learning outcomes, and any observed challenges encountered during implementation. Preliminary results from interviews with three faculty members and three TAs highlighted the diverse ways in which reflective practices were integrated into engineering courses. Common themes emerged concerning the perceived benefits, including student and instructor growth, better self-regulation skills for the students, deeper learning, and enhanced critical thinking skills. Moreover, instructors found that these strategies could foster a more productive learning environment and improved student-teacher communication. However, challenges included time constraints, student resistance, and off-topic reflections. Faculty members and TAs stressed the importance of clear guidelines and scaffolding to optimize the effectiveness of reflective practices and mitigate these challenges. The findings from this study will contribute to the scholarship of teaching and learning by providing empirical evidence on the successful implementation and positive outcomes of reflective practices in engineering education. This study also pinpoints valuable recommendations for instructors seeking to implement reflective strategies effectively. Additionally, the insights gained provide a foundation for further research and discussion regarding the integration of reflective practices into alternative STEM disciplines. 

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4. Faculty Use of Active Learning in Community Colleges

   Chasen, A.* (June 2023, Proceedings 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   This paper will highlight a small subsection of a larger scale project that focuses on increasing the use of active learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) classrooms. Our overall project goals seek to expand the adoption of active learning in STEM classrooms. Active learning has been shown to improve student grades, retention rates, and overall understanding of course material. We define active learning as any time an instructor goes beyond lecturing to their students (e.g., think-pair-shares, class discussions). Research has shown adoption of active learning in STEM courses has been slow with one common cited reason for not implementing active learning in their courses is the fear of student resistance. Student resistance can be defined as any negative student reaction to active learning (e.g., distracting others, giving lower course evaluations, or refusing to participate in the activity). For this study, we recruited instructors from across the nation in the Summer of 2021 and collected data from instructors and students from Fall 2021-Winter 2022. During recruitment, we paid particular attention on ensuring we were recruiting instructors from a broad swath of institution types, including doctoral granting institutions, community colleges, and everything in between. While much of the research on active learning has focused on 4-year schools, this research aims to elucidate what active learning looks like in community colleges, as well as community college student perspectives on these activities. Additional data will share common strategies used for implementing active learning that differ between community college and four-year settings. This paper focuses on how instructors teaching at community colleges are using active learning in their classrooms and their attitudes towards active learning. Additionally, we will explore the instructor’s self-efficacy towards using active learning in the hopes of having a better overall understanding of what is occurring in STEM community college classrooms and where potential improvements can be made in terms of faculty development. 

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5. Teaching Explicit Programming Strategies to Adolescents

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3287324.3287371  

   Ko, Amy J.; LaToza, Thomas D.; Hull, Stephen; Ko, Ellen A.; Kwok, William; Quichocho, Jane; Akkaraju, Harshitha; Pandit, Rishin (January 2019, Symposium on Computer Science Education)

   One way to teach programming problem solving is to teach explicit, step-by-step strategies. While prior work has shown these to be effective in controlled settings, there has been little work investigating their efficacy in classrooms. We conducted a 5-week case study with 17 students aged 15-18, investigating students' sentiments toward two strategies for debugging and code reuse, students' use of scaffolding to execute these strategies, and associations between students' strategy use and their success at independently writing programs in class. We found that while students reported the strategies to be valuable, many had trouble regulating their choice of strategies, defaulting to ineffective trial and error, even when they knew systematic strategies would be more effective. Students that embraced the debugging strategy completed more features in a game development project, but this association was mediated by other factors, such as reliance on help, strategy self-efficacy, and mastery of the programming language used in the class. These results suggest that teaching of strategies may require more explicit instruction on strategy selection and self-regulation. 

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