Enhancing Diversity through Explicitly Designed Engineering Outreach (original) (raw)
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2015
The University of Dayton recently received a grant from the Engineering Information Foundation (EiF) and National Science Foundation (NSF) to work on a project entitled Engineering Outreach to Middle School Girls. The main objective of this project was to increase female participation in engineering by providing exposure to engineering for girls during a critical time of their academic development, the middle school years. One of the easiest and most effective ways to provide this exposure is through outreach at local schools. However, sometimes engineering students and faculty are reluctant to engage in this outreach because they do not have the time or resources to develop an appropriate activity. To address this issue “pick up and go” engineering activity modules that can be used for engineering outreach were developed and piloted in mixed gender classroom and afterschool programs. Modules were developed and piloted by teams of undergraduate engineering and teacher education (pre...
The benefit of outreach to engineering students
Proceedings of the 2004 …, 2004
Engineering K-12 education outreach programs provide a unique opportunity for undergraduate engineers to develop communication and leadership skills as well as build self-confidence. Recently, there has been an engineering education outreach surge at many universities across the country. While the main goal of these programs is to assist educators in incorporating engineering into the K-12 curriculum, there are offshoot benefits to the undergraduate students who participate in outreach efforts, especially females. Capitalizing on a student's fresh engineering knowledge and young ambitions to make an impact, outreach programs send undergraduates into K-12 classrooms to introduce the engineering discipline to young children. Female engineers demonstrate a large interest in these outreach efforts, and subsequently enhance their overall undergraduate engineering experience. Beyond the initial self-satisfaction of working with young children, which gratifies the female instinct, the young women engineers are able to gain a greater confidence in the technical discipline that is often difficult to obtain in the male-dominated college classroom environment. Tufts University offers this opportunity through the Center for Engineering Educational Outreach, and in the following paper, the participating female engineers account their enhanced leadership, communication, and technical skills as a direct result of outreach.
Diversity in k-12 initiatives to attract a diverse pool of engineering students
33rd Annual Frontiers in Education, 2003. FIE 2003., 2003
Faculty and students at Clarkson University have developed a 10-week unit for middle school students to increase their awareness and aptitude for engineering. The unit, entitled "Engineering for the Environment," challenges students to reduce solid waste from their community by reusing the waste in the form of a valuable material. Science, engineering and math are integrated to help students learn to transform biodegradable materials into compost and to incorporate non-biodegradable materials as an aggregate in concrete. This unit shows young students that there is a wide diversity in the nature of work done by engineers, and that engineers can indeed help the environment and society -messages that are particularly important for young girls. The Engineering for the Environment curriculum will be incorporated into Project Lead the Way's middle school curriculum to balance existing units that focus on mechanical and electrical aspects of engineering. Index Terms -middle school, environment, girls, engineering 0-7803-7444-4/03/$17.00
Designing An Outreach Project That Trains Both Future Faculty And Future Engineers
2003 Annual Conference Proceedings
I. Background Recognizing that there are more engineering jobs than there are future engineers in the educational pipeline, many universities have developed programs to attack this problem at its roots-in elementary and middle schools. Several different approaches to K-12 engineering outreach have been employed to get students interested in the field of engineering, anticipating that this interest may impact later career choices. Some such outreach programs focus on educating K-12 teachers about engineering so they may pass the knowledge on to their students, while others focus on university engineering faculty directly interacting with the students whom they hope to affect. When institutions of higher education devise K-12 outreach programs, the institution itself must consider many factors; time commitment required of developers, funds available, effectiveness of the program, and program sustainability are those that receive the most attention. The outreach model we have developed has minimized the time commitment of faculty developers and the funds required to sustain such a project, as we rely extensively on undergraduate and graduate student volunteers to develop and implement the project. In addition, this model has created some benefits not addressed by more traditional K-12 engineering outreach models. In this paper, we will describe our engineering outreach model and focus on the three major advantages of this model as implemented through the Biomedical Engineering Department: 1) benefits gained by undergraduate and graduate engineering students who are involved in the development and/or implementation of the outreach module, 2) the enhanced sense of community developed within the Biomedical Engineering department, and 3) long-term sustainability of the outreach program. II. Project Description The engineering outreach programs that are most frequently cited as good models of K-12 engineering outreach efforts are those developed by centers dedicated to outreach (ex: the Integrated Teaching and Learning Laboratory at the University of Colorado and the Center for
2006 Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
The Partners in Engineering (PIE) program brings together 8 th grade girls and female engineering students from Clarkson University to experience mentoring, leadership, and real-life engineering problem solving. The program aims to empower young women to make informed and educated choices for advanced coursework and careers in engineering and technology-related fields. A team of female engineering student mentors teaches a three-week long engineering problem solving unit to 8 th grade technology classes, in which students apply an engineering problem solving process to address and solve an issue that is relevant to their school or community. Students are exposed to the creative side of engineering problem solving and the breadth of the engineering disciplines. The holistic nature of the problem solving activity emphasizes the relevance of engineering problem solving to community, society, humanity, and the environment. Extracurricular mentoring activities provide participants with opportunities to interact more closely and to develop stronger personal relationships. Evaluations have consistently shown that the mentoring/role model component is the most widely appreciated aspect of the program, valued highly by the college mentors, the 8 th grade girls, and their parents. While the overall assessment plan includes a combination of quantitative and qualitative instruments to provide an in-depth understanding of the program's impacts, this paper reports findings from the qualitative aspects of the program evaluation. The assessment has shown that the program improves participants' understanding and appreciation of engineering problem solving, increases the younger girls' general understanding of engineering and the potential role of women in engineering careers, provides leadership opportunities and opportunities for increasing self confidence and self-efficacy, and provides positive role model and mentoring experiences. Positive feedback from teachers and parents supports these findings. Comments indicate that the 8 th grade girls benefit from their participation in the PIE program-through their contact with the women engineering students, the breath of exposure to professional women in general, and the experience of using math and science to solve a meaningful problem.
2018
is the current director for the Center for Engineering Education Research (CEER) which examines innovative and effective engineering education practices as well as classroom technologies that advance learning and teaching in engineering. He is also working on National Science Foundation (NSF) funded projects exploring engineering design thinking. His areas of research include engineering design thinking, adult learning cognition, engineering education professional development and technical training. He has extensive international experience working on technical training and engineering educaton projects funded by the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, and U.S. Department of Labor, USAID. Countries where he has worked include Armenia,
Engineering Outreach: A Summer Program Approach
2011
Three summer programs were created in the College of Engineering at the University of Arkansas to increase interest in STEM-related fields among rising 6-12 grade students. Explore Engineering Program 1 (EEP1) and Explore Engineering Program 2 (EEP2) were developed as five-day, daytime-only programs for rising 6 and 7 grade (EEP1) and 8 and 9 grade (EEP2) students to develop interest in STEM concepts and engineering as a profession through interactive hands-on learning. The Engineering Summer Academy (ESA) was designed to attract rising 10-12 grade students to programs in Mechanical, Electrical, Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Arkansas through hands-on departmental programs in a week-long residency program. In 2010 (the first year of the programs), 68 students attended and, in 2011, 135 students applied. Several measurable results were obtained from the three summer programs which demonstrate growth, interest and early success. Perhaps most notable, 25 of th...
Engaging in Engineering Initiative with Centennial Place Academy
2015
Transportation engineering researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology developed an active learning outreach program for Centennial Place Academy, a metro Atlanta public school that serves a racially and economically diverse student population with the majority of students falling into lower income brackets and minority populations. Georgia Tech researchers visited the school to conduct an initial session with the entire fifth grade class; this was followed by two full day sessions with a smaller subset of the same students after they had moved into the sixth grade. The program was designed to utilize cutting-edge technology to implement Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education with elementary and middle school students through guided inquiry. The purpose of the program was to show students that engineering is an accessible discipline that utilizes many skillsets and encompasses multiple aspects of their lives. The program resulted in a wealth of rea...
K 12 Outreach In An Engineering Intensive University
2005 Annual Conference Proceedings
The Colorado School of Mines has been active in seeking and receiving educational grants from a variety of sources, such as the National Science Foundation, Colorado Commission on Higher Education, and the Colorado Department of Education. Over the past three years, four funded projects have focused on providing middle school teachers with instruction in mathematics, science, and engineering content and pedagogy. Careful attention has been given to coordinating these projects in a manner that maximizes their impact on the broadest population of teachers and students. A selection of summer workshops and classroom interventions has been developed and tested. Additionally, ten graduate teaching fellows, drawn from the Departments of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Engineering, Geophysics, and Environmental Science, have been trained to provide direct support to middle school teachers and students during classroom instruction. These fellows have collaborated with participating teachers and faculty in preparing and implementing innovative, hands-on mathematics, science, and engineering curricula. This paper describes the coordination of the four outreach projects and the impact that these projects are having on the educational community.