In an effort to increase the community of engineering education researchers conducting engineering education research and to support research in the professional formation of engineers (PFE), the NSF has awarded Research Initiation in Engineering Formation (RIEF) grants to engineering faculty with little or no experience conducting social science research. The RIEF grants support a two-year collaborative research project where an engineering faculty member is mentored by one or more engineering education researchers. Since 2016, the PFE: RIEF program has supported more than 35 projects across over 40 institutions. The present work describes preliminary efforts to build a community for new engineering educators and their mentors the NSF PFE: RIEF program. This community will facilitate interactions across teams to share experiences, resources, and expand networks. The goal is to build a community with multi-modal communication (i.e., in person meetings, online communication, etc.) to nucleate engineering faculty mentees and engineering education research to support the success of the NSF PFE: RIEF program. The community events will allow mentees to expand their networks in the engineering education research community by engaging with other mentors and mentee; a potential benefit of this expanded and deepened network is the promotion of future collaboration on engineering education projects that span institutions. This work is part of a larger project that seeks to understand best practices of mentor-mentee relationships between engineering education researchers and engineering faculty entering the EER field. The overall project is a mixed methods study with Cognitive Apprentice Model (CAM) as the guiding framework. Feedback collected from program participants on resources that would benefit their work and support the community will be presented. Additionally, participant feedback from an inaugural networking event held in October 2019 will be presented. Ultimately, the project seeks to develop a framework for an effective community for engineering faculty to develop in engineering education research that will expand beyond the NSF PFE: RIEF program. We aim to support the continued growth and diversification of the engineering education community, and bridge the gap between research and practice.
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9456-5042
University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign
[biography]
Karin Jensen, Ph.D. is a Teaching Assistant Professor in bioengineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include student mental health and wellness, engineering student career pathways, and engagement of engineering faculty in engineering education research. She was awarded a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation for her research on undergraduate mental health in engineering programs. Before joining UIUC she completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Sanofi Oncology in Cambridge, MA. She earned a bachelor's degree in biological engineering from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of Virginia.
Joseph Mirabelli is an Educational Psychology graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a focus in Engineering Education. His interests are centered around mentorship, mental health, and retention in STEM students and faculty. He was awarded the 2019 NAGAP Graduate Education Gold Research Grant award to study engineering faculty perceptions of graduate student well-being and attrition. Before studying education at UIUC, Joseph earned an MS degree in Physics from Indiana University in Bloomington and a BS in Engineering Physics at UIUC.
Dr. Cross is currently an Assistant Professor in the Chemical and Materials Engineering Department at the University Nevada Reno. After completing her PhD in Engineering Education at Virginia Tech in 2015, Dr. Cross worked as a post-doctoral researcher with the Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education and in the Department of Bioengineering with the Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) grant at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Cross' scholarship investigated student teams in engineering, faculty communities of practice, and the intersectionality of multiple identity dimensions. Her research interests include diversity and inclusion in STEM, intersectionality, teamwork and communication skills, assessment, and identity construction. Her teaching philosophy focuses on student centered approaches such as culturally relevant pedagogy. Dr. Cross' complimentary professional activities promote inclusive excellence through collaboration.
Ally Barlow graduated with her Doctoral Degree in Civil Engineering from Oregon State University, where she fused her technical background with her passion for education; her doctoral research focused on the exploration of student engagement from multiple methodological standpoints. Now she works as a Postdoctoral Scholar at University of Nevada Reno, expanding her knowledge of the field through work on faculty-faculty mentorship modes. Her research interests include student cognitive engagement and teacher best practices for in-class and out-of-class learning.
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