Understanding the Impact of Professional Development for a Cohort of Teachers with Varying Prior Engineering Teaching Experience

Engineering for US All (e4usa) is a National Science Foundation-funded first-of-its-kind initiative aimed at making engineering more inclusive and accessible to underrepresented populations. The ‘‘for us all’’ mission of e4usa encompasses both students and teachers. Paramount to the success of e4usa was the construction of professional development (PD) experiences to prepare and support teachers with different levels of engineering teaching experience as they implemented the e4usa yearlong course. The perspectives of nine teachers with varying degrees of engineering teaching experience were examined during two PD opportunities to compare experiences and dynamics between the teachers. Data sources consisting of focus groups and artifacts created during the PD were analyzed using inductive coding and the constant comparative method. The distinct themes that emerged included teachers redefining engineering, growing confidence to teach engineering, benefiting from the PD, receiving support from other teachers, experiencing imposter syndrome, and renewing a passion for engineering education. The results provide implications for how engineering education PD may be developed to allow for reciprocal support and mentoring that supports all teachers regardless of engineering teaching experience. The results also inform future e4usa efforts and aim to change the structure of high school engineering education

Ready for Transition: Factors that facilitate transfer to undergraduate engineering programs among Black African and American students

This study examines the factors facilitating the transfer admission of students broadly classified as Black from a single community college into a selective engineering college. The work aims to further research on STEM preparation and performance for students of color, as well as scholarship on increasing access to four-year institutions from two-year schools. Factors illuminating Underrepresented Racial and Ethnic Minority (URM) student pathways through Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) degree programs have often been examined through large-scale quantitative studies. However, this qualitative study complements quantitative data through demographic questionnaires, as well as semi-structured individual and group. The backgrounds and voices of diverse Black transfer students in four-year engineering degree programs were captured through these methods. Major findings from this research include evidence that community college faculty, peer networks, and family members facilitated transfer. Other results distinguish Black African from Black American transfers; included in these distinctions are depictions of different K-12 schooling experiences and differences in how participants self-identified. The findings that result from this research build upon the few studies that account for expanded dimensions of student diversity within the Black population. Among other demographic data, participants’ countries of birth and years of migration to the U.S. (if applicable) are included. Interviews reveal participants’ perceptions of factors impacting their educational trajectories in STEM and subsequent ability to transfer into a competitive undergraduate engineering program. This study is inclusive of, and reveals an important shifting demographic within the United States of America, Black Africans, who represent one of the fastest-growing segments of the immigrant population

Seven Challenges in Conceptualizing and Assessing Entrepreneurial Skills or Mindsets in Engineering Entrepreneurship Education

The growth of undergraduate entrepreneurship education programs and research, both within and outside of business programs, has led to a diverse array of academic literature on this topic. The diversity of perspectives has led to many conceptual and educational challenges that remain unresolved within the literature. The following conceptual paper offers a critical perspective on challenges that have been identified. A narrative-style literature review was conducted to explore challenges emerging from both (a) the practice of teaching entrepreneurship and (b) the definitions and assessment of entrepreneurial mindsets and skills that result from those education processes in entrepreneurship education, particularly within an undergraduate engineering education context. We achieve this objective by discussing previously dispersed sources of literature from disciplines that have critically discussed and explored entrepreneurial themes, such as business education, sociology, psychology, and philosophy. Contemporary debates within multiple disciplines are integrated and organized as challenges to inspire new theoretical discussions among scholars, educators, and other practitioners that can inform a more comprehensive way to conceive and assess entrepreneurship in engineering education. Seven challenges were identified ranging from the definition of entrepreneurship in education to the role of ethics in the teaching and assessment of entrepreneurship. We use these seven challenges and research questions as a starting point for the disambiguation of the working definition of entrepreneurship in the context of engineering education

Microsystem Cooler Development

A patented microsystem Stirling cooler is under development with potential application to electronics, sensors, optical and radio frequency (RF) systems, microarrays, and other microsystems. The microsystem Stirling cooler is most suited to volume-limited applications that require cooling below the ambient or sink temperature. Primary components of the planar device include: two diaphragm actuators that replace the pistons found in traditional-scale Stirling machines; and a micro-regenerator that stores and releases thermal energy to the working gas during the Stirling cycle. The use of diaphragms eliminates frictional losses and bypass leakage concerns associated with pistons, while permitting reversal of the hot and cold sides of the device during operation to allow precise temperature control. Three candidate microregenerators were custom fabricated for initial evaluation: two constructed of porous ceramic, and one made of multiple layers of nickel and photoresist in an offset grating pattern. An additional regenerator was prepared with a random stainless steel fiber matrix commonly used in existing Stirling machines for comparison to the custom fabricated regenerators. The candidate regenerators were tested in a piezoelectric-actuated test apparatus designed to simulate the Stirling refrigeration cycle. In parallel with the regenerator testing, electrostatically-driven comb-drive diaphragm actuators for the prototype device have been designed for deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) fabrication