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Exploring the Effects of a Visual Thinking Strategies Workshop on the Reflective Thinking of Undergraduate Engineering Students

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Conference

2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Columbus, Ohio

Publication Date

June 24, 2017

Start Date

June 24, 2017

End Date

June 28, 2017

Conference Session

Investigating Instructional Strategies

Tagged Division

Multidisciplinary Engineering

Page Count

15

DOI

10.18260/1-2--28338

Permanent URL

https://strategy.asee.org/28338

Download Count

1407

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Paper Authors

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Ryan C. Campbell Texas Tech University

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Having recently completed his Ph.D. through the University of Washington's interdisciplinary Individual Ph.D. Program (see bit.ly/uwiphd), Ryan is now a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Texas Tech University. He currently facilitates an interdisciplinary project entitled "Developing Reflective Engineers through Artful Methods." His scholarly interests include both teaching and research in engineering education, art in engineering, social justice in engineering, care ethics in engineering, humanitarian engineering, engineering ethics, and computer modeling of electric power and renewable energy systems.

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Roman Taraban Texas Tech University

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Roman Taraban is Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Texas Tech University. He received his Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from Carnegie Mellon University. His interests are in how undergraduate students learn, and especially, in critical thinking and how students draw meaningful connections in traditional college content materials.

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Jeong-Hee Kim Texas Tech University

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Jeong-Hee Kim is Professor of Curriculum Studies and Teacher Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Texas Tech University. Kim is a curriculum theorist, teacher educator, and narrative inquiry methodologist. Her research centers on various epistemological underpinnings of curriculum studies, particularly engaging in hermeneutical excavation of the stories of students and teachers around the notion of Bildung, a human way of developing or cultivating one’s capacity. She received the Faculty Excellence in Research/Creative Activities Award from Kansas State University in 2011, and two awards from AERA—Outstanding Narrative Research Article Award in 2009 and Outstanding Narrative Theory Article Award in 2007. She has published numerous articles in top-tier journals including Journal of Curriculum Studies, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, and Educational Philosophy and Theory. In 2015, she published a book on narrative inquiry, Understanding Narrative Inquiry: The Crafting and Analysis of Stories as Research, with SAGE publications.

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Danny D. Reible P.E. Texas Tech University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-3188-9709

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Dr. Danny D. Reible is the Donovan Maddox Distinguished Engineering Chair at Texas Tech University. He was previously the Bettie Margaret Smith Chair of Environmental Health Engineering in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering and the Director of the Center for Research in Water Resources at the University of Texas in Austin. Dr. Reible holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology, and is a Board Certified Environmental Engineer, a Professional Engineer (Louisiana), and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2005 for the “development of widely used approaches for the management of contaminated sediments”. His research is focused on the fate, transport, and management of contaminants in the environment and the sustainable management of water resources.

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Jill Hoffman Museum of Texas Tech University

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As the Assistant Director for Visitor Experience, and the Helen DeVitt Jones Curator of Education—both for the Museum of Texas Tech University (TTU)— Jill also is a faculty member in the graduate Museum Science program at TTU. Her museum career includes administrative, educational, and outreach experience at various museums, including The Millicent Rogers Museum, Taos, NM; The Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe; and the Austin Museum of Art, in Texas. She obtained her Ph.D., from The Pennsylvania State University, researching how museums interpret Native American art and culture.

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Chongzheng Na Texas Tech University

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Abstract

Engineering education has long focused on the application of science, math, and technology for solving problems. However, a broad perspective on social issues and interrelated environmental considerations is also needed to address the complex problems of today. The arts and humanities can provide important and often neglected perspectives and help engineers to develop skills for making wise, informed decisions through reflective thinking. In this work-in-progress paper, we contribute to the literature by advancing understanding of the effects of an art-based teaching and learning technique known as Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), which has not been explored in engineering education to date. In this mixed-methods study, we employed qualitative analyses of writing samples and statistical analyses of survey responses to explore the impact of a VTS training workshop on upper-level environmental engineering students’ reflective thinking. The preliminary findings suggest that VTS may help students to become more reflective, more aware of their knowledge of broader contexts, and therefor better able to use that knowledge in developing engineering solutions. Furthermore, our sample of engineering students saw great value in and potential for VTS in engineering education and practice.

Campbell, R. C., & Taraban, R., & Kim, J., & Reible, D. D., & Hoffman, J., & Na, C. (2017, June), Exploring the Effects of a Visual Thinking Strategies Workshop on the Reflective Thinking of Undergraduate Engineering Students Paper presented at 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Columbus, Ohio. 10.18260/1-2--28338

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2017 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015