2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Using scaffolding to support engineering students in the process of creating technical poems

Presented at Industrial Engineering Division (IED) Technical Session 3: Student Development, Communication, and Creative Engagement

To encourage students to use writing as a tool for learning technical topics and to gain experience communicating with general audiences, a set of technical poem-writing assignments was incorporated into an upper-level engineering course. However, crafting poems on engineering concepts that are technically accurate and creatively appealing is a complex task. To help students develop the necessary conceptualization and writing skills to complete technical poetry assignments successfully, three in-class activities were designed and developed. These in-class activities focused on identifying and working with a specific voice to ensure the coherence and technical accuracy of the poem, exploring a grammatical structure to further the technical depth as well as the musicality of the poem, and finally experimenting with the tone to enrich the emotional content of the poem. At the end of the semester, the students were required to respond to a reflection prompt to describe their experience and opinions about these in-class activities. A comprehensive analysis of student responses to the reflection prompt revealed student perceptions on the role of proposed in-class activities in developing their skills to create technical poems as well as how these activities enriched their educational experience. This paper presents results of the analysis of students’ responses and discusses how the proposed in-class activities can be refined further for future implementation.

Authors

Prof. Elif Akcali University of Florida [biography]

Dr. Elif Akçalı is an Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering as well as The Michael Durham Professor in Creativity in the Engineering Innovation Institute in the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering at the University of Florida. She is an industrial engineer, a visual artist, and an explorer of the interplay between thinking and making in the arts and engineering. Her scholarly interests focus on the use of arts-based processes for the development of divergent thinking and critical thinking skills of engineering students.
Claire Burnsides University of Florida [biography]

Claire Burnsides is an undergraduate Industrial and Systems Engineering student at the University of Florida. She is a member of the Honors Program and is interested in the intersection of creativity and engineering design.
Ms. Zoe Long University of Florida [biography]

Zoe Long is a PhD student at the University of Florida. They are interested in research about how to improve engineering education in creative ways. Currently, they are working on how large language models can be utilized to improve engineering education with a focus on the student perspective.
Prof. Tobias Lodemann University of Florida [biography]

Tobias Lodemann, Ph.D. is an Instructional Assistant Professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems engineering (ISE) at the University of Florida (UF). He received his Ph.D. from UF. His research focuses on Artificial Intelligence in healthcare settings, improvement of trauma resuscitation care, supply chain systems, and creative thinking in engineering education.
Elayne Colón University of Florida [biography]

Dr. Elayne Colón is a Clinical Professor and Interim Associate Dean for Academic and Student Affairs in the College of Education at the University of Florida. With a background in school psychology, her scholarly interests include accountability and accreditation, the preparation of educators for P-12 settings, and the ways in which we measure learning and impact in higher education.

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