This engineering education research project seeks to create a "sounding board" to involve a broad spectrum of stakeholders drawn from across the university to oversee curriculum development and change efforts. The hypothesis of this project is, in brief, that engaging a large number of peers who are invested in the curriculum will promote wider faculty adoption of effective teaching methods. The PI will validate the idea of a sounding board by creating a test-bed for the course redesign process which integrates a variety of performance improvement processes.
The broader significance and importance of this project will arise from the PI's investigations of the barriers to wider adoption of effective engineering pedagogies. If successful, this project can increase buy-in to course redesign efforts and identify potential concerns of stakeholders to comprehensive curriculum reform. The data obtained can inform the STEM community of potential barriers to broad adoption. If the sounding board model is successful the idea is potentially transferable to other programs.
team first believed that a series faculty workshops and visible course redesigns would produce significant changes in the engineering curriculum and improve faculty adoption of research-based instructional strategies. Although the team hosted workshops and redesigned a course, the E2R2P effort produced no significant change. Already busy faculty are already familiar with these strategies and have often tried them. They remain too busy to implement them. While engineering education literature has begun describing what practicing engineers do in the workplace, there is a dearth of research describing what newly graduated and hired "freshout" engineers do. Understanding the tasks they perform successfully and unsuccessfully as well as the root causes of nonperformance could help engineering educators better align their curricula with workplace demands. Such understandings could also help drive curriculum change with the support of interested faculty, administration, industry, and government. To this end, the E2R2P team facilitated a series of focus groups with engineering managers and freshout engineers. During these focus groups, participants recounted incidents of successful and unsuccessful freshout performance in the workplace, categorized them, and determined the root environmental and individual causes of nonperformance. The team presented preliminary findings from this exploratory study at the 2014 conference of the International Performance Improvement Society. The team is currently drafting a manuscript for publication in a scholarly journal. The team then realized that a larger system comprised of universities, industry, and government agencies produce, hire, and onboard freshout engineers. These entities largely work within their own silos. Systems theory would indicate that their "sub-system solutions" are unlikely to change the larger system to produce better engineers in greater numbers at a faster rate. Since presenting initial focus group findings, the E2R2P team has focused its efforts on creating sustainable venues for such collaborations.To this end, the team created a business plan for a coalition to decrease rampup time to competent performance in the engineering workplace. The business plan became an NSF poster at the 2014 American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) conference. FROM FOCUS GROUPS TO VENUES FOR COLLABORATION The E2R2P team obtained a 1-year, no cost extension to continue exploring outreach opportunities that would build sustainable venues for academics, industry, and government partnerships. Treasure Valley Manufacturing Innovation Roundtable Representatives from Boise State's department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, the Division of Research and Economic Development, the TECenter, and the Venture College (business incubators) met with regional manufacturers. After exploring strengths and weaknesses of regional manufacturing efforts, they explored potential responses in the following areas: Integrate with other state universities to provide improved access to resources for start-ups and entrepreneurs, improve collaboration between State universities and manufacturing associations, provide resources for QA/QC testing, and create shared maker space and a virtual manufacturing capability. Foster more realistic senior design projects that align with industry expectations for freshout engineers. Build more internship, apprenticeship, and co-op opportunities for every major. Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering (MBE) Internships Responding to an action item arising from the Manufacturing Innovation Roundtable, Boise State's MBE department has been forming strategic partnerships with local industry to stand up internships. These efforts have established internship agreements with Micron, Hewlett Packard, Plexus, DC Engineering, Boeing, Rekluse, PKG User Interface Solutions, The Core, Simplot, and ConAgra Foods. The department has also created an Internship bootcamp (ME497). This course will provide networking opportunities to meet practicing engineer guest speakers from regional employers, create resumes, build T-shaped professional skills, and hone job-seeking skills. Returning interns will share their experiences with previous interns, providing data that the department can use to continuously improve curriculum and ensure alignment with workplace needs. Skills Summit 2014 The University President and the VP of Research and Economic Development sponsored Skills Summit 2014, which included faculty across the University, as well as industry and government leaders. The Summit seeks to: Provide a venue for industry leaders, faculty members, and government leaders to collaborate in ways that improve workplace readiness and decrease time to competent performance on the job. Form partnerships between those who graduate future employees and those who hire them. Spotlight Treasure Valley businesses and Boise State as the statewide leaders in purposeful college-to-career transitions. Create a venue for continuous transdisciplinary community engagement—rather than a 1-time event. Participants brokered almost 80 partnerships to produce more workplace-ready graduates and decrease their time to competency in the workplace. The Summit team has since collected and analyzed data describing the overall effectiveness and support for the event. The team is currently considering next steps, which could include: Creation of a website and social media capabilities. Creation of a sustainable business model. Pursuit of grant, industry, and foundation funding. Planning for subsequent Skills Summit activities. While the impact of these three efforts are unknown at this point, the E2R2P team hopes these efforts continue to grow.
