Improving Students’ Sociotechnical Literacy in Engineering

该项目旨在通过培养工科学生通过公正和公平的视角开发、分析、生产和评估工程过程、产品和影响来服务于国家利益。项目团队将在第一年的工程计算课程中开发、研究和分享一种新的方法，将社会正义主题与技术知识结合起来。在本科工程教育中，关于工程实践中的伦理问题的讨论通常是在课程进度较晚的独立课程中进行的。这种分离导致学生认为工程的技术和社会方面是分开的和不平等的，技术内容通常被认为更重要。为了消除这种技术-社会鸿沟，这个项目将把社会、经济和政治考虑纳入技术第一年的课程“工程计算入门”。课程讲师、教育研究人员和STEM多样性专家将重新设计课程并开发新的课程材料，将工程和数据科学中的公平和正义主题整合到阅读、讨论、课堂练习和家庭作业问题中。为协助课程讲师落实修订后的课程内容，我们会聘用一批高年级学生，并透过每周一次的研讨会进行培训，以促进课堂讨论和活动。利用调查、课堂录像和访谈，该项目将研究这种方法的有效性，并在三年内反复修改课程内容和实施结构。这个项目将围绕基于正义的活动重新设计一门现有的计算课程，并由一个公平学习助理(ELA)计划提供支持，该计划将培训高水平的学生以促进课堂讨论。通过基于正义的活动，学生将通过分析真实的、伦理上复杂的数据集和从事对个人有意义的股权重点项目来学习所需的计算技术技能。这种方法将为学生在教育早期提供机会，练习将社会、经济和政治层面整合到他们的工程工作中。重新设计的课程的每个部分都将由两名参加ELA计划的高年级学生提供支持。ELA将参加每周一次的公平教育学研讨会，以了解关键数据科学研究和相关的教学方法。该项目为期三年的混合方法研究将产生和传播以证据为基础的实践，以发展本科生的社会技术素养和对工程的归属感。在围绕这些实践产生新知识的过程中，该项目将通过面向过程的方法(ELA)和面向产品的方法(社会技术课程重新设计)来培养教学变革。该项目在地方和社会层面都有潜在的好处：修订后的课程和ELA研讨会将直接使600名一年级学生和30个ELA受益；ELA计划的发展将增强工程学院改造全校工程课程的能力，以纳入基于正义的问题；塔夫茨STEM公平集团将提供必要的机构基础设施，将伦理和社会正义纳入塔夫茨多所学院和项目的院系；传播工作将使美国各地的工程项目能够采用这种方法。NSF IUSE：EHR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。通过参与的学生学习路径，该计划支持有前景的实践和工具的创建、探索和实施。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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 preparing engineering students to develop, analyze, produce, and assess engineering processes, products, and impacts through a lens of justice and equity. The project team will develop, study, and share a novel approach to integrating social justice topics alongside technical knowledge in a first-year engineering computation course. In undergraduate engineering education, discussions about ethics in engineering practice are typically addressed in stand-alone courses, late in the course progression. This separation leads students to consider the technical and social aspects of engineering as separate and unequal, with technical content usually viewed as more important. To remove this technical-social divide, this project will bring social, economic, and political considerations into a technical first-year course, “Introduction to Computing in Engineering.” Course instructors, education researchers, and STEM diversity experts will redesign the course and develop new course materials that integrate topics of equity and justice in engineering and data science into readings, discussions, in-class exercises, and homework problems. To assist course instructors in implementing this revised course content, a cohort of upper-level students will be hired and trained via a weekly seminar to facilitate in-class discussions and activities. Using surveys, classroom video recordings, and interviews, the project will study the effectiveness of this approach and iteratively revise the course content and implementation structure over three years. Online resources will be created to distribute project materials to other engineering programs that are interested in adopting this approach.This project will redesign an existing computing course around justice-based activities, supported by an Equity Learning Assistant (ELA) program that will train upper-level students to facilitate in-class discussions. Through the justice-based activities, students will learn the required computing technical skills by analyzing real, ethically complex data sets and working on personally meaningful equity-focused projects. This approach will provide students with opportunities early in their education to practice integrating social, economic, and political dimensions into their engineering work. Each section of the redesigned course will be supported by two upper-level students who are part of the ELA program. The ELAs will participate in a weekly equity pedagogy seminar to learn about critical data science studies and related pedagogical approaches. The project’s three-year mixed-methods research study will generate and disseminate evidence-based practices to develop undergraduates’ sociotechnical literacy and sense of belonging in engineering. In producing new knowledge around these practices, this project will cultivate pedagogical change through a process-oriented approach (ELAs) together with a product-oriented approach (the sociotechnical course redesign). The project has potential benefits at both local and societal levels: the revised course and ELA seminar will directly benefit 600 first-year students and 30 ELAs; the development of the ELA Program will increase the School of Engineering’s capacity to transform engineering courses throughout the school to incorporate justice-based issues; the Tufts STEM Equity Group will provide the institutional infrastructure necessary to incorporate ethics and social justice in departments across Tufts’ multiple colleges and programs; and dissemination efforts will enable engineering programs across the U.S. to adopt this approach. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the 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.