Over the last several years, the engineering education research community has aimed to disseminate and implement its work in engineering classrooms. Several investigations have explored reasons for and barriers to the adoption of evidence-based practices. Many of these investigations have been housed within STEM Education communities. External avenues, such as the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) network community of faculty developers, represent untapped resources that could enhance these dissemination efforts.
Over the past year, we have hosted parallel workshops for engineering education researchers at the Frontiers in Education (FIE) conference and faculty developers at the POD network’s Annual Conference. Our parallel workshops were an effort to encourage conversation about engineering faculty development practices across both communities. At FIE, engineering education researchers explored ways POD could aid them in disseminating their research and wrote “messages-in-a-bottle” with things they wanted the POD community to know. At POD, faculty development experts stepped through a simplified version of the engineering design process in response to the messages from FIE participants. This paper brings together our experiences from both workshops to illustrate the challenges and benefits of furthering connections between the engineering education and faculty development communities. Increasing the fluidity of such collaborations may help disseminate educational best practices between them.
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4988-361X
Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering
[biography]
Alexandra Strong is an Assistant Professor for Systems Design and Engineering at Olin College of Engineering. She joined Olin after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Georgia Tech’s Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning and a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from Georgia Tech. Prior to her time at Georgia Tech, she received her B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from MIT and her M.S. in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia. Her research interests include engineering design education (especially in regards to the design of complex systems), student preparation for post-graduation careers, and innovations in research-to-practice.
Mel is an engineering education researcher with a focus on hacker/maker culture and faculty development. She is also an electrical and computer engineer and an order-20 all-pole auditory low-pass filter with a cutoff frequency of 250Hz.
Stephanie Cutler has a Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Virginia Tech. Her dissertation explored faculty adoption of research-based instructional strategies in the statics classroom. Currently, Dr. Cutler works as an assessment and instructional support specialist with the Leonhard Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Education at Penn State. She aids in the educational assessment of faculty-led projects while also supporting instructors to improve their teaching in the classroom. Previously, Dr. Cutler worked as the research specialist with the Rothwell Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence Worldwide Campus (CTLE - W) for Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
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