Collaborative Research: Integrating Sociotechnical Issues into Electrical Engineering Starting with Circuits

该项目旨在通过帮助工程专业学生解决电气工程（EE）中的社会技术问题来加强他们的准备，从而为国家利益服务。通常情况下，本科工程课程强调纯粹的技术主题，但真实的工程问题涉及复杂的社会问题，需要技术和社会专业知识。大多数工程讲师都接受过深入的技术教育，他们在工程之外几乎没有经验，并且他们觉得自己没有能力整合非技术主题。该项目旨在帮助工程教师将社会技术问题融入他们的课程，通过开发四个模块的介绍电路课程。每个模块都与技术电路主题相关，每个模块都强调不同的社会技术问题，例如电路组件所需的冲突矿物（来自武装冲突地区的矿物，影响这些矿物的贸易）和电动汽车电池的再利用。电路通常是EE课程的第一门课程，它招收来自许多学科的学生。因此，激励工程教师在入门电路课程中实施这些社会技术模块有可能对该领域产生深远的影响。这些模块旨在在大学经历的中间几年实施，当学生形成他们的工程身份时，它们应该帮助学生实现与社会和全球视角相关的关键认证成果。该项目希望影响六个机构14门课程的900多名学生的专业形成。在基础课程中包括社会技术问题，如电路，向学生传达了一个强有力的信息，即该领域重视什么，这一信息会对学生产生重大影响，特别是那些在EE中历史上被边缘化的人，包括妇女和有色人种学生。并在那个私家侦探教的电路课程中进行测试EE研究生的一个队列将被招募，以协助开发其他模块使用向后课程设计的原则，以创建学习目标，教学活动和课后评估与家庭作业和考试问题为每个模块。这些研究生将更好地准备教EE课程，促进社会责任感。在一个小型私立机构（圣地亚哥大学）对每个模块进行预试验并在一个大型公共研究机构（密歇根大学; UM）进行试验后，这些模块的使用将扩大到UM和其他四个机构的其他大型电路课程。学生的反馈将用于完善模块，并探索与他们互动的工程教师和学生的经验。评估将侧重于这些单元在加强技术内容、促进学生的社会责任感和破坏学生对规范性文化信仰的坚持方面的有效性。成功地实施这些社会技术模块在一系列不同的情况下，应提高广泛采用的可能性，并将提供一个模型，在传统的工程类，可以适应其他教师的社会技术模块的发展。NSF IUSE：EDU计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生的STEM教育的有效性。该奖项反映了NSF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。

This project aims to serve the national interest by enhancing the preparation of engineering students through helping them address sociotechnical issues in electrical engineering (EE). Typically, the undergraduate engineering curriculum emphasizes purely technical topics, but real engineering problems involve complex social issues and require both technical and social expertise. Most engineering instructors have been educated with a deep technical focus, they have little experience outside of engineering, and they feel ill-equipped to integrate non-technical topics. This project aims to help engineering instructors integrate sociotechnical issues into their courses by developing four modules for an introductory circuits course. Each module is linked to technical circuits topics, and each emphasizes a different sociotechnical issue such as the conflict minerals (minerals sourced from an area with armed conflict that impacts the trade of those minerals) needed for electric circuits components and repurposing of electric vehicle batteries. Circuits is typically the first course in the EE curriculum, and it enrolls students from many disciplines. Thus, inspiring engineering instructors to implement these sociotechnical modules in introductory circuits courses has the potential for far-reaching influence on the field. The modules are intended to be implemented in the middle years of the college experience, when students are forming their engineering identities, and they should help students achieve key accreditation outcomes related to social and global perspectives. This project hopes to impact the professional formation of over 900 students in 14 courses across six institutions. Including sociotechnical issues in a fundamental course such as circuits sends a powerful message to students about what is valued by the field, and that message can have a significant impact on students, particularly those who have been historically marginalized in EE including women and students of color.A sociotechnical module on conflict minerals has already been developed by one of the Principal Investigators (PIs) and tested in a circuits course taught by that PI. A cohort of EE graduate students will be recruited to assist in developing other modules using principles of backwards course design to create learning objectives, instructional activities, and post-class assessments with homework and exam questions for each module. These graduate students will be better prepared to teach EE courses that promote a sense of social responsibility. After pre-piloting each module at a small private institution (University of San Diego) and piloting it at a large public research institution (University of Michigan; UM), the use of these modules will be scaled up to other large circuits courses at UM and at four other institutions. Student feedback will be used to refine the modules and explore the experiences of the engineering instructors and students who engage with them. Assessment will focus on the effectiveness of the modules at reinforcing technical content, promoting students’ sense of social responsibility, and disrupting students’ adherence to normative cultural beliefs. Successfully implementing these sociotechnical modules in a range of different contexts should enhance the likelihood of widespread adoption and will provide a model for development of sociotechnical modules in traditional engineering classes which can be adapted by other instructors. The NSF IUSE: EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through its Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.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.