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1. NSF RED: Supporting Convergence Development through Structural Changes to an ECE Program

   Cheville, R. A. ; Appelhans, S. E. ; Thomas. R. ; Thomas, S. ; Nickel, R. M. ; Thompson, M. S. ( January 2022 , American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exhibition)

   This NSF Grantees poster discusses an early phase Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) project which is designed to address preparing engineering students to address large scale societal problems, the solutions of which integrate multiple disciplinary perspectives. These types of problems are often termed “convergent problems”. The idea of convergence captures how different domains of expertise contribute to solving a problem, but also the value of the network of connections between areas of knowledge that is built in undertaking such activities. While most existing efforts at convergence focus at the graduate and post-graduate levels, this project supports student development of capabilities to address convergent problems in an undergraduate disciplinary-based degree program in electrical and computer engineering. This poster discusses some of the challenges faced in implementing such learning including how to decouple engineering topics from societal concerns in ways that are relevant to undergraduate students yet retain aspects of convergence, negotiations between faculty on ways to balance discipline-specific skills with the breadth required for systemic understanding, and challenges in integrating relevant projects into courses with different faculty and instructional learning goals. One of the features of the project is that it builds on ideas from Communities of Transformation by basing activities on a coherent philosophical model that guides theories of change. The project has adopted Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom or capabilities framework as the organizing philosophy. In this model the freedom for individuals to develop capabilities they value is viewed as both the means and end of development. The overarching goal of the project is then for students to build personalized frameworks based on their value systems which allow them to later address complex, convergent problems. Framework development by individual students is supported in the project through several activities: modifying grading practices to provide detailed feedback on skills that support convergence, eliciting self-narratives from students about their pathways through courses and projects with the goal of developing reflection, and carefully integrating educational software solutions that can reduce some aspects of faculty workload which is hypothesized to enable faculty to focus efforts on integrating convergent projects throughout the curriculum. The poster will present initial results on the interventions to the program including grading, software integration, projects, and narratives. The work presented will also cover an ethnographic study of faculty practices which serves as an early-stage baseline to calibrate longer-term changes. 

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2. Moving Toward Transdisciplinary Learning Around Topics of Convergence: Is it really Possible in Higher Education Today?

   Strimel, G. ; Pruim, D. ; Briller, S. ; Martinez, R. ; Lucas, D. ; Kelley, T. ; Sohn, J. ( June 2023 , Review directory American Society for Engineering Education)

   There have been numerous demands for enhancements in the way undergraduate learning occurs today, especially at a time when the value of higher education continues to be called into question (The Boyer 2030 Commission, 2022). One type of demand has been for the increased integration of subjects/disciplines around relevant issues/topics—with a more recent trend of seeking transdisciplinary learning experiences for students (Sheets, 2016; American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2019). Transdisciplinary learning can be viewed as the holistic way of working equally across disciplines to transcend their own disciplinary boundaries to form new conceptual understandings as well as develop new ways in which to address complex topics or challenges (Ertas, Maxwell, Rainey, & Tanik, 2003; Park & Son, 2010). This transdisciplinary approach can be important as humanity’s problems are not typically discipline specific and require the convergence of competencies to lead to innovative thinking across fields of study. However, higher education continues to be siloed which makes the authentic teaching of converging topics, such as innovation, human-technology interactions, climate concerns, or harnessing the data revolution, organizationally difficult (Birx, 2019; Serdyukov, 2017). For example, working across a university’s academic units to collaboratively teach, or co-teach, around topics of convergence are likely to be rejected by the university systems that have been built upon longstanding traditions. While disciplinary expertise is necessary and one of higher education’s strengths, the structures and academic rigidity that come along with the disciplinary silos can prevent modifications/improvements to the roles of academic units/disciplines that could better prepare students for the future of both work and learning. The balancing of disciplinary structure with transdisciplinary approaches to solving problems and learning is a challenge that must be persistently addressed. These institutional challenges will only continue to limit universities seeking toward scaling transdisciplinary programs and experimenting with novel ways to enhance the value of higher education for students and society. This then restricts innovations to teaching and also hinders the sharing of important practices across disciplines. To address these concerns, a National Science Foundation Improving Undergraduate STEM Education project team, which is the topic of this paper, has set the goal of developing/implementing/testing an authentically transdisciplinary, and scalable educational model in an effort to help guide the transformation of traditional undergraduate learning to span academics silos. This educational model, referred to as the Mission, Meaning, Making (M3) program, is specifically focused on teaching the crosscutting practices of innovation by a) implementing co-teaching and co-learning from faculty and students across different academic units/colleges as well as b) offering learning experiences spanning multiple semesters that immerse students in a community that can nourish both their learning and innovative ideas. As a collaborative initiative, the M3 program is designed to synergize key strengths of an institution’s engineering/technology, liberal arts, and business colleges/units to create a transformative undergraduate experience focused on the pursuit of innovation—one that reaches the broader campus community, regardless of students’ backgrounds or majors. Throughout the development of this model, research was conducted to help identify institutional barriers toward creating such a cross-college program at a research-intensive public university along with uncovering ways in which to address these barriers. While data can show how students value and enjoy transdisciplinary experiences, universities are not likely to be structured in a way to support these educational initiatives and they will face challenges throughout their lifespan. These challenges can result from administration turnover whereas mutual agreements across colleges may then vanish, continued disputes over academic territory, and challenges over resource allotments. Essentially, there may be little to no incentives for academic departments to engage in transdisciplinary programming within the existing structures of higher education. However, some insights and practices have emerged from this research project that can be useful in moving toward transdisciplinary learning around topics of convergence. Accordingly, the paper will highlight features of an educational model that spans disciplines along with the workarounds to current institutional barriers. This paper will also provide lessons learned related to 1) the potential pitfalls with educational programming becoming “un-disciplinary” rather than transdisciplinary, 2) ways in which to incentivize departments/faculty to engage in transdisciplinary efforts, and 3) new structures within higher education that can be used to help faculty/students/staff to more easily converge to increase access to learning across academic boundaries. 

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3. Interpersonal Interactions that Foster Inclusion: Building Supports for Diversity in Engineering Teams

   Rodríguez-Simmonds, Héctor E. ; Jackson, Benjamin P. ; Pearson, Nelson S. ; Langus, Tara C. ; Major, Justin C. ; Kirn, Adam ; Godwin, Allison ( January 2018 , ASEE annual conference & exposition)

   Teaming is a core part of engineering education, especially in the first and last years of engineering when project work is a prevalent focus. The literature on the effects of working in diverse teams is mixed. Negative findings include decreased affect, increased frustration, and sustained conflict in teams. Positive findings include increased productivity, production of high quality products, and divergent-thinking and idea generation. Given these mixed findings, it becomes important to not only understand the practical outputs of working in diverse teams, but also how the experience of working in diverse teams influences whether students see themselves as engineers and whether or not they feel they belong in engineering. Our project, Building Supports for Diversity through Engineering Teams, investigates how students’ attitudes towards diversity influence how students experience work in diverse teams through addressing two main research questions: 1) What changes occur in students’ diversity sensitivity, multicultural effectiveness, and engineering practices as a result of working in diverse teams? 2) How do students’ perceptions of diversity, affect, and engineering practices change because of working on diverse teams? Using a multi-method approach, we deployed survey instruments to determine changes in student’s attitudes about teaming, diversity sensitivity, and openness attitudes. We also observed students working in teams and interviewed these students about their perceptions of diversity and experiences in their teams. Preliminary results of the quantitative phase show that variance in students’ attitudes about diversity significantly increase over the semester, further reflecting the mixed results that have been seen previously in the literature. Additionally, Social Network Analysis was used to characterize the social structure practices of a multi-section, large-enrollment first-year engineering course. This reveals the underlying social structure of the environment, its inclusiveness, and how diverse students work with others on engineering. Initial results indicate that students are included in social networks regardless of gender and race. Preliminary results of the qualitative phase, using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis, have yielded relationships between student’s definitions, valuation, and enactment of diversity in engineering spaces. Individual student’s incoming attitudes of diversity and previous experiences interact with practical needs in first-year engineering classrooms to create different microclimates within each team. These microclimates depict tensions between what instructors emphasize about diversity, stereotypes of engineering as focused on technical instead of social skills, and pragmatic forces of “getting the job done.” This knowledge can help explain some of the complexity behind the conflicting literature on diversity in teams. Ultimately, this research can help us understand how to build inclusive and diverse environments that guide students to learn how to understand their own complex relationship, understanding, and enactment of diversity in engineering. By understanding how students make sense of diversity in engineering spaces, educators and researchers can figure out how to introduce these concepts in relevant ways so that students can inclusively meet the grand challenges in engineering. This curriculum integration, in turn, can improve team interactions and the climate of engineering for underrepresented groups. 

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4. Assessing Awareness and Competency of Engineering Freshmen on Ethical and Responsible Research and Practices

   1. Brahmbhatt*, P. ( June 2022 , Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education)

   This paper presents the initial work of a recently funded NSF project on ethical and responsible research and practices in science and engineering. The objective of this research is to improve instructor training, interventions, and student outcomes in high schools and universities to improve awareness and commitment to ethical practices in STEM coursework. The project will generate a robust snapshot of the ethical knowledge, reasoning skills, attitudes, and practices of several thousand undergraduate engineering students. This snapshot will inform the development of a three-week enrichment opportunity for high school STEM teachers. Working with university faculty and graduate students, these teachers will develop learning modules on ethical issues related to their courses. The snapshot will also identify gaps and guide the creation of targeted interventions that will be used in second-, third-, and fourth-year engineering courses. This data-driven project uses a mixed-methods approach to generate a better understanding of the impact of ethics interventions at various points in a student's academic development by developing and using a set of instruments to measure cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects of ethical competency and self-efficacy. To that end, a second snapshot will be taken by testing and surveying engineering students in their capstone courses to provide a broad overview of the competence and self-confidence that engineering students have in dealing with ethical STEM issues, to determine the efficacy of various interventions, and to improve future interventions. Utilizing repeated measures and possessing a longitudinal dimension, the project will generate extensive data about the development of ethical competency, ethical self-efficacy, and their relationship. The interventions designed for secondary and tertiary classrooms will build on best practices for micro-insertion of ethics content that are practical and help students understand how technical competencies fit within broader social, economic, and environmental contexts. The capstone snapshot will also provide some measure of the impact of other experiences (e.g., undergraduate research, internships, service learning) and courses (e.g., humanities, social science, and business courses) on development of ethical practices. This report marks the start of a five-year project; therefore, the results presented in this paper represent findings from the engineering ethics literature and baseline results from survey of engineering freshmen at Texas A&M University. The findings from the survey are being utilized in developing intervention modules that will be integrated in upper-level engineering courses and training materials for high school teachers. 

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5. Engaging STEM Transformational Experiences for Early Momentum (ESTEEM)

   Yahdi, Mohammed ; Bracey, Zoe Buck ( November 2019 , National Science Foundation -  Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) Program Principal Investigator (PI) Meeting, November 2019.)

   Need/Motivation (e.g., goals, gaps in knowledge) The ESTEEM implemented a STEM building capacity project through students’ early access to a sustainable and innovative STEM Stepping Stones, called Micro-Internships (MI). The goal is to reap key benefits of a full-length internship and undergraduate research experiences in an abbreviated format, including access, success, degree completion, transfer, and recruiting and retaining more Latinx and underrepresented students into the STEM workforce. The MIs are designed with the goals to provide opportunities for students at a community college and HSI, with authentic STEM research and applied learning experiences (ALE), support for appropriate STEM pathway/career, preparation and confidence to succeed in STEM and engage in summer long REUs, and with improved outcomes. The MI projects are accessible early to more students and build momentum to better overcome critical obstacles to success. The MIs are shorter, flexibly scheduled throughout the year, easily accessible, and participation in multiple MI is encouraged. ESTEEM also establishes a sustainable and collaborative model, working with partners from BSCS Science Education, for MI’s mentor, training, compliance, and building capacity, with shared values and practices to maximize the improvement of student outcomes. New Knowledge (e.g., hypothesis, research questions) Research indicates that REU/internship experiences can be particularly powerful for students from Latinx and underrepresented groups in STEM. However, those experiences are difficult to access for many HSI-community college students (85% of our students hold off-campus jobs), and lack of confidence is a barrier for a majority of our students. The gap between those who can and those who cannot is the “internship access gap.” This project is at a central California Community College (CCC) and HSI, the only affordable post-secondary option in a region serving a historically underrepresented population in STEM, including 75% Hispanic, and 87% have not completed college. MI is designed to reduce inequalities inherent in the internship paradigm by providing access to professional and research skills for those underserved students. The MI has been designed to reduce barriers by offering: shorter duration (25 contact hours); flexible timing (one week to once a week over many weeks); open access/large group; and proximal location (on-campus). MI mentors participate in week-long summer workshops and ongoing monthly community of practice with the goal of co-constructing a shared vision, engaging in conversations about pedagogy and learning, and sustaining the MI program going forward. Approach (e.g., objectives/specific aims, research methodologies, and analysis) Research Question and Methodology: We want to know: How does participation in a micro-internship affect students’ interest and confidence to pursue STEM? We used a mixed-methods design triangulating quantitative Likert-style survey data with interpretive coding of open-responses to reveal themes in students’ motivations, attitudes toward STEM, and confidence. Participants: The study sampled students enrolled either part-time or full-time at the community college. Although each MI was classified within STEM, they were open to any interested student in any major. Demographically, participants self-identified as 70% Hispanic/Latinx, 13% Mixed-Race, and 42 female. Instrument: Student surveys were developed from two previously validated instruments that examine the impact of the MI intervention on student interest in STEM careers and pursuing internships/REUs. Also, the pre- and post (every e months to assess longitudinal outcomes) -surveys included relevant open response prompts. The surveys collected students’ demographics; interest, confidence, and motivation in pursuing a career in STEM; perceived obstacles; and past experiences with internships and MIs. 171 students responded to the pre-survey at the time of submission. Outcomes (e.g., preliminary findings, accomplishments to date) Because we just finished year 1, we lack at this time longitudinal data to reveal if student confidence is maintained over time and whether or not students are more likely to (i) enroll in more internships, (ii) transfer to a four-year university, or (iii) shorten the time it takes for degree attainment. For short term outcomes, students significantly Increased their confidence to continue pursuing opportunities to develop within the STEM pipeline, including full-length internships, completing STEM degrees, and applying for jobs in STEM. For example, using a 2-tailed t-test we compared means before and after the MI experience. 15 out of 16 questions that showed improvement in scores were related to student confidence to pursue STEM or perceived enjoyment of a STEM career. Finding from the free-response questions, showed that the majority of students reported enrolling in the MI to gain knowledge and experience. After the MI, 66% of students reported having gained valuable knowledge and experience, and 35% of students spoke about gaining confidence and/or momentum to pursue STEM as a career. Broader Impacts (e.g., the participation of underrepresented minorities in STEM; development of a diverse STEM workforce, enhanced infrastructure for research and education) The ESTEEM project has the potential for a transformational impact on STEM undergraduate education’s access and success for underrepresented and Latinx community college students, as well as for STEM capacity building at Hartnell College, a CCC and HSI, for students, faculty, professionals, and processes that foster research in STEM and education. Through sharing and transfer abilities of the ESTEEM model to similar institutions, the project has the potential to change the way students are served at an early and critical stage of their higher education experience at CCC, where one in every five community college student in the nation attends a CCC, over 67% of CCC students identify themselves with ethnic backgrounds that are not White, and 40 to 50% of University of California and California State University graduates in STEM started at a CCC, thus making it a key leverage point for recruiting and retaining a more diverse STEM workforce. 

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