Design and Design Centers in Engineering Education

This paper is intended to be the opening salvo of the workshop, Computing Futures in Engineering Design (Dym, 1997). Thus, I want to take this privileged moment to ask you to think with me about the role of design in engineering. In particular, I want to reflect upon how design is articulated and how design is taught; about the role of design in engineering education and in the practice of engineering; and about the role that could be played locally and, perhaps, nationally by a center devoted to design education. Because I teach here at Harvey Mudd College (HMC), and because most of you are visitors, I will place my remarks in our context by telling you about what we do here and how that doing has shaped my thinking

The Ingenuity of Everyday Practice: A Framework for Justice-Centered Identity Work in Engineering in the Middle Grades

Inequities in opportunities to learn and become in engineering, especially for minoritized youth, are enduring and systemic. How students experience engineering education, through curriculum, pedagogy, and teacher/student interactions, all shape opportunities for identity development. In this paper we draw upon cultural studies and critical ethnography to explore how and why students engage in engineering for sustainable communities and its relationship to their identity work. We ground our work in a justice-centered asset-based stance that centers how people’s lived lives and community wisdom yield powerful forms of cultural knowledge/practice relevant to learning and engaging in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. We seek to accentuate students’ ingenuity to leverage their assets for social change making; that is, in transformative and future-oriented ways. We view youths’ everyday ingenuity as powerful assets for learning and participating in authentic engineering design for sustainable communities. Findings suggest that engineering for sustainable communities created opportunities for productive identity work because it created space for youth to authentically engage in engineering design in ways that allowed them to care about each other, their classroom and community, and to use both their everyday ingenuity and technical expertise to make a difference. We also suggest that students’ identity work took shape through the emergence of new local contentious practices of engineering for sustainable communities that both amplified youths’ ingenuity and challenged particular local, historical/sociocultural norms of engineering and schooling. These contentious local practices related to disrupting the authority to name what counts as engineering problems worth solving and disrupting narratives around what it means to persist through iterations in design. We suggest that an engineering for sustainable communities approach supports the production of local and productive contentious practice because it centers community co-ownership in the design, and supports students in leveraging their everyday ingenuity as critical knowhow in engineering design

RESEARCH ACTIVITY OF STUDENTS IN THE APPLICATION OF LASER PROCESSING AND 3D PRINTING TECHNOLOGIES IN TEXTILE FABRICS

Nowadays education and research promote interdisciplinary cooperation and development. An interdisciplinary approach creates change and new opportunities for design education in general, while innovation, the use of advanced materials and technologies transforms design technology studies. These changes affect the development of design technology as an integrated interdisciplinary direction, the creation of innovative solutions, products and services in research design activities. This process is facilitated by research grant projects involving students and researchers. The performed experimental research in Rezekne Academy of Technologies (RTA) engineering research centres shows the possibilities of laser processing and 3D printing in textile fabrics design, promotes innovative technological solutions in product design and ensures the development of scientifically based results. The aim of the research is to improve students' independent research activities in purposeful project activities by interacting with various engineering research centers. Research methods used: theoretical - literature and Internet resource research and analysis, empirical - action (case study) research. Eight students of engineering/design study programs and four lecturers – researchers - participants of grant projects - participate in the research. Research period 2017–2020. The research has a practical significance, because it substantiates the interdisciplinary experimental research activity process and results, determining of students' independent research activity improvement direction, promotes the transfer of research results into practice

Proceedings of the 6th Annual Summer Conference: NASA/USRA University Advanced Design Program

The NASA/USRA University Advanced Design Program is a unique program that brings together NASA engineers, students, and faculty from United States engineering schools by integrating current and future NASA space/aeronautics engineering design projects into the university curriculum. The Program was conceived in the fall of 1984 as a pilot project to foster engineering design education in the universities and to supplement NASA's in-house efforts in advanced planning for space and aeronautics design. Nine universities and five NASA centers participated in the first year of the pilot project. The study topics cover a broad range of potential space and aeronautics projects that could be undertaken during a 20 to 30 year period beginning with the deployment of the Space Station Freedom scheduled for the mid-1990s. Both manned and unmanned endeavors are embraced, and the systems approach to the design problem is emphasized

ESMD Space Grant Faculty Report

The strength of the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate ESMD Faculty Project lies in its ability to meet National Aeronautics Space Administration NASA's Strategic Educational Outcome 1 by developing a sustainable and long-term integration of student involvement at academic institutions with all NASA Centers. This outcome is achieved by a three-fold approach: 1) by collecting Senior Design projects pertaining to Constellation work performed at each of the ten NASA Centers, 2) by engaging students at Minority Serving Institutions in the art of systems engineering and systems design of technologies required for space exploration, and 3) by identifying potential internships at each Center relative to exploration that provide students who are supported by their institutional Space Grant to engage in on-going mission-level and explorative systems designs. The objectives of the ESMD Faculty Project are to: 1. Aid the Centers (both Education Offices and associated technical organizations) in providing relevant opportunities for the ESMD Space Grant Program to support student and faculty in Senior Design projects 2. Enable better matches between the ESMD work required and what the Space Grant Consortia can do to effectively contribute to NASA programs 3. Provide the Space Grant Consortia an opportunity to strengthen relations with the NASA Centers 4. Develop better collective understanding of the U.S. Space Exploration Policy by the Center, Space Grant, faculty, Education Office, and students 5. Enable Space Grant institution faculty to better prepare their students to meet current and future NASA needs 6. Enable the Center Education Offices to strengthen their ties to their technical organizations and Space Grant Consortia 7. Aid KSC in gaining a greater and more detailed understanding of each of the Center activities Senior Design projects are intended to stimulate undergraduate students on current NASA activities related to lunar, Mars, and other planetary missions and to bring out innovative and novel ideas that can be used to complement those currently under development at respective NASA Centers. Additionally, such academic involvement would better the prospects for graduating seniors to pursue graduate studies and to seek careers in the space industry with a strong sense for systems engineering and understanding of design concepts. Internships, on the other hand, are intended to provide hands-on experience to students by engaging them in diverse state-of-the-art technology development, prototype bread-boarding, computer modeling and simulations, hardware and software testing, and other activities that provide students a strong perspective of NASA's vision and mission in enhancing the knowledge of Earth and space planetary sciences. Ten faculty members, each from a Space Grant Consortium-affiliated university, worked at ten NASA Centers for five weeks between June 2 and July 3, 2008. The project objectives listed above were achieved. In addition to collecting data on Senior Design ideas and identifying possible internships that would benefit NASA/ESMD, the faculty fellows promoted and collected data when required for other ESMD-funded programs and helped the Center's Education Office, as,needed.

NASA Education Recommendation Report - Education Design Team 2011

NASA people are passionate about their work. NASA's missions are exciting to learners of all ages. And since its creation in 1958, NASA's people have been passionate about sharing their inspiring discoveries, research and exploration with students and educators. In May 2010, NASA administration chartered an Education Design Team composed of 12 members chosen from the Office of Education, NASA's Mission Directorates and Centers for their depth of knowledge and education expertise, and directed them to evaluate the Agency's program in the context of current trends in education. By improving NASA's educational offerings, he was confident that the Agency can play a leading role in inspiring student interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) as few other organizations can. Through its unique workforce, facilities, research and innovations, NASA can expand its efforts to engage underserved and underrepresented communities in science and mathematics. Through the Agency's STEM education efforts and science and exploration missions, NASA can help the United States successfully compete, prosper and be secure in the 21st century global community. After several months of intense effort, including meeting with education experts; reviewing Administration policies, congressional direction and education research; and seeking input from those passionate about education at NASA, the Education Design Team made six recommendations to improve the impact of NASA's Education Program: (1) Focus the NASA Education Program to improve its impact on areas of greatest national need (2) Identify and strategically manage NASA Education partnerships (3) Participate in National and State STEM Education policy discussions (4) Establish a structure to allow the Office of Education, Centers and Mission Directorates to implement a strategically integrated portfolio (5) Expand the charter of the Education Coordinating Committee to enable deliberate Education Program design (6) Improve communication to inspire learner

More than Mechanisms: Shifting Ideologies for Asset-Based Learning in Engineering Education

Learning spaces, the practices in which people engage, and the representations they use are ideological. Ideologies are coherent constellations of values, beliefs, and practices that impose order on how disciplines like engineering operate. Historically, engineering spaces have been dominated by a relatively technocratic, rationalistic, and exclusionary ideology, but more recent attention to asset-based approaches to engineering education offers transformative promise. Asset-based ideologies can reshape images of legitimized engineering practice, recasting engineering education to disrupt dominant exclusionary ideologies. This paper describes an assets-based learning space, SETC, that recaptures the imagination of engineering for technological and social change. Drawing from extensive ethnographic observational data, interviews, and artifacts produced in SETC, we describe aspects of this learning space, including the use of representations and practices that specifically support expansive forms of engineering practiced by youth of color. We also explore how SETC’s commitment to antiracist and liberatory practices, including shifting relationships to technology and engineering design in service of enhancing life, manifests in its transformative mission to design programs and activities for youth that disrupt dominant ideologies. SETC centers making and tinkering as legitimate expressions of engineering, and we present a case of a youth participant to illustrate the rich engineering learning that the space makes possible. The case features Naeem engineering a gear-based project that expresses his interpretation of Black Lives Matter. Situated in his long history in the learning space, we explore how youth’s interactions with conventionalized representations—which serve to maintain dominant ideologies—are enhanced by asset-based commitments. This paper contributes specific recommendations for designing spaces for new ideologies, making engineering education more equitable for youth of color while also expanding notions of what engineering is and the forms that it can take

Women Studies In Engineering Education: Content Analysis In Three Referred Journals

Little is known about the research characteristics of past women studies in engineering education. In order to add knowledge base about the advanced development of women studies in current engineering education research, the purpose of the study is to investigate research characteristics of past women studies published in three referred engineering education journals from 2000 to 2009 and to propose specific research patterns for engineering educators. This study adopts a four-stage model of content analysis to analyze the collected data. The model contains four major research procedures, including sampling, conceptualization, operationalization, and coding verification. The findings show that the research patterns of past women studies are: (1) The number of annual publication for women studies is limited; (2) Few scholars from South America and Asia-Pacific engage in women studies; (3) Mixed-methods methodology is the less used research design in women studies; (4) Female engineering faculty and K-12 female students are not focuses for engineering educators; (5) Researchers tend to focus on general engineering; and (6) The current trend of research topic centers on female college engineering students’ learning experiences. The research patterns serve as research guidelines for engineering educators who try to explore women issues in engineering education. It is expected that future studies may fill the identified research gaps. Additional in-depth discussion of women studies may be increased as a result of this research.

Gender representation in architectural engineering - Is it all in the name?

Under-representation of women in engineering is of concern as the decreasing supply of qualified engineers continues to plague the nation’s advancement. Understanding what factors influence choices of engineering disciplines has the potential for altering education to accommodate a more diverse student body that can be successful in engineering. University statistics reflect that the Architectural Engineering program at this school is comprised of 35% women, while the other engineering programs attract at best 20% women and at worst 5% women. The Architectural Engineering program at this university is in fact one of the most intense structural engineering programs in the country requiring 203 quarter units to complete and upper division courses in integrated design of buildings using concrete, steel, wood and masonry along with seismic design of buildings. The department is however housed in the College of Architecture and Environmental Design rather than the College of Engineering. This overall research study explores the learning styles of different engineering disciplines and the learning styles preferred by students who select these disciplines as academic majors and careers. The work in progress centers on surveys of students in engineering programs at this university. A preliminary survey of women in the ARCE department was administered to discover why these women personally chose ARCE as a major, why they persist in the major, and why they think women are so largely represented in the major. A more detailed survey will follow from this work which specifically investigates the three components of the integrated learning style taxonomy – motivation, engagement and learning processes of both women and men in the ARCE department. Future work will investigate other engineering disciplines that represent maximum differential in representation of women from that of ARCE at this university as well as engineering programs at other universities

Work in Progress: Transformational Change in a Masters-level Integrated Capstone Design Course that Partners Industry and Academia

Integrated capstone design courses in civil engineering pose a major challenge for educators because of the breadth of topics covered. Partnering with industry has historically provided a way to alleviate some of these challenges and provide a more authentic design experience. While external partnership in capstone design courses can provide added authenticity as well as fringe benefits such as networking opportunities, there are risks associated with an industry-driven approach. We also argue there is a need to shift from an emphasis on product to pedagogy in capstone design and that authenticity from industry is not an end in itself. In this work-in-progress paper, we present our project to reimagine the integrated capstone design course at a large, public research university in the United Kingdom. This project has three major goals: (1) Develop an understanding of how to balance industry involvement; (2) Generate mechanisms for sustainable adoption of changes; and (3) Evaluate short- and long-term student outcomes for the course. We will present an overview of our intended curricular changes as well as research and evaluation plans to date. This project fits uniquely in the current literature on engineering design education in that it centers around a masters-level course and challenges the notion of what constitutes healthy industry partnership. As a starting point, our first research question considers how the current capstone design course came to be a primarily outsourced effort and what factors impacted this organizational shift to lower academic ownership from within the department