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1. Quantifying the Impact of IDPs

   Kuniyoshi C.Y., Fuhrmann C. (June 2021, Graduate Career Consortium Annual Meeting)

   null (Ed.)

   To address the need for more structured, diverse, inclusive, equitable, holistic, and ongoing career planning, Individual Development Plans (IDPs) are used widely by academic institutions. Although IDPs have an enormous capacity to contribute to a wide scope of student outcomes including equitable training, mentorship, wellness, and career planning, assessment is complicated by the different IDP ideologies, frameworks, and tools that exist, as well as the different ways IDP creation process is facilitated. The goal of the NSF-funded Impact Indicators and Instruments for Individual Development Plans (I3IDP) project is to develop instruments to measure the outcomes and impact of IDPs on the development of graduate students in STEM. The development of these assessment instruments will facilitate the generation of comparable data within and across institutions to enhance the understanding of best practices in IDP use for PhD career planning. Of particular note is how IDPs may help lower the career and training barriers that exist for diverse and underrepresented groups. Partners behind this NSF funded project include GCC and creators from well-known IDP tools (myIDP.org, ChemIDP.org, ImaginePhD). In this interactive session we will present the indicators and outcomes of the IDP process as determined from stakeholder interviews and literature review, give participants a preview of the survey instruments, and discuss how IDP intervention can be used to provide more equitable training to graduate students and postdocs across multiple identity differences and intersectionality. 

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2. The use of the individual development plan at minority serving institutions

   https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2023.1258273  

   Chang, Chi-Ning; Justus-Smith, Cammie; Malagon-Palacios, Laura J.; Hui, John (November 2023, Frontiers in Education)

   The Individual Development Plan (IDP) is a common mentoring tool in higher education. Students and postdoctoral researchers can use an IDP to facilitate conversations with their mentors and create action plans to support future goals. The entire process helps mentees achieve both short- and long-term objectives. Little is known about how historically underrepresented minority groups are supported during this process. This study investigated IDP implementation at 504 minority serving institutions (MSIs) that primarily serve African American, Hispanic/Latinx, and Native-American populations. Using content analysis, we systematically reviewed the publicly available IDP tools and policies at each MSI. Although several crucial mentoring components and implementation strategies were identified, there was a noticeable absence of emphasis on multicultural mentoring guidance and psychosocial support throughout the process. Our findings offer decision-makers and faculty mentors insights into supporting minority trainees and lay the foundation for future research in the field of IDPs. 

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3. Board 369: Research Experiences for Teachers (RET): Engineering for People and the Planet as Inspiration to Teach Integrated STEM

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--46952  

   Chen, Katherine; Taylor, Donna; Solovey, Erin (June 2024, ASEE Conferences)

   The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) are the focus for a Research Experience for Teachers (RET) Site in Engineering at X University. The relevant and meaningful contexts of the SDGs allow middle and high school teachers and their students to easily make connections between research in a university lab setting to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) concepts in their classroom. Lesson plans inspired by the UN SDGs research experience were developed as an “integrated STEM” problem solving activity by each of the RET teachers. Ten (10) teachers comprising of both pre-service and in-service middle or high school teachers have participated in each cohort over the two years of the NSF RET grant thus far. Six weeks of authentic summer research takes place in 5 different faculty labs at X University under the mentorship of faculty and their graduate students or postdoc. Examples of the research projects include “Photocatalysis for Clean Energy and Environment,” “Genetically Engineering Plasmid DNA molecules to address Tuberculosis Antibiotic Resistance,” and “New Water-Based Technology for Plastic Recycling.” RET participants also attend a weekly coffee session to help guide the teachers through the research process and a weekly ½-day professional development (PD) session to translate the research experience into a classroom lesson plan that aligns to state standards, as well as evidence-backed curriculum design and teaching strategies. Teacher cohort building and community is fostered through group lunches and additional activities (e.g., coordinated lab visits, behind the scenes tour of a local science museum, and industry panel). For evaluation of the RET program, pre/post-surveys measured the teacher’s self-reported ability, confidence, understanding, and frequency of use of the Engineering Design Process (EDP), Integrated STEM, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Formative assessment was conducted throughout the summer on various aspects of the RET through surveys and regular check-ins with the teachers. At the end of the summer, focus groups were conducted by an external evaluator for both the teacher participants and the research mentors. Both teachers and mentors declared the program was well planned and executed. The teachers developed close bonds and connections, learned a lot from each other, had meaningful research experiences, and developed a sense of community. The research mentors reported that the teachers provided useful research contributions, were enthusiastic about the research, had genuine lab experiences, developed professional skills, and built good community connections. Areas for improvement included clear expectations for everyone, reducing steep learning curves, and consistency of mentoring across the labs. The RET program continues into the academic year with occasional meetings to report on the implementation of their research-inspired lesson plan in their classroom. The RET participants share that they are bringing in the “real world” relevance to their students with an integrated STEM lens (e.g., climate change and UN SDGs) and that they refer back to their own lab experiences (e.g., importance of measuring chemicals accurately). The research experience has made several positive impacts on the teacher participants that also benefit their students. 

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4. Virtual REU Program: Engineering Education Research

   Oenardi Lawanto, Wade H. (August 2022, 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   This paper describes a National Science Foundation-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site program conducted through virtual working environment. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, REU 2021 activities were conducted online through Canvas and Zoom communication platforms. The major aim of this program is to provide undergraduate students with experiences in engineering education research (i.e., education research in the context of engineering). This paper provides an overview of the program, and briefly describes the virtual working environment, and students’ research experiences during the 10-week program. A total of 11 undergraduate students, seven graduate mentors, and seven faculty mentors have actively participated in the program. The program is conducted in two phases: Phases 1 (i.e., Weeks 1-2) and 2 (i.e., Weeks 3-10). Phase 1 consists of preparatory and foundational work that is delivered to participants and will allow them to begin Phase 2 with some educational research foundation already established. The results of the project evaluation show that the program has made a positive impact on increasing education research skills and communication skills of the participating REU students. The participating REU students reported that the research projects they worked on increased their motivation and confidence for continuing to engage in engineering education research. Four participants (i.e., 36.4% of the total participants) suggested that, if available, they would prefer face-to-face over a virtual REU program. Another four participants (i.e., 36.4%) felt that both face-to-face and virtual would offer the same quality of research experiences, and 3 participants (i.e., 27.2% of the total participants) voiced their preference of virtual over face-to-face REU program. 

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5. Work in Progress: Building Career Goals and Boosting Self-efficacy in Engineering Students

   Jimenez, Manuel; Guillemard, Luisa; Bartolomei, Sonia; Suarez, Oscar M.; Lopez, Carla; Quintero, Pedro; Santiago, Aidsa; Santiago, Nayda; Cardona, Nelson; Rodriguez, Manuel (July 2021, ASEE annual conference exposition)

   null (Ed.)

   This work in progress presents the development and implementation of an Individual Development Plan (IDP) for undergraduate and first-year master’s engineering students. The IDP was designed and tailored as one of several strategies to increase retention and graduation rates for engineering students participating in the Program for Engineering Access, Retention, and LIATS Success (PEARLS). This program provides scholarships to low income, academically talented students (LIATS), and promotes their academic success and on-time graduation. We show how the IDPs, paired with a faculty mentoring component are able to produce a powerful mechanism to boost LIATS actions, propelling them to become highly competitive engineering students. 

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