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

1. Educational Simulation and Pedagogies of Engagement:Encouraging the Academic Transition of First-Year Engineering Students Atsushi Akera (Rensselaer) Pamela Theroux (SUNY Albany / Rensselaer)

2. IHSS1975Social Dimensions of Engineering

3. Origins of “Social Dimensions of Engineering” CORE Engineering Renaissance Integrative StudiesPilot Program

4. 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””

5. 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

7. 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 “Integrative Studies”Pilot Program

8. 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 What are our goals for this course? (goals) What’s the value of an academic text? (reading) Why is it important to listen as well as speak? (discussion) What makes for a good presentation? (oral comm.) What is Dr. Akera looking for in the weekly thought pieces? (writing) What makes group work work? (teamwork) How do you deal with the mid-semester crunch? (time management) “Integrative Studies”Pilot Program

9. CORE Engineering Renaissance EC2000

10. Core EngineeringRenaissance School of Engineering Core Engineering Office Kevin Craig, Director Rensselaer Colloquium on Teaching and Learning May 10-11, 2004

11. Retention “Engineering” in first year Foundations Fundamental body of knowledge Foundational skills (modeling, analysis, measurement) Develop technical curiosity Engineering practice Professional breadth & development Objectives of theCORE Engineering Renaissance

12. CollaborativePairing

13. Educational Simulation & Pedagogies of Engagement

14. FaustianBargain

15. Course Design 50% Team Projects 50% Individual readings Educational /Entrepreneurial Simulation

16. Course ePortfolio

17. “Technoscience” andHeterogeneous Engineering

18. Substantial scale Open ended exercises Competitive modeling Diverse solutions Peer critique Past work archive Peer Based Learning

19. Self-Selected Units & Readings • Paolo Freire

20. Self Selected Units & Readings

21. Schedule 2

22. 3

23. 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

24. 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”

25. 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

26. 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

27. Outcomes Assessment

28. 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 AssessmentCriteria for Assessment

29. Fall 2005 AssessmentAssessment Instruments • Pre-post comparative essays • Synthesis essays • Weekly thought pieces • Team projects • Class participation • Focus groups • Student survey • Instructors’ survey

30. Fall 2005 AssessmentPre-Post Assessment

31. 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 Fall 2005 AssessmentAssessment Rubric

32. 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

33. 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

34. Fall 2005 Assessment (Outcomes)Primary Objectives

35. Fall 2005 Assessment (Outcomes)Content-Based Objectives

36. Fall 2005 Assessment (Outcomes)FYS Objectives

37. Fall 2005 Assessment (Outcomes)Integrative Studies Academic Transition Objectives

38. Thanks… (questions?)