Back story. One of the overall objectives of the Pioneers project was to catalyze the development of new generations of pioneers in engineering education. In an early phase of the project, we matched graduate students and other early-career engineering education scholars with “pioneers” or successful leaders and change agents in engineering education. Each early-career scholar interviewed their respective pioneer about their career experiences. Designed as a professional development experience for the early-career scholars, this work had the immediate benefit of facilitating their integration into the communities of engineering education. As part of their work, the early-career scholars drew on their interviews and produced profiles of their respective pioneers. Here, we describe one way in which these profiles, published on this web site, can be a valuable resource for engineering education communities.

A course featuring the pioneers. To help engineering education community members engage with and benefit from the pioneer profiles, Jeremi London and Adam Carberry, two of the early-career scholars who were involved in the Pioneers project, developed a one-semester course for graduate students in Arizona State University’s new Engineering Education Systems and Design (EESD) Ph.D. program. This page provides an overview of the course, entitled “Engineering Education Systems in Context,” focusing on how it incorporated the pioneer profiles. The intention was for the profiles, with their narrative style, to provide the students with a deeper, more personal way of relating to not only the ideas and work of engineering education but also to the individuals and communities who contributed them. We hope the course details shared on this page inspire and inform other efforts (e.g., courses, workshops, interactive conference sessions) that engage engineering education community members with some of our fields’ pioneers and their career narratives.

History, community, and identity. The course was designed for graduate students new to engineering education and research in the field, helping them to gain a systems understanding of engineering education and its many stakeholders and to appreciate past and ongoing trends in the field. Reading, discussing, and individually reflecting on the pioneer profiles helped students place their own engineering education ambitions in historical context. It also facilitated development of their professional and personal identities as engineering education researchers and their membership in its associated communities. Other course materials, including the Cambridge Handbook of Engineering Education Research, complemented the pioneer profiles and supported other key course outcomes not detailed here, including practice framing research projects.

Weekly reflective journaling and discussion. The course emphasized the students’ professional and personal development from Day 1, when the instructors and students shared their respective conceptions, interests, and expectations concerning engineering education. Students also completed the first of a series of journal writings on these topics. After introducing the Pioneers project, the course’s progression through engineering education research topics was paralleled by a sequence of pioneers selected for their relevance to the respective topics. Each week, in addition to completing textbook and article readings on research topics, students prepared for in-class discussion by reading and journaling on the selected profile(s). Journal prompts (below) were designed to encourage reflection on personal connection with the pioneers, on pioneers’ advice for new scholars in engineering education, and on the continuing development of their own interests. To emphasize their formative value, weekly journaling was not graded, but instructors checked that the writing was substantive and relevant to assigned profiles.

 

Culminating reflective synthesis. The weekly journaling served as the basis for an end-of-semester reflective synthesis document, where students described two or more themes that emerged in their weekly journal entries. This synthesis also prompted reflection on larger time scales, with students summarizing their journey to date as engineering education researchers and the weekly experience of reflecting throughout the semester. Details about journaling and synthesis are available in the assignment document, linked below.

Identification, validation, and belonging. Students in the initial offering of this course reported a variety of ways in which the pioneer profiles affected them. The profiles provided concrete, detailed views of the many career pathways available in engineering education (e.g., professor, dean, funding agency staff) and how each is valued within higher education. These views included details concerning the specific skills (e.g., communication, collaboration) and activities (e.g., teaching, grant writing) associated with these pathways—especially those focused on engineering education research. However, the significance of this professional knowledge was eclipsed by that of the sense of validation and belonging that many of the students drew from relating to the pioneers. They drew reassurance and resolve in their ambitions to become engineering education researchers from the pioneers’ stories of managing and overcoming early-career struggles—struggles that the students recognized in their own career pathways.

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More information about London and Carberry’s “Engineering Education Systems in Context” course and the experience of its first enrollees is forthcoming in a manuscript that is under review as of October, 2017. This page will be updated upon publication of the manuscript. Also available here are a copy of the course syllabus and journaling and synthesis assignment.

The Pioneers project team thanks Jeremi London, Adam, Carberry, and the first cohort of enrollees in this course.

References

• Trellinger, N., Sattler, B., & Turns, J. (2015). “I realized that I myself am on the path to being a pioneer”: Characterizing
  the experiences of graduate students in a blended interviewing opportunity. Proceedings of the American Society for
  Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition.
• London, J., Carberry, A., Abhyankar, R., Ayela-Uwangue, A., Huang, M., Huerta, M., Lee, E., Allendoerfer, C., & Yasuhara, K. (submitted). Pioneers’ stories: A vehicle for graduate student Introduction to engineering education.