Resituating Engineering Education

• In Event: Changing the Professional Formation of Engineers: Revolutionizing Engineering and Computer Science Departments

Abstract

Purpose
Catalyzed by an NSF-RED award, we seek to “re-situate” the curricular and co-curricular student learning experiences as well as the community itself in the School of Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering at Oregon State University. We are working to promote change through establishing a culture of inclusion and shifting student learning environments from highly sequestered activities to more realistic and consequential work that more closely resembles actual engineering workplace.

Theoretical framework
To affect lasting change, we must simultaneously re-situate and re-negotiate multiple components in the School community, including course design, pedagogies, organizational structures and policies, and broader School culture. Activity theories (Greeno, 2006; Holland et al., 1998; Johri and Olds, 2011) provide both an explanation for the ongoing existence of departmental norms and practices and a framework for inducing change. These theories "situate" individual learning and activity in the social contexts in which they occur. By taking a situative approach, we consider activity systems as continually co-constructed through practice, and consider the roles of individuals and organizational structures, policies, and rules in maintaining and disrupting the status quo.

Methods & data sources
This change initiative includes an engineering school with three undergraduate and graduate programs, over 1,000 students, and around 30 tenure-track and instructional faculty. Using a design-based implementation research (DBIR) approach (Penuel et al., 2011) implementation “problems” and “successes” are providing important information for redesign and elaboration decisions. We have two overarching sets of research questions: (1) In what ways have the activity systems in CBEE changed over the course of the RED project?; and (2) What processes and perspectives led to changes in the activity systems? Which are potentially replicable by other departments? Data sources include student surveys and focus groups, faculty and staff interviews, participant observation, video recordings of students at work, student work products, and other project artifacts.

Results & scholarly significance
Both faculty interview data and student climate survey data have identified groups that are positioned preferentially within the community and have different status. For example, there is a status hierarchy among students within the three programs and domestic students have greater status than international students. We are now working to identify and articulate historical, social, political, and economic sources so that we can continue to develop action strategies. We have needed to engage to broaden the community perspective on curricular change to go beyond activity construction and consider development of instructional practices as well. Finally, we needed to re-situate the project team’s approach. It is vital to attend to the boundaries and interactions between groups within the community, rather than analyzing them as separate systems or treating interactions as secondary phenomena. As a result, we have shifted from four isolated “pillars” of activity (core curriculum, student inclusive co-curricular groups, faculty development towards inclusive culture, and School structures and processes) to two interlocking and complementary components: meaningful, consequential work (of all) and inclusive culture (of all).

Authors

• Milo D Koretsky, Oregon State University

• Susan B. Nolen, University of Washington - Seattle

• Devlin B. Montfort, Washington State University

• Michelle Bothwell

• Susannah Davis, Oregon State University

• Jim Sweeney