2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Engineering education research is often motivated by closing the gap in students’ preparedness for the engineering industry. One way to achieve this is by developing authentic learning contexts, activities, and problems that are representative of the engineering workplace. This approach is not novel in engineering education research or the engineering curriculum; however, only a limited number of studies have closely and collaboratively worked with students, faculty, and engineers to develop learning innovations (LI). This study aims to further address the gap in preparedness by developing innovations that are representative of the engineering workplace, aligned with course learning outcomes, and informed by the experiences of students. Additionally, this study also aims to research participant beliefs related to the development of these innovations to help understand more about what it means to be an engineer and potential barriers to adoption. This publication is a work in progress as only partial results of one developed innovation draft will be shared. Future results will include additional innovations and analysis of the collaboration between students, engineers, and faculty members.
At the beginning of the fall semester of 2023, participants engaged in a collaborative workshop to develop a LI for an undergraduate Mass and Heat Transfer course. The innovation was developed with a faculty member teaching the course, a student participating in the course, and an engineer who works closely with the concepts taught in the course. Including these three participants represents the involvement of the three major stakeholders related to the use of this LI. The results from the workshop informed the development of the LI and aligned the innovation with what is feasible for the course. It also ensured the innovation was representative of practical engineering problems and maintained a complexity consistent with the students' understanding when entering the course. The innovation is currently in the process of development and will require students to work on solving a complex open-ended problem over a period of 3-5 weeks. The innovation was nearly adopted in the fall semester following the workshop, but course logistics and other constraints prevented adoption. The practicing engineer will continue to collaboratively develop the innovation with the faculty member and student. Each research participant was interviewed following the initial development of the LI with the goal of learning more about their opinions and beliefs related to the collaborative development of the LI and its eventual use in the classroom.
The results of this publication include a draft of the LI and a discussion of the findings related to the collaborative development of the activity, as well as perceived barriers to adoption.