Reflective Teaching In A Digital Age

Understanding ways of integrating equity and inclusion into learning and working environments is important for successful collaboration where participants feel valued for their contributions. In this episode Dr. talks about inclusive teamwork, an Inclusive Leadership Development Model, and building climates where every person feels like they belong.

Reference(s) mentioned in this episode:
https://engineerinclusion.com/meagan-pollock/
https://engineerinclusion.com/inclusive-leadership-development/

Bio:
Dr. Meagan Pollock began her career playing with light projection on tiny microscopic mirrors as an engineer for Texas Instruments. Through her company, Engineer Inclusion, she now utilizes metaphorical projectors and mirrors to shine a light on micro and macro social systems that, when adjusted, improve student and employee success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. A TEDx speaker, author, and a past recipient of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, Meagan holds a PhD in engineering education from Purdue University, an MS in electrical engineering from Texas Tech University, and a BS in computer science from Texas Woman’s University. As an engineer turned educator, Meagan focuses on helping others intentionally engineer inclusion™ in education and the workforce.

Helping engineering instructors become aware of the Hidden Curriculum is an important pedagogical step toward building learning environments that support diversity and belonging. Dr. Idalis Villanueva Alarcón talks to us about practical ways of increasing awareness and recognition of hidden messages in the classroom and help mentor and professionally develop students in engineering.

Reference(s) mentioned in this episode:
1.       I. Villanueva, T. Carothers, M. Di Stefano, & M.T.H. Khan. (2018). “There is never a break”: The hidden curriculum of professionalization for engineering faculty. Education Sciences, 8 (4), 157: doi.org/10.3390/educsci8040157. p.1-21.

2.       I. Villanueva, M. Di Stefano, L. Gelles, K. Youmans, & A. Hunt. (2020). Development and Assessment of a Vignette Survey Instrument to Identify Responses due to Hidden Curriculum among Engineering Students and Faculty. International Journal of Engineering Education, 36(5), p. 1549–1569.

3.       R.J. Downey & I. Villanueva Alarcón. (2022). Reading the world of engineering education: An exploration of active and passive hidden curriculum awareness. American Society of Engineering Education, Liberal Education, Engineering & Society Division, St. Paul, Minneapolis, MN, June 26-29, 2022, Paper ID 37254, p. 1-12.

4.       I.Villanueva Alarcón & C. Elizabeth Sunny & (2022). Engineering students’ conceptions of the hidden curriculum in different institution types: A comparative study. American Society of Engineering Education, Minorities in Engineering Division, St. Paul, Minneapolis, MN, June 26-29, 2022, Paper ID 36562, p. 1-17.

5.       V. Sellers & I. Villanueva. (2021). What strategies do diverse women in engineering use to cope with situational hidden curriculum? Proceedings of the American Society of Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition (virtual), Women in Engineering Division, Long Beach, CA, June 27-30, 2021, Paper ID #32762, p. 1-16.

6.       L. Gelles, K. Youmans, & I. Villanueva. (2019). Sparking Action: How Emotions Fuel or Inhibit Advocacy around Hidden Curriculum in Engineering, European Society of Engineering Education (SEFI), Budapest, Hungary, September 16-19, 2019, p.1-10.

7.       I. Villanueva, M. Di Stefano, L. Gelles, & K. Youmans. (2018). Hidden curriculum awareness: a qualitative comparison of engineering faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates. World Engineering Education Forum, November 12-16, 2018, Albuquerque, NM. p.1-6.

Bio:
Dr. Villanueva Alarcón is an Associate Professor of Engineering Education in the University of Florida. In 2019, she received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) award for her NSF CAREER project on hidden curriculum in engineering. She has a B.S. degree is in Chemical Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez and a M.S. and Ph.D. degree in Chemical and Biological Engineering from the University of Colorado-Boulder. Also, she completed her postdoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health in Analytical Cell Biology in Bethesda, Maryland and worked as a lecturer for 2 years before transitioning to a tenure-track in engineering education. Her experiences as a first-generation engineer, Latinx, woman of color, introvert, and mother has shaped the lens and approaches that she uses in her research and practice. She hopes her work will not only challenge normative ways of knowing but also challenge new ways of research scholarship and practice.

Helping engineering students develop an ethical mindset as part of their professional preparation is a complex endeavor that requires thoughtful approaches to curriculum development and teaching. In this episode Dr. Qin Zhu talks to us about practical ways of teaching about ethics in engineering classes and developing relevant assessments of student learning as part of engineering education.

Reference(s) mentioned in this episode:
Online Ethics Center for Engineering and Science: https://onlineethics.org/

Bio:
Dr. Zhu is Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Education and Affiliate Faculty in the Department of Science, Technology & Society and the Center for Human-Computer Interaction at Virginia Tech. Dr. Zhu is also serving as Associate Editor for Science and Engineering Ethics, Associate Editor for Studies in Engineering Education, Editor for International Perspectives at the Online Ethics Center for Engineering and Science, and Executive Committee Member of the International Society for Ethics Across the Curriculum. Dr. Zhu's research interests include engineering ethics, global and international engineering education, engineering cultures, and the ethics of human-robot interaction and artificial intelligence.

Introducing engineering students to systems thinking early in their education is critical for their development and learning success. In this episode Dr. Rea Lavi talks to us about the System  Architecture-Function-Outcome (SAFO) framework he developed to help foster systems thinking in undergraduate students. He explains how this framework can be integrated in engineering teaching and used to assess systems thinking in first year engineering students.

Reference(s) mentioned in this episode:
Articles in peer-reviewed journals:
Aubrecht, K. B., Dori, Y. J., Holme, T. A., Lavi, R., Matlin, S., Orgill, M., & Skaza-Acosta, H. (2019). Graphical tools for conceptualizing systems thinking in chemistry education. Journal of Chemical Education, 96(12), 2888-2900.

Lavi, R., Dori, Y. J., Wengrowicz, N., & Dori, D. (2019). Model-based systems thinking: Assessing engineering student teams. IEEE Transactions on Education, 63(1), 39-47.

Lavi, R., Dori, Y. J., & Dori, D. (2021). Assessing novelty and systems thinking in conceptual models of technological systems. IEEE Transactions on Education, 64(2), 155-162.

York, S., Lavi, R., Dori, Y. J., & Orgill, M. (2019). Applications of systems thinking in STEM Education. Journal of Chemical Education, 96(12), 2742-2751.

Lavi, R., Breslow, L., Salek, M. M., & Crawley, E. F. (2022, Submitted). Fostering and assessing the systems thinking of first-year undergraduate engineering students using the System Architecture-Function-Purpose framework.

Other works:
Presentation: Teaching and Assessing Systems Thinking in First-year Engineering Education Download link: shorturl.at/cmRUY

LinkedIn article: A Cost-Effective Methodology for Tackling Ill-Defined Problems: A Case Study in an Undergraduate Project-Based Course
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cost-effective-methodology-tackling-ill-defined-problems-rea-lavi/

ResearchGate discussion: Are creative thinking and systems thinking related?
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Are_creative_thinking_and_systems_thinking_related

Bio:
Dr. Rea Lavi is Lecturer and a Curriculum Designer with the New Engineering Education Transformation (NEET) undergraduate program in the School of Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, where he leads the integration of 21st century skills into the program curriculum. In 2021, he received an award from the d’Arbeloff Fund for Excellence in Education to develop and teach a new undergraduate course at MIT School of Engineering, ‘22.s092 - Tackling Challenges in Climate and Sustainability with Ways of Thinking’.

Dr. Lavi received his Ph.D. in 2019 from the Faculty of Education in Science and Technology, Technion—Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel. His research interests in STEM higher education involve the fostering and assessment of systems thinking and creative thinking within the context of complex problem-solving. His doctoral research received several awards, including the Zeff Fellowship for Excelling First-year Ph.D. Students and the Miriam and Aaron Gutwirth Fellowship for Excelling Ph.D. Students. Rea’s method for structured creative problem-solving, SNAP Method®, is trademarked in both the US and UK. From 2009–2013, he was involved in the founding and initial funding rounds of a biotech startup, 

Teaching about diversity in engineering can present challenges to instructors as many do not have sufficient training on the subject and materials to include in classroom assignments. In this conversation, Dr. Natascha Trellinger Buswell shares her insights about ways of talking about diversity and inclusion with engineering students and provides practical examples of relevant classroom activities.

Bio:
Dr. Natascha Trellinger Buswell is an Assistant Professor of Teaching in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. She earned her B.S. in aerospace engineering at Syracuse University and her Ph.D. in engineering education at Purdue University. Her research focuses on many elements of teaching; pathways to teaching careers, teaching experiences from both the students' and instructors' perspectives, and ways to make teaching more inclusive of diverse students. 

Effective design for multi-modal learning experiences is a complex process that requires a variety of considerations including content and resource accessibility, equivalent learning outcomes, and instructional workload management.

In this conversation, Dr. Brian Beatty discusses the core principles of the Hybrid-Flexible or HyFlex Learning Model. He shares his knowledge about ways to successfully design a HyFlex classroom where students can choose what mode of learning works better for them and engage in building a learning community through in person, remote synchronous or asynchronous modes of participation.

Reference(s) mentioned in this episode:
Hyflex Learning Community - www.hyflexlearning.org
Hybrid-Flexible Course Design online book - https://edtechbooks.org/hyflex

Bio:
Dr. Brian Beatty is Associate Professor of Instructional Technologies in the Department of Equity, Leadership Studies and Instructional Technologies at San Francisco State University. Brian’s primary areas of interest and research include social interaction in online learning, flipped classroom implementation, and developing instructional design theory for Hybrid-Flexible learning environments. At SFSU, Dr. Beatty pioneered the development and evaluation of the HyFlex course design model for blended learning environments, implementing a “student-directed-hybrid” approach to better support student learning.

A quick reflection on impressions of the Hyflex learning model in anticipation of an upcoming interview with Dr. Brian Beatty. Join us in brainstorming questions and themes to discuss with Dr. Beatty for the next podcast episode. Share your thoughts by emailing us at:  [email protected]

An educational approach that is based on the idea that kids are competent and can be in charge of their own learning opens opportunities for creative activities that support exploration, problem-solving, and teamwork. In this conversation, Barbara Bratzel, shares her reflections and practical advice about supporting students’ learning and progress through a project-based learning model and development of positive mindset thinking. 

Bio:
Barbara Bratzel is a K-8 STEM teacher who teaches at the Shady Hill School in Cambridge Massachusetts. She also consults at the Center for Engineering and Education Outreach at Tufts University. She is the author of several robotics books, including Getting Started with LEGO Robotics: a User’s Guide written with Rob Torok, to be published by No Starch Press in Spring 2022. 

When designing a blended learning class instructors are faced with many decisions about teaching modalities, use of technology, relevant learning activities, and assessment methods. In this episode Dr. Norm Vaughn talks to us about the history and core principles of blended learning, ways to design synchronous and asynchronous learning experiences as well as integration of meaningful feedback to support student engagement and learning.

Bio:
An educator and researcher with interests in blended learning, faculty development and K to 12 schooling, Dr. Norm Vaughan is a Professor in the Department of Education, Faculty of Health, Community, Education at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta.

Norm's teaching background includes graduate and undergraduate courses in educational technology, K-12 education in northern Canada, technical training in the petroleum industry, and English as a Second Language in Japan. In addition, he has been involved in several consulting projects with book publishers and higher education institutions to develop online courses and resources. He has co-authored the books Teaching in Blended Learning Environments: Creating and Sustaining Communities of Inquiry (2013) and Blended Learning in Higher Education (2008) and he has published a series of articles on blended learning and faculty development.  

Norm is the Co-founder of the Blended Online Design Network (BOLD), a member of the Community of Inquiry Research Group, the Associate Editor of the International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning and he is on the Editorial Boards of the International Journal of Excellence in e-Learning, Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, the International Journal of E-Learning & Distance Education,  the Journal on Centers for Teaching & Learning, Journal of Interactive Online Learning, and the Learning Communities Journal. 

Engaging STEM students early in solving complex problems that better their communities not only helps to prepare them for the future professional environment, but also positively impacts their motivation by making their work meaningful and impactful. Dr. Ellis shares her reflections about student engagement in the learning process from years of experience teaching online software engineering classes, as well as her research that explores student learning via participation in a humanitarian, open-source project.

Reference(s) mentioned in this episode:
Web site that supports the research effort: foss2serve.org
Supporting student involvement in open source projects: teachingopensource.org

Bio:
Dr. Ellis is Professor of Computer Science and Information Technology at Western New England University.  Her research interests include software engineering education and learning in open source software projects. Dr. Ellis is one of the founding members of the Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software project which focuses on involving students in open source projects that improve the human condition. She has been involving students in HFOSS projects since 2006 and she has been PI on five NSF projects related to student learning in HFOSS. Heidi has been active in computing education for the past 20 years and has multiple publications related to involving students in HFOSS projects.