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Board 318: Inclusive Engineering Classrooms and Learning Communities: Reflections and Lessons Learned from Three Partner Universities in Year 2

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Conference

2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Baltimore , Maryland

Publication Date

June 25, 2023

Start Date

June 25, 2023

End Date

June 28, 2023

Conference Session

NSF Grantees Poster Session

Tagged Topics

Diversity and NSF Grantees Poster Session

Page Count

10

DOI

10.18260/1-2--42889

Permanent URL

https://strategy.asee.org/42889

Download Count

144

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Paper Authors

biography

Jessica Moriah Vaden University of Pittsburgh

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Miss Jessica Vaden is a PhD Candidate in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh where she is a STRIVE Scholar. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) in Chemical Engineering where she was a Meyerhoff Scholar (M26). Jessica’s research spans a number of different areas including sustainable engineering, empowering communities about air quality, environmental justice, and engineering education efforts to create inclusive classrooms and programming.

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Melissa M. Bilec University of Pittsburgh

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Dr. Bilec is an associate professor in the Swanson School of Engineering’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Dr. Bilec’s research program focuses on the built environment, life cycle assessment, sustainable healthcare, and energy im

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Amy Hermundstad Nave Colorado School of Mines Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0001-6561-3455

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Amy Hermundstad Nave is a Faculty Developer in the Trefny Innovative Instruction Center at the Colorado School of Mines. She earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Colorado State University before going on to earn her PhD in Engineering Education and

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April Dukes University of Pittsburgh Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-6626-9331

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Dr. April Dukes is the Faculty and Future Faculty Program Director for the Engineering Educational Research Center (EERC) and the Institutional Co-leader for Pitt-CIRTL at the University of Pittsburgh. April also collaborates on the national educational research initiative, the Aspire Alliance’s National Change. April's research and teaching efforts engage graduate students, postdocs, and faculty to inform and support systemic change toward excellence and inclusivity in higher education.

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Abstract

This project is funded through the IUSE (Improving Undergraduate STEM Education) Division of the NSF.

Minoritized and underrepresented students have historically experienced prejudice and discrimination within and outside of their classrooms, negatively impacting their educational outcomes. Research has illustrated that student academic and social success can be improved through instructors creating inclusive classroom environments that facilitate a sense of belonging. The impact of creating more inclusive environments is well-studied, however actionable guidance on how to do this, especially in more technical disciplines such as engineering, is lacking. This study aims to address this gap by developing an inclusive engineering classroom practices menu along with accompanying tools for faculty seeking to improve their classrooms.

The first year of this study, as detailed at ASEE’s Annual Conference in June 2022, saw the development of the inclusive engineering classroom practices menu as well as the pilot of the inclusive learning communities for faculty across three partner institutions. The student and faculty assessment plans were also curated and involved both a student and faculty survey as well as the opportunity for students and faculty to engage in short-format interviews. This presentation will focus on the survey and interview data that has been collected in the second year of the project and the website that has been developed to further engage faculty and other institutions and partners interested in the study. This second year of this study will also see the creation of a decision matrix to aid faculty and instructors to further promote and support the implementation of inclusive practices in engineering classrooms. The continued refinement of the menu and creation of both the website and decision matrix are the next steps in the development of an inclusive classrooms toolkit that can be used across all engineering classrooms and curriculums.

Vaden, J. M., & Bilec, M. M., & Nave, A. H., & Dukes, A. (2023, June), Board 318: Inclusive Engineering Classrooms and Learning Communities: Reflections and Lessons Learned from Three Partner Universities in Year 2 Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--42889

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