Working Full Time and Earning an Engineering Degree: Wellbeing in a Co-Op-Based Engineering Program

The purpose of this research paper is to describe how stress manifests in undergraduate engineering students who are working in paid engineering positions while completing their upper-division coursework, through the analysis of reflective prompts on wellbeing, and engineering belongingness. Previous research has identified the culture of “suffering and shared hardship” where heavy workloads and stressful situations are expected in engineering programs and engineering as a discipline. Stress, specifically feelings of being overwhelmed with workload, has far reaching implications for an individuals’ wellbeing beyond academic performance. We focus on the frameworks of self-determination theory, engineering belonging, identity, to better understand undergraduate engineering students’ wellbeing. Our population for this study is approximately 70 students at a large, public, primarily undergraduate institution in an off-campus co-op based learning program. In this upper-division program, students complete their BS in Engineering in five semesters after completing their lower division coursework at community colleges across the nation. For four semesters, students complete technical, professional, and design coursework while working as paid engineering interns. As part of their coursework, students regularly complete reflections on technical, professional, and design topics. The reflections of 24 undergraduate engineering students on health, wellbeing, and belongingness were analyzed using an open coding, thematic approach. Each student has completed 3 reflections on health, wellbeing, and belongingness. The results identify stressors and coping strategies utilized by engineering co-op students. Strategies such as establishing a stable routine is identified as a critical coping mechanism. Further connections of wellbeing and belonging are described. Students identified relatedness as key to feelings of belonging in engineering and imposter syndrome as a key barrier to belongingness

Growing Entrepreneurial Mindset in Interdisciplinary Student Engineers: Experiences of a Project-Based Engineering Program

Engineering education models have recently embraced the entrepreneurial mindset as a desired outcome of undergraduate engineering education. Interdisciplinary active learning strategies have been suggested as an effective pedagogy for engaging student engineers in undergraduate engineering education. Recent research suggests that active, social learning in context can lead to improvements in learner innovation, problem-solving, curiosity, retention and accessibility of knowledge, value-creation, and other desired learning outcomes. Much of the recent adoption of active and collaborative learning, self-directed learning, problem-based and project-based learning (PBL), peer to peer learning, and other similar learning strategies are aimed at developing innovative and entrepreneurial mindset skills, but they have been limited to Capstone Design courses. Our aim is to develop the entrepreneurial mindset much earlier in the student engineers’ undergraduate education. The Iron Range Engineering program is entrepreneurial in nature, based on continuous improvement, self-directed learning, and reflective practice. Our student engineers learn in context, by applying technical engineering knowledge in project teams working on industry-sourced projects, each of the four semesters of their junior and senior years. In addition, freshman and sophomores enrolled in pre-engineering studies in a closely aligned community college are included in the culture, many activities, and teaching staff of the upper division program. Drawing from the Kern Family Foundation’s Engineering Unleashed program and Innovating Curriculum with Entrepreneurial Mindset (ICE) workshops, faculty in the program were introduced to the entrepreneurial mindset in the summer of 2017. In the Fall, 2017 semester, they developed and piloted several entrepreneurial-minded learning (EML) modules across the curriculum of our program (approx. 100 students in lower and upper divisions), ranging from Statics in Sophomore year, to Entrepreneurship and Statistics in the Junior year, and Three-Phase and Signals and Systems for the Seniors, among others. Entrepreneurial Mindset was also reinforced in Design class and applied in project work. This paper describes the experiences of faculty and students in the implementation of entrepreneurial mindset modules adopted in our program, as well as preliminary results of this rapid deployment in an interdisciplinary engineering program. We use a case study format to report auto-ethnographic stories from both faculty and student perspectives. Early results are promising. After two semesters of simultaneous deployment of entrepreneurial mindset across the curriculum, faculty are engaged and working collaboratively to improve and extend this type of entrepreneurial learning even further into the program. The impact on ABET and KEEN outcomes are addressed. Student feedback is also positive. The pervasiveness of the application of entrepreneurial mindset is present in student reflections, project technical documents, design reviews, oral exams, and other student work. The entrepreneurial mindset has become part of the culture of our program in a short time, which we view as a positive outcome. The experiences of the participating faculty members are presented in the paper, as well as student reflections on the application of entrepreneurial mindset in their courses and design projects. Planned next steps are also addressed in the paper

Can We Make Our Robot Play Soccer? Influence of Collaborating with Preservice Teachers and Fifth Graders on Undergraduate Engineering Students\u27 Learning During a Robotic Design Process (Work in Progress)

This work-in-progress paper describes engineering students’ experiences in an NSF-funded project that partnered undergraduate engineering students with pre-service teachers to plan and deliver robotics lessons to fifth graders at a local school. This project aims to address an apparent gap between what is taught in academia and industry’s expectations of engineers to integrate perspectives from outside their field to solve modern societal problems requiring a multidisciplinary approach. Working in small teams over Zoom, participating engineering, education, and fifth grade students designed, built, and coded bio-inspired COVID companion robots. The goal for the engineering students was to build new interprofessional skills, while reinforcing technical skills. The collaborative activities included: (1) training with Hummingbird BitTM hardware (e.g. sensors, servo motors) and coding platform, (2) preparing robotics lessons for fifth graders that explained the engineering design process (EDP), and (3) guiding the fifth graders in the design of their robots. Additionally, each undergraduate engineering student designed a robot following the theme developed with their preservice teacher and fifth grade partners. The intervention took place in Spring 2021 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, necessitating the investigators to make critical decisions to address challenges of implementing the intervention in an online setting. This paper describes those decisions as it investigates how the cross-disciplinary, mixed-aged collaboration with preservice teachers and fifth graders impacted undergraduate engineering students’ learning and investment during the design process of their robots. Preliminary results of a regression analysis revealed a relationship between the engineering students’ robot rankings and post-scores on the design process knowledge survey (r = 0.92). Consistencies and a few anomalies in this pattern were explained using qualitative reflections which were analyzed to determine students’ level of investment in the project, overall perceptions, and the extent to which they focused on the fifth graders’ ideas in their designs. In general, robot quality was linked to both undergraduate engineering students’ level of investment and whether they focused on the fifth graders’ ideas in their designs. Engineering students’ overall perceptions of the project were generally positive, appreciating the role of cross-disciplinary and mixed-aged collaborations in their learning to brainstorm innovative solutions and interact effectively with professionals outside of engineering as they embark on tackling societal problems in the real world

Gamification of Icebreaking Activities for Mechanical Engineering Students Embarking on a Problem Based Learning Module

When they enter the workforce engineering graduates must be able to engage collaboratively with others to find solutions to complex engineering challenges. This involves a great deal more than simply solving technical problems traditionally taught in engineering school. The Mechanical Engineering Discipline in Technological University Dublin (TU Dublin) has helped students develop real-world engineering skills through a team based Problem Based Learning (PBL) module since 2005. This module, involving third year students, can be particularly challenging since participants can join the third year of the program from other programs or universities and many will not have known each other prior to taking the module. Coming to the module with different prior learning experiences these undergraduate engineering students must engage collaboratively with each other when they undertake the team-based design project. Over several years the authors have developed an icebreaker game which encourages students to get to know each other. The session, conducted over three hours, welcomes the students and helps them comfortably interact with each other and with the facilitators. This paper describes the development of this activity through the integration of gamification design elements. It goes on to explain how the students must reflect on their experience in this session and how these reflections are then used to frame and scaffold their work for the rest of the module as they consider how to best plan, design, build, and test real machines within the constraints of a strict budget and time limit

Using reflections to explore student learning during the project component of an advanced laboratory course

We redesigned an advanced physics laboratory course to include a project component. The intention was to address learning outcomes such as modeling, design of experiments, teamwork, and developing technical skills in using apparatus and analyzing data. The course included experimental labs in preparation for a six-week team project in which students designed and implemented a research experiment. The final assignment given to students was a reflective essay, which asked students to discuss their learning and satisfaction in doing the project. Qualitative analysis of the students' reflections showed that the majority of the students reported satisfaction and achievement, functional team dynamics, learning outcomes unique to this experience, practicing modeling skills, and potential future improvements. We suggest that reflections are useful as support for student learning as well as in guiding curricular improvements. Our findings may be useful for other course redesign initiatives incorporating project-based learning and student reflections.Comment: This work was presented at the Physics Education Research Conference held in Washington DC. from August 1-2, 201

Engineers for the future; accounting for diversity

tailoring engineering and STEM education to meet the needs of all stakeholders. (External Industry requirement) a. Educational institutions must consider an increasingly diverse group of stakeholders, including students, staff, industry, and the wider community. How can educational activities expand our horizons beyond classroom and industry experience

O USO DE MODELADORES TRIDIMENSIONAIS PARAMÉTRICOS NA FORMAÇÃO DE COMPETÊNCIAS DE REPRESENTAÇÃO GRÁFICA E RACIOCÍNIO ESPACIAL NO PROCESSO DE PROJETO

Este trabalho apresenta reflexões acerca dos atuais paradigmas de representação e desenvolvimento de projeto de produtos vinculados aos processos de ensino e aprendizagem da expressão gráfica. Tais reflexões estão relacionadas a experiências pedagógicas em andamento em cursos de graduação em Engenharia Mecânica e Engenharia de Produção. Um dos principais argumentos apresentados é a indissociabilidade entre conteúdos de representação gráfica e a prática de projeto. Essa vinculação entre áreas intrinsicamente relacionadas nem sempre foi a prática corrente nas estruturas curriculares dos cursos de engenharia, arquitetura e design. Historicamente, a área de representação gráfica frequentemente se posicionou de forma independente e não integrada com conteúdos de engenharia e, em última análise, com o próprio processo de projeto. Nessa direção, são apresentadas algumas reflexões acerca dos aspectos recentes relacionados ao ensino da representação gráfica, considerando uma perspectiva histórica da evolução dos sistemas digitais de representação do projeto. A partir dessas reflexões, são explicitadas as experiências em andamento com a utilização de modeladores tridimensionais paramétricos.This paper reports some reflections on the engineering design graphics (EDG) and product development current paradigms in the context of their teaching and learning processes. Such reflections are related to ongoing pedagogic experiments in industrial and mechanical engineering undergraduate courses. One of the main arguments is the inseparability of graphic representation and design process. This link between intrinsically related areas was not very frequent in the curriculum frame among architecture, design and engineering courses. Historically, the EDG area is positioned in an independent way and not integrated to the engineering contents and the design process itself. In this sense, this paper presents some reflections linked to recent aspects of the EDG learning process from a historic perspective of the Computer Aided Design tools. From those discussions, some teaching and learning experiments are reported with the use of three-dimensional parametric solid modelers

Quantifying Changes in Creativity: Findings from an Engineering Course on the Design of Complex and Origami Structures

Engineering educators have increasingly sought strategies for integrating the arts into their curricula. The primary objective of this integration varies, but one common objective is to improve students’ creative thinking skills. In this paper, we sought to quantify changes in student creativity that resulted from participation in a mechanical engineering course targeted at integrating engineering, technology, and the arts. The course was team taught by instructors from mechanical engineering and art. The art instructor introduced origami principles and techniques as a means for students to optimize engineering structures. Through a course project, engineering student teams interacted with art students to perform structural analysis on an origami-based art installation, which was the capstone project of the art instructor’s undergraduate origami course. Three engineering student teams extended this course project to collaborate with the art students in the final design and physical installation. To evaluate changes in student creativity, we used two instruments: a revised version of the Reisman Diagnostic Creativity Assessment (RDCA) and the Innovative Behavior Scales. Initially, the survey contained 12 constructs, but three were removed due to poor internal consistency reliability: Extrinsic Motivation; Intrinsic Motivation; and Tolerance of Ambiguity. The nine remaining constructs used for comparison herein included: • Originality: Confidence in developing original, innovative ideas • Ideation: Confidence in generating many ideas • Risk Taking: Adventurous; Brave • Openness of Process: Engaging various potentialities and resisting closure • Iterative Processing: Willingness to iterate on one’s solution • Questioning: Tendency to ask lots of questions • Experimenting/exploring: Tendency to physically or mentally take things apart • Idea networking: Tendency to engage with diverse others in communicative acts • Observing: Tendency to observe the surrounding world By conducting a series of paired t-tests to ascertain if pre and post-course responses were significantly different on the above constructs, we found five significant changes. In order of significance, these included Idea Networking; Questioning; Observing; Originality; and Ideation. To help explain these findings, and to identify how this course may be improved in subsequent offerings, the discussion includes the triangulation of these findings in light of teaching observations, responses from a mid-semester student focus group session, and informal faculty reflections. We close with questions that we and others ought to address as we strive to integrate engineering, technology, and the arts. We hope that these findings and discussion will guide other scholars and instructors as they explore the impact of art on engineering design learning, and as they seek to evaluate student creativity resulting from courses with similar aims