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Introduction: Critical thinking is a vital component of postsecondary education. Active learning and experiential learning strategies in the classroom are effective ways to help students develop critical thinking skills. This paper focuses on two faculty development workshops, the purpose of which was to improve critical thinking skills through guided active and experiential learning opportunities. Over the past few years, we developed and facilitated these workshops on various postsecondary campuses, which have produced improvements in the attendees’ classroom assessments and students’ critical thinking skills. These faculty development workshops around critical thinking were designed to equip educators with pedagogical strategies that have been researched to work in relevant postsecondary classroom settings. During these workshops faculty members share their experiences with each other and work together to develop discipline-specific solutions that enhance teaching and learning. As a result, there is an opportunity to increase faculty engagement and interactions, which may lead to the development of a community of educators. 

This work-in-progress explores two critical components central to the foundations of our research. The first component is the introduction of a pedagogical approach for fostering collaboration and interdisciplinary communication, which is grounded in principles guided by an innovation-driven learning model (the Renaissance Foundry) and tied to the three core components of the KEEN Entrepreneurial Mindset: Curiosity, Connections, and Creating Value. We emphasize how these three components play a vital role in enhancing communication and collaboration across disciplines, particularly within Foundry-guided activities. The second component describes preliminary work of student teams from a required second-year course in a National Science Foundation National Research Traineeship (NSF-NRT) graduate level program, which included 11 trainees. As part of this work, we showcase the outcomes of their projects, drawing connections to the three C's of the KEEN Mindset, with a specific focus on how "Creating Value" is achieved through effective communication strategies. 

This study explores synergies of a holistic, interdisciplinary National Science Foundation - National Research Traineeship (NSF-NRT) Program that leverages a Foundry-guided approach5 to foster integrative thinking and problem-solving skills among and between students.6 Specifically, we look at selected outcomes from a course that is required as part of the first-year experience for student trainees participating in this program. As part of this work-in-progress, we offer insight into students’ growth in specific areas related to interdisciplinary communication. The preliminary findings reveal that students are developing skills related to a deeper understanding of real-world applications through interdisciplinary collaboration and that holistic approaches in engineering education can improve student outcomes. Implications and lessons learned are connected to key areas relevant to the Engineering Unleashed framework. 

The focus of this proposal is to introduce a model of integrated engineering research for the development of dissertation projects that bridge the technical aspects of engineering comprehension to the educational components of engineering education. This type of integrated engineering research centers on the development of essential competencies in the engineering profession including those associated with interdisciplinary work. As part of this integrated graduate research approach, the purpose is to help students engage in new experiences with academic research that provide opportunities to be exposed to two central parts that comprise the T-shape [1] of the engineering profession – technical skills and interdisciplinary skills related to effective teaching at the postsecondary level [2]. Leveraging the Renaissance Foundry Model (herein the Foundry) [3], an innovation-driven learning platform, graduate students that develop an integrated research dissertation are encouraged to engage in essential critical and design thinking skills that help them to visualize the connections between these technical and educational components of a comprehensive research project [4]. For this work, we present the integrated research project of one doctoral student whose focus is on understanding sustainability concepts in chemical engineering. 

In the United States, the annual revenue attributable to tomato production is $1 billion. However, tomato production can cause negative environmental impacts, such as water pollution, often in the form of eutrophication-causing nutrient pollution. Hydroponic production can decrease excess nutrient leaching; however, optimization of nutrient management and cultivar choices could further decrease excess nutrient discharges. The objectives of this study were as follows: to evaluate and compare the responses of tomato growth characteristics, yield, and yield components to two nutrient management regimes (varying nutrient solution concentrations by growth stage and the use of a constant nutrient solution concentration from transplant to termination), and to analyze the effects of growth habits among six cultivars (Big Beef, Cherokee Purple, Heatmaster, Legend, Mountain Fresh Plus, and Tropic) on tomato yield and yield-correlated morphological characteristics. The nutrient management strategies were applied to tomato plants, and data regarding yield and related morphological characteristics were obtained. Data were analyzed using SAS PROC GLM. An analysis revealed no significant difference in the total fruit weight/plant between nutrient management regimes (P= 0.05); however, the mean fruit weight (164.26 g) and diameter (71.70 mm) were significantly greater (P< 0.0001) for plants that received the constant concentration nutrient regime. Indeterminate plants had a significantly greater (P< 0.0001) mean fruit weight (192.76 g) and mean fruit diameter (76.42 mm). Among cultivars, Big Beef had a significantly greater (P< 0.05) total fruit weight/plant (9.25 kg). Applying a constant nutrient concentration to indeterminate cultivars, particularly Big Beef and Cherokee Purple, improved the factors analyzed and could decrease negative environmental impacts while increasing profits of the producers. 

This work in progress investigates how the role of an educational intervention that coupled sustainability principles with an innovation-driven learning platform guides students through the development of a protype of innovative technology. Specifically, the intervention includes the purposeful pairing of the Engineering for One Planet (EOP) framework1 with the Renaissance Foundry model (i.e., the Foundry)2 in an undergraduate chemical engineering course that requires student teams to address societal challenges as learning outcomes. We argue that pairing the EOP framework with the Foundry results in an increase in students' sustainability efforts in the design of their prototype of innovative technology that addresses identified societal challenges. A preliminary analysis is presented comparing outcomes from two semesters of the CHE 3550, Transfer Science II (Fluids), course, which is a three-credit hour course with an additional one credit of laboratory work (CHE 3551). Preliminary implications related to holistic engineering education efforts and socially relevant learning will be presented and discussed. 

In this contribution we expand on the critical role played by kinematic of flow in conjunction with the principle of the conversation of total mass in guiding students towards the observation skills, geometry, flow dimensions and total mass conservation in predicting the type of velocity functions as a prerequisite to the application of momentum conservation equations to determine the actual velocity profile. Adopting a practitioner-based approach, we leverage cycles of inquiry1 that are guided by the six elements of the Renaissance Foundry Model2 (herein the Foundry) to explore the role of kinematics of fluid flow as implemented in a undergraduate engineering curriculum. In particular, we identify the Challenge, review the fundamental concepts of the kinematics of the particle to formulate the Organization Tools, and identify related Resources to this challenge. Subsequently, Knowledge Acquisition will guide the understanding of important connections with the kinematic of flow, and then we will apply the Transfer of Knowledge to develop the fundamental aspects of the Prototype of Innovative Technology. This will be centered on a methodology useful to guide students in applying the concepts of kinematics of flows to obtain the fluid velocity functionality. The research will be illustrated with a case study relevant to the curriculum in chemical engineering in the context of ChE 3550, Fluid Mechanics, a core course in the chemical engineering curriculum. 

The purpose of this article is to contribute to the scholarship of teaching and learning in sociology by examining a set of course redesign improvements made in a Social Problems course at the undergraduate level. These improvements center on increasing students’ critical thinking skills by integrating research-based, innovation-driven learning and student-centered strategies into a four-part course assessment redesign. Using a primarily case study approach, we examine quantitative data in the form of an interdisciplinary pre- and post- Critical thinking Assessment Test (CAT) from students enrolled in one iteration of the redesign for this particular course. Results from this analysis highlight the potential of these pedagogical improvements to foster the development of critical thinking skills and as an example of how assessment data can be used to guide further iterations of a course. 

The purpose of this work is to explore how the experiences of two Hispanic-Latino graduate students acting as members of a Directorship Team (DT) that led an extracurricular, undergraduate research program called the Holistic Foundry Undergraduate Engaged Learners (FUEL) program influenced their attitudes and intentions with respect to this student-staff partnership. The Holistic FUEL program and the experiences of the DT were guided by the Renaissance Foundry Model (herein the Foundry) an innovation-driven learning platform. This provided a unique opportunity to evaluate how this Foundry-guided program shaped the attitudes and intentions of the two graduate student coordinators working with faculty within a student-staff partnership. As part of this case study, an inductive analysis of secondary data —including graduate coordinators’ post-program reflections, recruitment announcements prepared by the coordinators, and meeting notes— provide preliminary themes and insight into the ways in which their experiences influenced attitudes and intentions regarding partnerships with staff. Lessons learned offer insight into the internal personal transformations and type of relationships that support student-staff partnerships for implementing similar undergraduate programs.