RET Site: Inquiry Driven Engineering Activities using Bioengineering Examples (IDEA-BioE)

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The RET SITE IDEA-BioE at the University of Kansas will provide middle school mathematics and science teachers an opportunity to participate in research focused on bioengineering at KU. It will also provide guidance on how to translate this experience into engineering design modules that enable teachers to reach and motivate girls and students from minority groups to consider engineering as a career choice. The project will develop long-term relationships with the middle school community of the district to create a “pipeline” for more diverse engineering students in the future, through working with teachers in this targeted school district with a very high percentage of minorities and economically disadvantaged students. The RET SITE will also integrate educational psychology constructs, to reach a diverse demographic. The effort will have a significant impact on the diversity of the engineering student body in Kansas, a midwestern state that typically has had very low representation from minority communities in engineering. Partnering with the pre-service teaching candidates in KU’s STEMTeachKU program will also allow the project to reach beginning science and mathematics teachers early in their careers. Dissemination efforts will be focused on publishing lesson modules, and translating modules and evaluation into research articles and case studies in various engineering education and educational psychology journals. Dissemination will also be possible via a Virtual Learning Network (VLN).Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) emphasize the incorporation of engineering design principles and practices into the pre-college curriculum. However, interest in engineering among pre-college students, especially among students from racial and ethnic minority groups, is often low (relative to other STEM fields such as medicine), in part due to students’ lack of understanding as to the nature of engineering. The RET SITE will present a group of 36 pre-service and in-service middle school science teachers with research opportunities that connect complex principles in engineering design (ED) with phenomena and applications from everyday life, in order to engage middle school students with engineering principles while also designing curricular modules with diversity and inclusion in mind. Engineering faculty will provide research experience in various biomedical problems. Through partnerships with researchers and educators in the School of Education and Human Sciences, IDEA-BioE RET participants will also gain knowledge on how their ED modules and lesson plans can be designed to address issues of diversity and inclusion. Final ED modules will also focus on including the promotion of self-efficacy, the provision of relevant models (i.e., women in engineering from a variety of racial/ethnic backgrounds), and incorporation of messages relevant to occupational values. Recent research also shows that teachers need additional support and professional development opportunities in order to integrate engineering design practices into their classes, particularly those practices that bridge traditional domains. Therefore, this RET SITE also focuses on presenting Bioengineering as an independent discipline which will showcase rationale design and implementation while also highlighting innovation, patenting, and engineering economics, topics which are more specific to engineering disciplines. This project is jointly funded by the Division of Engineering Education and Centers (Directorate for Engineering), and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.