Search for: All records

This research paper presents an autoethnographic study of a faculty-led community of practice assembled to promote reflection as a process to improve equity in engineering courses. The faculty participants (authors) committed to enact a variety of practices in self-reflection, reflection with colleagues, and reflection with students during one semester to build more equitable teaching and learning opportunities in their courses. This commitment came after participation in a series of DEI faculty development workshops in the previous semester and exploration of reflection practices during the formation of the community of practice. The theoretical framework central to this work is Lave and Wenger’s (1991) communities of practice that emphasizes members’ coming together around a common interest to share experiences, to collaboratively improve their work, and to solve shared problems. Communities of practice are increasingly common as vehicles for faculty development, especially to promote high-quality, equitable instruction (Borboa-Peterson, Ozaki, & Kelsch, 2021; Hoyt, et al., 2020). As such, this paper examines the impact of a community of practice on reflective teaching to advance the authors’ interest in expanding equity-oriented classroom teaching and learning opportunities for all faculty and students. Rooted in autoethnographic methodology (Belbase, Luitel, & Taylor, 2008), the study explores individual narratives and their intersections with the stories of other community members to better understand the experiences of engineering faculty who use purposeful reflection to promote educational equity. The authors construct a shared narrative that grew from the interactions with fellow community of practice members and explore the culture of engineering education at their institution and the opportunities and challenges of advancing more equitable teaching and learning. Findings include prevalent themes of successes and limitations to supporting equitable classrooms, the impact of a reflection-driven community of practice on individual teaching performances, and the strengths and challenges of enacted reflection techniques for engineering educators. 

Reflection is often cited as a critical component of effective teaching, but the term itself and its related practices often remain ambiguous. Reflecting on one's teaching is an important exercise to better understand the approaches to and success towards creating inclusive classrooms. Therefore, engineering educators must become aware of reflective practices to be able to employ them in their work. We explored essential elements of highly effective reflection practices for equity-minded educators in a workshop where faculty participants learned about three reflective practices: (i) personal reflection, (ii) reflective engagement with colleagues, and (iii) reflection with students. Through collaboration with others, attendees evaluated various reflection techniques, discussed case studies, and considered supports and barriers to how purposeful reflection can support equity-minded engineering practitioners. From this workshop, a Community of Practice of faculty was formed to analyze individual reflective practices, identify practices applicable to their classrooms, and work together to employ reflection in seven classrooms across our college. In this practice paper, we evaluate each of the above reflective practices and their utility in contextualizing more equitable curricula in a variety of course types. Additionally, we provide an engineering education framework for using reflection to understand the classroom environment educators create and its impact on equitable student learning. This practice paper presents reflections from the workshop and outcomes from the Community of Practice activities to inform equity-minded reflective instruction in engineering. 

Toxic oxyanions of Cr(VI) can be potentially removed by adsorbents with positively charged surfaces. In this study, we synthesized a stable and insoluble amine-rich polymer composite (CS–PEI–GLA) by crosslinking polyethyleneimine (PEI), a soluble amine-rich synthetic polymer, and chitosan (CS) with glutaraldehyde (GLA). The positively charged amine groups were the main adsorption sites. The batch investigation demonstrated that the adsorbent was able to remove ≥90% of chromium at pH ranging from 2 to 8. Due to deprotonation of the amine groups, chromium removal decreased at higher pH values. The adsorption was fast and reached equilibrium after 45 min. The maximum adsorption capacity was 500 mg g−1 according to the Langmuir isotherm and did not decrease in the presence of monovalent anions. In the column study, the adsorption capacity was the highest when the flow rate was the lowest (5 mL min−1), influent concentration was medium (225 mg L−1), and the bed height was the shortest (3.5 cm). NaOH was the best recovery reagent with recovery of 67% in batch and 31% in the column. The CS–PEI–GLA composite was able to remove 97.1 ± 0.1% chromium in batch and treat 750 mL of electroplating wastewater with a 3.5 cm packed-bed column. 

Abstract Precision medicine requires high throughput cell isolation and measurement that maintains physiology. Unfortunately, many techniques are slow or alter cell biomarkers cells. This necessitates new approaches, which we achieve by integrating affinity‐based cell isolation with spiral microfluidics. We characterize the device via computational simulations, predicting wall shear stress within an order of magnitude of arterial wall shear stress (~0.2 Pa). We identify that poly‐l‐lysine supplementation preserves cell geometry and improves cell release. We demonstrate preservation of angiogenic biomarker concentrations, measuring 1,000–2,000 vascular endothelial growth factor receptor‐1 per human umbilical vein endothelial cell, which is in line with the previously reported measurements. We attain 76.7 ± 9.0% release of captured cells by integrating thermophoresis and optimizing buffer residence time. Ultimately, we find that combining affinity‐based cell isolation (secondary anchor targeted cell release) with spiral microfluidics offers a fast, biomarker preserving approach needed to individualize medicine.