Avneet Hira

Classroom makerspaces: Identifying the opportunities and challenges

This paper aims at introducing, identifying opportunities, presenting a vision and stakeholder driven challenges regarding the concept of classroom makerspaces. With the engineering design process at its core, the discussions are in the purview of K-college engineering classrooms. So as to provide a background and elucidate upon accomplishments to date, we first shed light on the history, elements and evolution of makerspaces. Then we present the motivation for this work rooted in educational theory and also put forth our vision for classroom makerspaces. The present day opportunities arising from the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and expectations from science and engineering classrooms are then identified which serve as further motivation for this practice. The subsequent section on challenges is the result of a brainstorm by our team of engineering education researchers, who are well acquainted with the concept of classroom makerspaces and bring to the table a diverse set of experiences and knowhow from academia, education and engineering. This paper is aimed at aiding the academic community to understand these challenges and subsequently address them with future studies and practices, so as to be in a better position for inclusion of classroom makerspaces in educational institutions.

Learning about engineering education research: What conceptual difficulties still exist for a new generation of scholars?

In 2007, Borrego published her groundbreaking work “Conceptual difficulties experienced by trained engineers learning educational research methods”[1] that described five conceptual difficulties engineering faculty encountered as they began to learn about rigorous research in engineering education. Since Borregos research was published the engineering education departments have been formed and a new generation of engineering education researchers has emerged. These researchers must tackle the same paradigm shift that faced the engineering faculty in Borregos study. The research question that guided this study was: “What conceptual hurdles still exist for the new generation of engineering education researchers?” PhD students in Engineering Education were asked to reflect on their conceptual difficulties during the first semester of their PhD courses and write an end-of-semester reflective paper that summarizes their cognitive journey. The summative reflections were coded using Borregos conceptual hurdles as a framework. The results of the present study can inform those entering the engineering education research community by highlighting areas that remain problematic and offer strategies that emerging scholars have used to make sense of educational theories and methods.

People, Means, and Activities: A Conceptual Framework for Realizing the Educational Potential of Makerspaces

Makerspaces are environments where individuals use technologies to make physical artifacts within a community of fellow Makers. There has been growing interest in the educational potential of Making activities which has resulted in many schools procuring tools and technologies to set up their Makerspaces. However, there is scant research investigating the efficacy of Making these newly emerging Makerspaces intended for learning. In our work, we narrow this gap in knowledge between the claimed educational potential of Making and its attainment. By synthesizing prior work and publically available data on Makerspaces, we introduce a framework to situate the educational considerations for Makerspaces and recommend directions for future research on educational Makerspaces. Being cognizant of the Maker culture having emerged outside of the academic literature, we synthesize publically available data from 53 untraditional but relevant sources. These sources include definitions of Making forwarded by 3 well-established Maker initiatives (Makerspace, Hackerspace, and Fab Lab), 18 relevant sites of Making activities across the United States, 17 sites from other countries (namely, China, India, Morocco, and Spain), and 15 Maker initiatives at schools in the United States. After proposing and detailing the framework, we recommend directions for future research to attain the potential of educational Making.

Design-based research to broaden participation in pre-college engineering: research and practice of an interest-based engineering challenges framework

ABSTRACT This paper presents a design-based research project undertaken to test and implement an interest-based engineering challenges framework for pre-college students. This work is motivated by the need for innovative engineering education practices in pre-college settings, and making engineering more inclusive for people from diverse backgrounds. The design-based research methodology can be challenging to implement as it comprises of multiple, cyclical research activities that provide challenges in documenting and communicating the larger study’s progress. This paper presents findings from this continuously evolving study, and also the design and implementation of this design-based research at roughly the halfway point for a four-year study. Each of the consequent versions scaffold to answer the broader research questions of the study pertaining to: engineering appealing to students’ personal interests, empowering underrepresented groups to find meaningful connections to engineering, leading more authentic engagement in engineering and design practices, and improving students’ attitudes and perception of engineering.

An Ontological Approach towards the next Generation Engineer

The paper explores the new technology commercialization model being followed at The University of Akron (UA).UA has implemented the National Science Foundation (NSF)Innovation ICorpsTMmodel since 2013. This paper describes how the NSF I-Corps model has changed the innovation culture at UA and allowed the academic faculty to explore the business potential of their intellectual property.Differences in implementation across several I-Corps Sites are explored. The lessons from UAs experience show that the I-Corps Sites program has been a resounding success and helped faculty and students to become more entrepreneurial in exploring the commercial value and demand drivers of technologies invented at UA.Students are more attracted towards and enthusiastic about modern teaching techniques. This paper provides a new concept in the design of a coursework thus enabling the teachers to enhance the teaching and learning process. The course work, laboratory and course projects are linked through proper planning. It is observed that there is an increase in the degree of involvement of the students in the course and they move from doing demonstrations to structured enquiry and also open ended enquiry. This new framework can also address some of the ABET criteria effectively. Results show positive response from the students towards this new technique.The real time experience of Signals and Systems has been embedded in the form of mathematical expressions. The learners fi nd diffi culty in applying these mathematical concepts in a real time scenario. This paper presents the details of effective learning technique attempted for the Signals and Systems course at the under graduate engineering program using mind mapping. Mind mapping as a technique tests the students ability for interactive learning to improve retention and reduce revision time. This paper discusses about the effects of digital/ paper-based mind mapping over conventional teaching method to shift an teaching centric to learning centric. This learning not only focuses on retention of concepts but also caters to the generation of ideas required for solving an engineering problem, which in turn improves the writing skills of the students. Findings showed that there was a signifi cant positive difference in students academic achievement and attitude towards learning the subject through the paper/digital based mind mapping.