Center: Track 4: Creating a Teaching Engineering Equity Center

工程作为一门旨在改善共同利益的学科，在其成果、教育和实践方面应该是包容和公平的。然而，工程并不是在真空中发生的。社会中已知存在的偏见已经融入到技术和系统的应用中。一个例子是计算机算法的设计使一个群体比另一个群体受益，无论是面部识别的准确性还是关于工作机会的决定。当工程师只代表一小部分种族、性别、能力、种族和背景时，就没有充分考虑到人口的需求。此外，这些工程师工作的环境不太可能具有包容性，也不太可能没有抑制每个人尽其所能工作的行为。虽然工程学校必须提供将自然知识转化为技术所需的技术培训，但如果不将工作与其他领域如伦理学、社会科学、人文科学以及与多样性、公平和包容（DEI）相关的问题相结合，工程教育是不完整的。密歇根工程学院采取以人为本的工程方法，将工程师培养成为社会技术专家，他们有良好的能力和愿望，从多个角度评估他们的工作及其对世界的影响。该项目将创建教学工程公平中心，以提高工程学科的包容性和公平性。我们的目标是创造一种教学环境，在这种环境中，以公平为中心的价值观在技术内容和教学风格中都存在，从而使来自不同背景的学生能够体验到包容和归属感，并提供有助于缩小关键差距并提升所有人的工程解决方案。这项工作与美国国家科学基金会扩大工程项目参与的目标一致，该目标旨在促进合作，支持多样化和有准备的工程劳动力的专业发展，以及通过工程学术经验的包容性和公平性来建立能力的创新（如果不是革命性的）方法。该项目将侧重于三个具体目标来应对这些挑战。项目团队将：1；设计一个以证据为基础的框架，以创建以工程为中心的公平课程。该框架将以整合基于公平的教学法和其他学科的概念为中心，并纳入包容性教学理念。它将包括克服工程领域DEI的文化障碍的方法，包括错误的假设，即工程是一种纯粹的理性努力，技术考虑比社会关注更有价值，以及该领域的进步是基于功绩的。2)在特定的工程环境和学科中生成DEI学习活动库。这些模块将被设计成与特定学科的技术课程相结合。这种整合避免了使DEI内容显得不那么相关的“附加”方法。这些模块将允许讲师展示社会关注和公平问题如何导致更有效的技术设计。3)开发一个可复制和适应性的培训和实施基础设施，使工程讲师和导师能够使用学习活动。指导员培训将建立在工程学与教研究中心专门为整合DEI概念而创建的模块上。该方法将包括非常成功的教学圈，为教师提供有效使用图书馆模块的同伴指导。项目评估将集中于测试假设，即我们的方法，将DEI内容直接嵌入到工程课程中，既为学生和教师提供了公平工程实践的策略，又改善了工程氛围。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Engineering, as a discipline that seeks to improve the common good, should be inclusive and equitable in its outcomes, education, and practice. Engineering, however, doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The biases known to exist in society are baked into the application of technologies and systems. One example is the design of computer algorithms that benefit one group over another, whether it’s the accuracy of facial recognition or decisions about job opportunities. When engineers represent a small percentage of races, genders, abilities, ethnicities and backgrounds, the needs of the population are not adequately considered. In addition, the environments in which those engineers do their work are less likely to be inclusive and free from behaviors that inhibit everyone’s ability to do their best work. While engineering schools must provide the technical training needed to convert the knowledge of nature into technology, engineering education is incomplete without incorporating how the work integrates with other fields such as ethics, social science, the humanities, and matters associated with diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Michigan Engineering is taking a people-first approach to engineering, preparing engineers to be socio-technical experts who have a well-honed ability and desire to evaluate their work and its impact on the world from multiple perspectives. This project will create the Teaching Engineering Equity Center to improve inclusion and equity in Engineering disciplines. The goal is to create teaching environments where equity-centered values are present in both technical content and teaching style, leading to engineering education where students from a variety of backgrounds will experience inclusion and belonging, and engineering solutions that help to close critical gaps and elevate all people. This work aligns with the NSF’s Broadening Participation in Engineering Program objective to foster collaboration that supports the professional development of a diverse and prepared engineering workforce as well as innovative, if not revolutionary, approaches to building capacity through inclusivity and equity within the engineering academic experience.This project will focus on three specific objectives to address these challenges. The project team will:1. Design an evidence-based framework for creating an equity in engineering centered curriculum. The framework will center on the integration of equity-based pedagogies and concepts from other disciplines and incorporate inclusive teaching philosophies. It will include approaches to overcome the cultural barriers to DEI in engineering, including the erroneous assumptions that engineering is a purely rational endeavor, that technical considerations have more value than social concerns, and that advancement in the field is based on merit.2) Generate a library of DEI learning activities within specific engineering contexts and disciplines. These modules will be designed to integrate into discipline-specific technical courses. Such integration avoids the "add-on" approach that makes DEI content seem less relevant. The modules will allow instructors to demonstrate how social concerns and issues of equity result in more effective technical designs.3) Develop a replicable and adaptive training and implementation infrastructure to enable engineering instructors and mentors to use the learning activities. Instructor training will build on the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching in Engineering’s modules created specifically for incorporating DEI concepts. The approach will include the highly successful Teaching Circles for faculty peer mentoring on effectively using the modules from the library.Project evaluation will be centered on testing the hypothesis that our approach, embedding DEI content directly into the engineering curriculum, both equips students and instructors with strategies for equitable engineering practice and improves the engineering climate.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.