Trash Teachings: How a Materials Science Module Series about Waste can Empower Engineering Students to be More Sociotechnically Responsible

Przestrzelski, Breanne; Lord, Susan M.; Camacho, Michelle M.

doi:10.18260/1-2--33465

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 7 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This place-based and culturally sustaining pedagogical model advances the literature on how to develop sociotechnical, sustainability-focused engineering curricula [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] and complements the model proposed by Gelles and Lord for integrating sociotechnical modules into materials science classes [8]. We were particularly pleased to see that the students exhibited critical thinking using data from the course content and student presentations, considering multiple approaches for water treatment, and comparing and contrasting these models.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…We situated the course in the sociotechnical engineering paradigm, in which engineers wholistically explore and consider the 'socio' elements of an engineering topic or project (cultural, economic, environmental, political, etc.) interlinked with the technical [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. The course was taught previously by another instructor; however, we redesigned it using place-based and culturally sustaining pedagogies (CSPs), which emphasize a connection between the students' lived experiences and their course experiences [16][17][18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Celebrating and Leveraging Classroom Geographic and Cultural Diversity to Enhance Student Learning

Forbes,

Lord,

Díaz-Montiel

2024

Education Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the fall of 2022, we offered a pedagogically redesigned sociotechnical environmental engineering elective for junior and senior undergraduates that applied place-based and culturally sustaining pedagogies. The course featured a project designed to facilitate the celebration and leveraging of classroom geographic and cultural diversity to enhance student learning about water sustainability. We analyzed the students’ written project reflections using an inductive thematic analysis to explore whether and how the project and pedagogical model augmented student learning. The primary themes that emerged included: (1) deepened knowledge of home and culture; (2) global conceptualizations; (3) re-evaluation of perceptions and beliefs (in terms of water sustainability and personal relationships with water); and (4) future-facing viewpoints. We consider each of these ‘enhancements’ to the student learning because they extend beyond the course objectives and explore the sociotechnical aspect of engineering. The purpose of this paper is to share the course and project model, our findings from its implementation, and suggestions on how this pedagogical framework could be adapted and scaled to expand the learning of a range of topics at different learner levels.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Celebrating and Leveraging Classroom Geographic and Cultural Diversity to Enhance Student Learning

Forbes,

Lord,

Díaz-Montiel

2024

Education Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Not only has our research shown that sociotechnical contexts can enhance students' learning of technical content [27]- [33], but sociotechnical thinking is critical for tackling the complex problems we face today globally [34]. After all, engineering alone cannot solve complex sociotechnical issues [35].…”

Section: Project Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

The “Who” in Engineering: Sociotechnical Engineering as Memorable and Relevant

et al. 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Does emphasizing the role of people in engineering influence the memorability of engineering content? This study is part of a larger project through which our team developed a new undergraduate energy course to better reflect students’ cultures and lived experiences through asset-based pedagogies to help students develop a sociotechnical mindset in engineering problem solving. In this study, students in the class were invited to participate in semi-structured interviews (n=5) to explore our effectiveness in helping them develop a sociotechnical mindset around energy issues and conceptualize engineering as a sociotechnical endeavor. This study focuses on an activity during the interview where the participants were asked to sort a variety of images associated with class learning experiences along a spectrum of least to most memorable. Emergent themes from students’ responses revolved around learning experiences that included global perspectives and emphasized a “who” (i.e., whose problems, who is impacted by engineering, and what type of engineers the students will choose to become) as the most memorable. Our results indicate that students found the sociotechnical aspects of the course more memorable than the traditional canonical engineering content. These findings suggest that framing engineering content as sociotechnical can be one strategy to increase student engagement, increase memorability of lessons, and help students to think more deeply about their own goals as future engineers.

show abstract

“…We have published an overview of some of these efforts [1,2]. We have also published details about modules in existing courses including Statics [3,4], Heat Transfer [5] and Robotics [6] in Mechanical Engineering, Circuits [7,8] in Electrical Engineering, Operations Research [9] in Industrial & Systems Engineering, and Introduction to Materials Science [10,11,12]. In addition, we have described courses on User-Centered Design (UCD), Engineering and Social Justice [13], and an elective on Engineering Peace [14,15,16,17].…”

Section: Summary Of Curriculum Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing Changemaking Engineers – Year Five

Lord¹,

Olson²,

Roberts³

et al.

2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Susan M. Lord received a B.S. from Cornell University in Materials Science and Electrical Engineering (EE) and the M.S. and Ph.D. in EE from Stanford University. She is currently Professor and Chair of Integrated Engineering at the University of San Diego. Her research focuses on the study and promotion of diversity in engineering including student pathways and inclusive teaching. She is Co-Director of the National Effective Teaching Institute (NETI). Her research has been sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Dr. Lord is among the first to study Latinos in engineering and coauthored The Borderlands of Education: Latinas in Engineering. Dr. Lord is a Fellow of the IEEE and ASEE and is active in the engineering education community including serving as General Co-Chair of the Frontiers in Education Conference, President of the IEEE Education Society, and Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Education (ToE) and the Journal of Engineering Education (JEE). She and her coauthors received the 2011 Wickenden Award for the best paper in JEE and the 2011 and 2015 Best Paper Awards for the IEEE ToE. In Spring 2012, Dr. Lord spent a sabbatical at Southeast University in Nanjing, China teaching and doing research. She is on the USD team implementing "Developing Changemaking Engineers", an NSF-sponsored Revolutionizing Engineering Education (RED) project. Dr. Lord is the 2018 recipient of the IEEE Undergraduate Teaching Award.

show abstract

Trash Teachings: How a Materials Science Module Series about Waste can Empower Engineering Students to be More Sociotechnically Responsible

Cited by 8 publications

References 7 publications

Celebrating and Leveraging Classroom Geographic and Cultural Diversity to Enhance Student Learning

Celebrating and Leveraging Classroom Geographic and Cultural Diversity to Enhance Student Learning

The “Who” in Engineering: Sociotechnical Engineering as Memorable and Relevant

Developing Changemaking Engineers – Year Five

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About