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Session Description

Free ticketed event
Title
How to navigate transformational change in engineering education

Workshop Presenters
• Prof. Sarah Jayne Hitt, Ph.D. sarah.hitt@nmite.ac.uk
• Emma Crichton emma.crichton@ewb-uk.org
• Dr. Jonathan Truslove jonathan.truslove@ewb-uk.org
• Prof. Toni Lefton tlefton@mines.edu

Collaboration
The workshop is a collaboration between Engineers Without Borders UK and the Engineering Professors’ Council (with support of the Faculty Development Division).

Expected Audience
The workshop will appeal to individuals who are interested in, passionate about, or responsible for the changes needed within engineering education so that our graduates can respond to challenges of unprecedented complexity while acting sustainably, ethically, and equitably. This is likely to include people who must enact changes (i.e. by aligning programs with ABET requirements) such as department heads or chairs and course coordinators, but also individuals who feel a personal commitment to reimagining engineering education. Ideally, attendees will be representative of the entire system: whether that is teaching, designing degrees, overseeing strategy, accrediting, and even hiring graduates. The workshop is particularly meant to appeal to those who feel stuck or unable to create change yet have ideas or hope for meaningful reform, in order to provide the reflective space, tools, confidence and connections to turn those ideas into action that can support a better future for people and planet.

Learning Objectives of Workshop
A change toward globally responsible engineering education that embeds sustainability, ethics, and justice is an imperative at all levels of the engineering education system. But change is hard because of systemic boundary constraints found in institutions and processes. Change is also an emotional and cultural journey for communities and individuals alike. This workshop will give participants the tools to identify, understand, navigate, and lead this change within engineering education. Following the workshop, participants will be able to:

1. Identify and respond to levers of influence for systemic change and transformation in engineering education.
2. Understand how to develop the competencies needed to deliver globally responsible engineering education.
3. Deploy existing techniques and resources in their own contexts in a way that contributes to institutional and cultural transformation.
4. Connect with a network of support and others who are working toward change.

Brief Description of Workshop
Based on principles of experiential learning developed within the humanities and social sciences that prioritize hands-on experience, real-world relevance, observation and reflection, participants will be guided through a process of exploring, listening, mapping, and reflecting around key competencies for enabling transformative learning for sustainability: values, systems, futures, strategy, and collaboration.

Because many engineering educators have not been exposed to sustainability learning themselves or are required to deliver topics related to global responsibility that may lie outside of their disciplinary expertise, the workshop activities are designed around how to build knowledge, change habits and approaches, and contextualize what we do as educators.

This highly interactive workshop is rooted in techniques found in coaching, peer-support, and action learning and will include pair and group discussion, small group activities, individual and group reflection, and writing and mapping exercises. Because we acknowledge that transformative learning can feel risky, we will also prioritize establishing the playfulness, connectedness, and flow state which characterize fun experiences. This format is designed to attend to the intellectual, ethical, social, and emotional dimensions of the whole person engaged in the learning and to provide constructive space to grow the confidence and willingness of a broader community across universities and continents.

Planned Schedule

1. Introductory activities: who are we, why are we here, where are we going?: –30 min.
Besides an introduction to the facilitators and overview of the workshop, participants will be led through an exploratory observation exercise derived from Place as Text and Street Wisdom practices.
2. Understanding values and change: –30 min.
Using the Common Cause Foundation’s Values Deck, participants will discover how values inform our thoughts, attitudes and actions, as well as how they shape interactions with others and the natural world.
3. Shaping systems for change: –30 min.
Using activities within EWB UK’s Reimagined Degree Map, participants will gain a wider perspective on systems that influence engineering education, and how to strategically respond to these in their own contexts.
4. Developing anticipatory competence: –30 min.
Using the Three Horizons Model framework, participants will be guided to discuss the future, the future of engineering and the roles of engineers, how to strategize for the future, and what matters most in education.
5. Reflection and continuing the connection: –20 min.
Besides a personal and group reflection on the activities of the workshop, participants will be provided with a suite of tools and resources that can support their work and connect them with a community of changemakers.

This workshop is not connected with any funding source.

Speakers

1. Dr. Sarah Jayne Hitt

   Colorado School of Mines

   Dr. Sarah Jayne Hitt has been teaching in universities for almost 20 years in both the US and the UK. After earning her PhD in Literature (specializing in Native American Studies and Literature of the American West), she was surprised to find herself establishing a career in engineering education at the Colorado School of Mines. There, she served as the Director of the Writing Center, Director of the McBride Honors Program in Public Affairs, and Founding Director of a First Year Program designed to bring the arts into ethical engineering design and to recruit diverse students to engineering. In 2019 she moved to the UK to become Founding Professor of Liberal Studies at Hereford’s start-up higher education provider, the New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering (NMITE), specializing in integrating ethics, communication, and sustainability in the project-based curriculum. Now, she acts as Project Manager for the Engineering Professors’ Council’s Ethics and Sustainability Toolkits, is Visiting Professor in the School of Computing, Engineering, and the Built Environment at Edinburgh Napier University, and is Lead for Transferable Skills at NMITE’s Centre for Advanced Timber Technology. ORCID: 0000-0002-0176-621

2. Toni Lefton

   Colorado School of Mines

   Professor Toni Lefton is the Assistant Provost for Signature Student Experience and Dean of Honors at the Colorado School of Mines. In her 28 years of interdisciplinary teaching and research, she has worked on ethics across the curriculum, integrating arts and humanities in the STEM classroom, and developing courses that incorporate creative expression as a modality for empathy and civic engagement. Toni’s scholarship is devoted to interdisciplinary pedagogy, collaborative teaching, and high impact practices (HIP). She is an active member of the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) and the NCHC Faculty Institute which develops experiential programs for students and educators using place-based methods. Trained as a molecular biologist who ventured out of medical school into the fine arts and then engineering education, Toni is involved in international STEM+, STEAM, and engineering ethics initiatives, researching new methods for HIP, and writing about integrating arts and humanities into an engineer’s toolkit.