Lauren D. Thomas

Work in progress — Developing a graduate consortium in engineering education

Graduate students engaged in engineering education research have always informally networked in small clusters at engineering education themed conferences. As the graduate student population has grown, so too has a widespread desire to develop a larger, more formalized student network. An effort supported by engineering education faculty and interested graduate students is currently underway to create a formal consortium to network and support students. This paper provides a brief overview of the tentatively planned programs and events that demonstrate the progress to date of the Graduate Engineering Education Consortium for Students (GEECS). Presenting our early development is intended to provide a basis for our decisions to date. Exhibition of the consortium through this media also intends to raise awareness and attract other students who may not be aware of the planned consortium and the benefits and resources that it may provide to enhance their experience.

Reasoning About Categorical Data: Multiway Plots as Useful Research Tools

To explore the general question of ways to help educators become more reflective, this paper focuses on the proposition that one way to help educators be more reflective is to give them an opportunity to discuss (or be interviewed about) an activity they do with students. To address this proposition, we use a “multiple perspectives methodology” featuring essays from seven educators about their experiences of being interviewed about a reflection activity they have done with students. The educators’ essays suggest that the interviews were experienced as (1) a reflection opportunity, (2) a chance to reflect on the activity that was the focus of the interview, (3) a chance to reflect on reflection as an educational activity, and (4) a chance to bridge reflection and other points of personal interest. The results presented in this paper provide a basis for suggesting that interviewing educators about activities they use with students is a promising way to support educator reflection.

The lord of PhD: Fellowship of the dissertation - A guide to surviving the pursuit of a PhD

Allegories have been used to represent ideas, concepts, and processes, primarily in classical literature. In engineering education, allegories have been used to describe the different roles within academia [1]. Here, we focus specifically on the path of a doctoral student in engineering working towards earning their degree and completing a dissertation. The path will be discussed as an allegory to “The Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien [2]. This allegory explores the milestones, characters, barriers, and support doctoral students will meet along their journey. The session will utilize identity-trajectory to guide discussion and encourage attendees to explore and share their experiences. The session is aimed at providing guidelines to students progressing through a doctoral degree and to assist graduate advisors in supporting their students on this journey.

Work in progress - informal engineering experiences in the African American community

Engineering outreach and informal experiences have been done for years, however the target audience of African Americans is not often addressed or published. The National Society of Black Engineers as a professional engineering organization is poised to lead this type of outreach and it is embarked in this project. Through the organizations outreach program series a small group of programs have been developed for membership implementation nationwide. The organization provides direction and a funding source for local chapters to provide outreach experiences to students in their neighborhood. The short term goal of the project is to impact 10,000 students with a significant engineering experience in a three year time frame, a more than achievable goal based on the organizations total membership of over 30,000. Significant differences in this model compared to others are the mirror ethnicities of the students being impacted and their experience guides, who are African American engineering students or practicing engineers, experiences outside of a formal education environment and the development of a sense of community. This paper will discuss the formation of the programs, preliminary results and plans of the outreach program.