Engineering Education Research to Practice (E²R2P): NSF Grant 1037808

Authors

Steven W. Villachica, Boise State UniversityFollow
Donald G. Plumlee, Boise State UniversityFollow
Linda Huglin, Boise State UniversityFollow
Drew Borresen, Boise State University

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

6-26-2011

Abstract

The E²R2P team employs a unique interdisciplinary approach to facilitate faculty adoption of research-based educational strategies across the engineering curriculum. As part of a "Sounding Board" of potential adopters, faculty will provide guidance, review components of redesigned courses, and participate in a series of workshops highlighting a variety of problem- and project-based instructional strategies^{1, 2}.

A "Test Bed" will act as a venue for the visible redesign of existing courses in ways that employ authentic learning and assessment activities--where students do real-world engineering in the classroom. The redesigned courses will also help students inbound into their community of professional practice^{3, 4}. Project mentors drawn from a local professional engineering organization will help students to complete projects, and online webinars/live lectures will bring practicing engineers and other experts into the classroom. These instructional approaches should increase the number of activities and beliefs that support student entry into their community of engineering practice. This poster session provides in-progress results of a literature review identifying factors and potential measures facilitating entry into this community of practice.

As courses are redesigned in the Test Bed, the Sounding Board will provide guidance and feedback on deliverables arising from the course redesigns, such as job-focused objectives, active learning strategies, authentic assessments, rubrics, and prototypes illustrating key instructional components. The Sounding Board will also provide a venue to deliver skill training associated problem- and project-based instructional skills. In addition, the Sounding Board will enable the team to employ change management approaches 5, 6 that decrease resistance to change by facilitating the adoption process and building characteristics into educational strategies that will encourage their use. To create a demand ("pull") for these strategies and redesigned courses while mitigating project risk, the team will use a software engineering approach called Rapid Application Development^{7, 8}. To measure rates of faculty adoption, the team will create a Sounding Board Survey collecting both quantitative and qualitative data. This poster session provides an in-progress version of this survey and an analysis of collected data.

Publication Information

Villachica, Steven W.; Plumlee, Donald G.; Huglin, Linda; and Borresen, Drew. (2011). "Engineering Education Research to Practice (E²R2P): NSF Grant 1037808". 118th ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, June 26-29, 2011, Vancouver, BC, Canada, .