Educational Simulation and Pedagogies of Engagement:Encouraging the Academic Transition of First-Year Engineering Students

Atsushi Akera (Rensselaer)Pamela Theroux (SUNY Albany / Rensselaer)

IHSS1975Social Dimensions of Engineering

Origins of “Social Dimensions of Engineering”

CORE Engineering

Renaissance

Integrative StudiesPilot Program

Rensselaer’s First Year Studies Program

• Reserved for First-Year Students

• Features– 25 student sections

– Close interaction with instructors

• Topics Courses– “Minds and Machines”

– “Living in Cyberspace”

– “Social Dimensions of Engineering””

Rensselaer’s First Year Studies Program

• Defined Pedagogic Strategies

• Faculty Development Workshops– 2-day annual PAID

workshops

• Faculty Advisory committee– Community of

Teachers

• Critical thinking• Writing & communications• Teamwork & group work• Personal instructional attention• Focus on learning environment & community• Diversity & diverse learning styles• Appropriate use of instructional technology

“Integrative Studies”Pilot Program

Proposed focus on a student’s “academic transition”

• Team-taught strategy– Humanities Faculty

– Student Life Facilitator

• Self-reflections on learning process (6-10 sessions)– Goal setting

– Reading

– Writing

– Class Discussion

– Teamwork

– Time management

Fall 2005 Courses / Collaborations• Varieties of Religious Experience

(Gordon/Gutmann & Virkus)• Growing Up in America

(Gowdy/Gutmann & Trahan)• Minds & Machines

(Van Heuveln - Masulo)• Social Dimensions of Engineering

(Akera - Theroux)

Fall 2006 Courses / Collaborations• Rhetoric, Democracy & Media

(Haskins & Redding)• Minds & Machines

(Van Heuveln – Masulo)• Social Dimensions of Engineering• (Akera – Trahan)

Actual Transition Topics

1. What are our goals for this course? (goals)

2. What’s the value of an academic text? (reading)

3. Why is it important to listen as well as speak? (discussion)

4. What makes for a good presentation? (oral comm.)

5. What is Dr. Akera looking for in the weekly thought pieces? (writing)

6. What makes group work work? (teamwork)

7. How do you deal with the mid-semester crunch? (time management)

“Integrative Studies”Pilot Program

EC2000CORE Engineering

Renaissance

Core EngineeringRenaissance

School of EngineeringCore Engineering OfficeKevin Craig, Director

Rensselaer Colloquiumon Teaching and LearningMay 10-11, 2004

Objectives of theCORE Engineering Renaissance

• Retention

• “Engineering” in first year

• Foundations

– Fundamental body of knowledge

– Foundational skills (modeling, analysis, measurement)

• Develop technical curiosity

• Engineering practice

• Professional breadth & development

CollaborativePairing

Educational Simulation & Pedagogies of Engagement

FaustianBargain

Educational /Entrepreneurial Simulation

Course Design

• 50% Team Projects

• 50% Individual readings

Course ePortfolio

“Technoscience” andHeterogeneous Engineering

Peer Based Learning

• Substantial scale

• Open ended exercises

• Competitive modeling

• Diverse solutions

• Peer critique

• Past work archive

Self-Selected Units & Readings

• Paolo Freire

Self Selected Units & Readings

Schedule 2

3

Pedagogies of Engagement• Appealing to student interests

– Entrepreneurship

– Technical content / reverse engineering

• Empowering students

– Open ended exercises

– Trust in ability to generate knowledge

– Self-selected units & readings

• Working from student skills & abilities

– Don’t assume they’re illiterate / can’t write

– Peer modeling works well here

Pedagogies of Engagement• Peer based learning

– Major motivational strategy (peer impressions)

– Demonstration of humanistic knowledge as valued

• Educational simulation

– Brings “real world” knowledge to bear upon learning process

– Synergistic with teamwork / group work strategies

• Self reflective sessions on learning process

– Learning how to learn

– Increased skills & tolerance for reading & humanities

– Necessary for “critical thinking” & “critical wisdom”

Vehicle for the Delivery of“STS Concepts”• Social construction

• Technoscience

• Valence

• Organizational dynamics in engineering

• Social relations of technology

• Ethics of complex systems

• Science & technology relation

• Historicizing engineering education

Associated Objectives

• Weekly writing assignments

• Oral communications & presentation

• Teamwork

• Economic globalization

• Interest in engineering practice

• Choice of engineering field & vocation

• Practical integration of STS concepts

Outcomes Assessment

Fall 2005 AssessmentCriteria for Assessment

Primary Objectives• P1 Critical Thinking• P2 Teamwork• P3 Synthesis & Retention

Content Based Objectives• C1 Social Dimension of

Engg• C2 Social & Professional

Responsibility• C3 Sense of

Engineering Workplace

• C4 Engineering Identity

FYS Objectives• F1 Writing• F2 Mentoring & Faculty-Student

Relation• --- Effective Teamwork (see P2 above)• --- Professional Ethics (see C2 above)• F3 Community Building• F4 Diversity / Perspectives• F5 Engaged Learning• F6 Instructional Technology

Academic Transition Objectives• T1 Reading Academic Texts• T2 Presentations• T3 Listening• T4 Time Management• T5 Learning Process / Reflexivity

Fall 2005 AssessmentAssessment Instruments

• Pre-post comparative essays

• Synthesis essays

• Weekly thought pieces

• Team projects

• Class participation

• Focus groups

• Student survey

• Instructors’ survey

Fall 2005 AssessmentPre-Post Assessment

Fall 2005 AssessmentAssessment Rubric

Scale of +5/-5 assessment (for each objective)

• 5: Outstanding progress

• 4: Significant progress

• 3: Notable progress

• 2: Some progress

• 1: Negligible progress

• 0: No change

• -5: Complete disengagement

• -4: Significant regression

• -3: Notable regression

• -2: Some regression

• -1: Minor regression

Student work (examples)To the question: “What is an engineer?”

(Post essays, Pre/Post Comparison)

• “Engineers are driven both by an inherent desire to create and by the economic necessities of society. Thus, when the requirements of society are sometimes in conflict with the ideal of the engineer, the engineer is often required to determine how far from the engineering ideal the final artifact will diverge. The engineer is therefore not only a creator of technical change, but also an integral player in the development and evolution of society. These aspects of engineering are certainly visible in many of this semester’s readings.” -EB

• “I may actually have a less clear picture of what exactly an engineer is after taking this course, than I did before. Though I knew there were several different types of engineering, I did not have the picture in my head of the broad range of careers that can be considered engineering. Engineers span from the “computer nerds” that sit busily typing away in the basements of companies, consumed by their work as in Kidder’s Soul of a New Machine, to Thomas Edison’s charismatic nature in Hughes’ Networks of Power, which causes him to follow a product from its invention through its development, through the politics, to its widespread use. Engineering can fly off in a third direction again, where, as in Latour’s Science in Action, it begins to be confused with science.” -HN

Student work (examples)Demonstrates:

• A reasonably developed sense of engineering identity

• Some facility with STS concepts (sociotechnical, mutually shaping, “integral”)

• Retention of knowledge

But also…

• “An engineer is a person involved in the design and construction of technical innovation. An engineer is someone inventive as well as a very technically based way of thinking. They are involved in the most important phase of construction. They are the ones who plan every thing out and design the initial basis for all aspects of construction.” -IN

• “An engineer makes society a better place to live in. An engineer develops products that either the market demands or some new technology that an engineer believes that society cannot live without. An engineer sometimes tries to beat nature for human needs.” -SS

Fall 2005 Assessment (Outcomes)Primary Objectives

Level 4-5 Level 3+ Regress(-1 or less)

Critical Thinking (P1)

20% 45% --(0%)

Teamwork (P2) 10% 55% --

Synthesis & Retention (P3)

21% 47% --

Fall 2005 Assessment (Outcomes)Content-Based Objectives

Level 4-5 Level 3+ Regress(-1 or less)

Social Dim. of Engineering (C1)

30% 80% --

Social & Profes-sional Resp (C2)

15% 55% --

Sense of EnggWorksplace (C3)

30% 60% --

Engineering Identity (C4)

30% 55% --

Fall 2005 Assessment (Outcomes)FYS Objectives

Level 4-5 Level 3+ Regress(-1 or less)

Writing (F1) 0% 50% --

Mentoring (F2) 11% 26% 10%

“Community” (F3) 15% 40% 25%Diversity (F4) 5% 15% 5%Engaged (F5) 15% 25% 15%

Technology (F6) (not adequately tested)

Fall 2005 Assessment (Outcomes)

Integrative Studies Academic Transition Objectives

Level 4-5 Level 3+ Regress(-1 or less)

Reading (T1) 5% 35% 10%

Presentation (T2) 22% 56% --

Listening (T3) (not adequately tested)Time Mgt (T4) (not adequately tested)Reflections on Learning Proc (T5)

5% 25% 5%

Thanks…

(questions?)