Reflection: Influence of Social Capital on Under-Represented Engineering Students’ Academic and Career Decisions

Social Cap Facebook Site (Click Here)

I'm going to do my best to summarize this talk I was able to attend last week, by Dr. Julie Martin Trenor (Clemson University) , on social capital. It relates to engineering education in my opinion as another form of including diversity. I know in the US there is a big role of "who you know" and how it helps to determine the mobility of your career. I never thought of it in terms of my decision to choose engineering as major.

In Nigeria, as I have said before, there is a bit of a taboo on not choosing to pursue a degrees within engineering, law or medicine. Ironically there were not many people who knew what engineering was and for me I don't think there were any immediate members in my network employed as an engineer. Growing up most people were doing something in the medical field or law. I recall being asked several times by some family friends when would I expect to complete my nursing degree during my undergraduate education.

But I guess having that taboo gave me some social influence from the Nigerian community we lived in to pursue engineering. I also had my parents , teachers who made science fun and a family friend who help me to complete my first science project in seventh grade: The effect of light intensity on plant growth.

For those who were unable to come maybe you too can reflect on the social capital you had in influencing your decision to become a engineer.

It was a very interesting talk and I am glad I was able to participate. Most of the information below was provided in the Facebook site I highlighted above.

What is social capital:

Social capital is defined in this work as “an additional pool of resources embedded in the social networks of individuals, which can help to achieve individual goals in conjunction with, or instead of, personal resources” (Van Der Gaag, 2005).(1)

There can be strong and week ties:

Strong Ties: Are people you have a close relationship with and are probable in regular contact with

Weak Ties: Are individuals that you interact with and exchange information with but do not form any personal bonds too.

Both types can be considered an asset to an individuals social capitol.

Questions that she had us review:

1. List the tope three people who were influential in your decision to become an engineer and how long have you known them.

2. If you think further can you think of incident where someone was helpful to helping with at engineering concept, getting related material etc.

These questions where given to us to help us understand what types of individuals were influential in helping people understand engineering and deciding to become engineers. The second question is to probe further to see if there are additional individuals that do not immediately come to mind with asked to list people who immediately come to mind with the first question.

Why understand this:

"The specific goals of this project are to (1) build a conceptual model for understanding how engineering undergraduates develop, access and activate social capital in making academic and career decisions, (2) identify and characterize the potentially distinct mechanisms by which under-represented students utilize social ties that link them to resources related to engineering studies and (3) implement an education plan that provides research-to-practice training for university engineering outreach, recruitment, and retention practitioners using webinars and workshops as learning forums" (2)

(1) van der Gaag, M. (2005). Measurement of individual social capital, F&N Boekservices.

(2) WEBSITE: http://en-gb.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=126058257445533

Creating the Wikipedia Page

It was interesting for me since I have never used google docs before or created a Wikipedia site. One day and I was able to add to my experience two new items.

I worked with Hadi to understand the definition of engineering education research, I was unable to come up with a concise definition. But there were two options that I looked into, neither made it to the final page because of time constraints. Both were an attempt to summarize the Journal of Engineering Education Special Reports:

The first was Robins and Felder, where they stated that "engineering education involves the engineering professional and society it serves, educational institutions , educators and students...It is an organization that focus on building a culture of innovation and continual learning and emphasize the importance of systems thinking, dialogue and reflective practice"(1)

The other option was to summarize the research agenda.

I think I have my own impressions of engineering education research. Some of my impressions are captured in the quote above. I hope that it becomes a practice within engineering that serves as an engagement tool to align engineering faculty and students with the non-traditional methods in cognitive theory of how people learn, design problem solving process and other tools that are highlighted in the research agenda. These tools should be developed to engage theory with engineering practice and with industry to develop more innovate strategies for building and applying knowledge in practice.

Overall this experience was a great kick off to thinking about writing the essay and working with classmates collectively to create a public place for future discussions on what is engineering education research. I am looking forward to the updates from others outside of our class and hopefully outside of Purdue and the US.

(1)Robin S Adams, R. M. F. (2008). "Reframing Professional Development: A Systems Approach to Preparing Engineering Education to Educate Tommorrow's Engineers." Journal of Engineering Education Special Guest Editorial.

the scale of the universe and of the history and philosophy of engineering education

Class,
I can't decide where the concepts in H/P fit metaphorically in this universe scale. Some seem to me to be of the size of galaxies in the concept of engineering, some are like DNA, some are hard to place. I share this scale of the universe model with you so you can ponder both realms as I have been doing for a long time in thinking about man's role in the universe as we are thinking about engineering's role in our societies. I stand in awe of both concepts and of how our thinking about engineering has been stretched.
dan
Move the blue button right and left.


http://primaxstudio.com/stuff/scale_of_universe/

 

An author who has done a lot of thinking about these kind of questions and blended his thoughts on the meaning of life [and some fantastic creative engineering] into science fiction stories  turned 90 yrs old not so long ago, Arthur C Clarke. If you haven't ever met him, his Rama series is absolutely out of this world.[see below].  If you would like to meet him, here is one of his last Youtube recordings.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qLdeEjdbWE  

Arthur C. Clarke stretched my imagination as few others have done. He died in 2007.

 

Rama [great holiday reading]
1. Rendezvous with Rama (1972)
2. Rama II (1989) (with Gentry Lee)
3. The Garden of Rama (1991) (with Gentry Lee)
4. Rama Revealed (1993) (with Gentry Lee)

Dr. Karan Watson's Talk about Change in Engineering Education

I watched this awesome talk by Dr. Karan Watson on YouTube. I am not sure whether other folks have already watched it, since it's been there for a while. Just want to share :)

She talks about "Change". She says we are talking about changing engineering education since a hundred years ago, but the large engineering enterprise simply does not listen to us. The motivation for change today is a creeping crisis that never raise the alarm as mentioned by William Wulf. We engineering education researchers have showed our data again and again and again that our ways are better, but the change simply does not happen, because sometimes culture cannot be changed by data, authentication or facts. What we are doing should not be regarded as science, because “consensus, emotions, and traditions are not changed by proofs”. Culture is a result of daily conversations. We need to be contagious about our ideas.

“If you claim you are going to change engineering education, then recognize that you are going to create a storm.” She mentions an analogy made by Peter Russell: when you face with a storm that is caused by change, you need to be more like a tree. You need to be able to bend when the wind gets strong, you need to have deep root in the discipline, across disciplines, in pedagogy, in engineering, and in change, and you need other trees.

She also talks about balancing the reward system between research and teaching.

I feel it's really an awesome talk.

My thoughts on the Engineering Education Wikipedia page construction

Although I thought that writing a Wikipedia page about engineering education research was commendable, doing so in an hour was quite a formidable task. There was a bit of silence at the beginning as we (I know this was true for me) tried to recover from the bomb that was just dropped on us. After the silence came a few ideas about the content, then there were a few ideas about the process. In no time, a Google Doc was created and many of us went to the front computer to input our e-mail addresses so that we could all make changes to the collective document. Then, there was a flurry of typing in different portions of the document as each person/group inputted information that they deemed necessary for the page. Some people were inputting lists while others were pasting the links that were relevant to the items of the list. I personally entered a few of the research areas as well as the corresponding short descriptions. Although we had a fair amount of material, it was not in any kind of orderly format. It was just a bunch of randomly placed ideas. This caused a new set of people to emerge and volunteer to get the ideas in order. The new task for most of the group was to figure out what the major sections of the page would be and to decide what material corresponds to each section. An implication of assigning material to a section was the material that was not selected for a section did not make it to the Wikipedia page. There were no votes or extensive speeches to try to get unassigned material onto the page as many may not have realized that the assignment process caused some material to be left behind. Once a few of the sections were formed (and maybe even before), there were people trying to get the material organized on the Google Doc and inserted onto the Wikipedia page. At the end of this exercise, we (as a class) had created a Wikipedia page about engineering education research. Looking back on this experience, I can see that it was boundary work. We were trying to carve out a space for engineering education research. Some of the things that I wonder about as I reflect on this boundary work are: What piece of the story is missing due to the unassigned material? What piece of the story is missing in general? Who is included by the boundary that we have created? Who is not included? How representative is the resulting Wikipedia page to each person’s personal thoughts of engineering education research? Or to the class’ collective thoughts of engineering education research?

Interesting Article in ASEE PRISM Magazine

I received the ASEE PRISM magazine today and found an article on a topic which I want to talk for a long time. This article is named "Adding Value to Teaching: What can we offer that students can't get online? " and written by Debbie Chachra. Online version is also available at http://www.prism-magazine.org/nov10/last_word.cfm (ASEE member only).

It says that the way we teach our undergraduate engineering students (chalk-and-talk lectures) looks as though it's still in the Middle Age. However, we are not in the Middle Age, we are in a digital age when Internet is everywhere. "One of the most profound effects of the Internet is the democratization of knowledge." It gives examples of online resources such as Khan Academy Channel on YouTube and MIT's Open CourseWare, and I believe there are millions of others. "Students all over the globe are starting to find the tools they need to learn on their own time, at their own pace--and for free." "We're asking our students for four years of their life and an awful lot of their money. What is they decide that it's no longer cost-effective to get a degree? "

While I think most of students still regard going to college worthwhile, because of the social value of a college diploma, and the precious campus experience (leave parents, go to college, go to a new place, make new friends, and grow up). However, that's not college education truly about. We want to give the students authentic learning experience, harmonious learning environments, to initiate a life-long and self-directed learning process. The diploma and campus experience should only be the added value to the main learning goal, NOT the opposite.

The author of this article thinks the answer to the problem above lies in teaching. Undergraduate engineering educators need to offer mentorship teaching similar as that to graduate students. While I regard this as a good idea, I don't think it's truly feasible: (1) This method maybe feasible in small engineering college, it's probably not possible in large research-oriented universities, where there are large numbers of students, and faculty members put most of their effort in research rather than teaching. (2)Engineering graduate education itself is also problematic and lack of educational research. (3) This problem is a huge issue regarding engineering education in this era, and it involves many stakeholders, only engineering educators couldn't and shouldn't take the whole responsibility.

From my perspective, the answers lie in all stakeholders work together to provide an optimal learning environment for engineering students. "Although we cannot know exactly what they should be taught, we can focue on the environment in which they learn and the forces, ideas, inspirations, and empowering situations to which they are exposed. Despite our best efforts to plan their education, however, to a large extent we simply wind them up, step back, and watch the amazing things they do"(Vest, 2008). It's difficult to decide what to teach, and how to teach, and if it is decided, it's even more difficult to make the educators know and implement the decision. What if putting more effort in offering the students a nice, friendly, diversified inspiring learning environment with a mix of formal and informal settings: classrooms, student lounges, professional working space, online resources, virtual communities. We need to let them know that all resources are open and they are welcome to them. We still need to teach them how to use these resources properly and develop good professional ethics. If they lost in the sea of knowledge, they should always know there are somebody to ask, and get helpful instructions. In this way, students are self-directors of their own education.

Reference:

Chachra, D. (2010, November). Adding Value to Teaching: What can we offer students can't get online? PRISM, 84.

Vest, C. M. (2008). Context and challenge for twenty-first century engineering education. Journal of Engineering education, 97(3), 235–236.

Educational models are influenced and built into institutional structures and social practices

Athenian society in 300BC was that citizens separated into economic and social class structure. For example, the ruling class included rich members and descendents of rulers in authority and a slave who was in Athenian society were not given the same rights and educational privileges as a member of the ruling class. Therefore in an Athenian society the learner would be someone in a higher social class and would be trained to be a competent soldier, ruler or artisan. The soldier would be thought philosophy and physical training and the ruler philosophy, math, literature and history. This demonstrates how the educational model was influenced and built into the Athenian society.

Another example is the social practice of “the role of women before the 20^th Century”, in my model, if the learner was a woman; she was most likely trained to be a competent homemaker and wife. For Rousseau the learner Sophia, should be educated relative to men, i.e. to please him, be useful to him. (Noddings)(pg17) Nolddings also points out that some philosophers later excused him for his misogyny; “After all, Rousseau is –as is everyone – was a product of a particular time and place” (Noddings) (pg 18). I believe that is can be extended to not just people/learner but the functional model of education. This model is a dynamic function of the particular time and place it exist in (i.e. the particular elements that include the operational norms of a society, social taboos).

The examples above highlight how ideas and philosophies most dominate within a society influence the engagement of the learner and the aim of educations. They shape what is included as part of the learners education and how the learner is thought.

Noddings, N. (2007). Philosophy of Education. Boulder, Westview Press.

Today class conversation about the roles of engineering faculty and engineering educational research

I completely agree with Julia about loud voices “we need to change” regarding engineering education. The problem is that this "we need to change" is at least 150 years old . The question did not change in time, but the answers about “how to change” are different for every epoch. Every generation of new scholars has “new” perspectives on how to change….


Engineering as a discipline is not new for academia. But engineering education, with the epistemological emphasis on “how people learn engineering contents”- is still very young and undeveloped discipline. I think that contemporary research in engineering education has focus on identifying “right” boundarie; and it is a result of “youth” of engineering education discipline. Examples of those boundaries might include: “what are concepts in engineering”, or “how engineering education is different from other education methods” and so on. One of the today readings (Creating a Culture for Scholarly and Systematic Innovations in Engineering Education, 2009) said: “Engineering education research differs from general education research in that the emphasis is on student understanding of engineering rather than on educational theory or methodology in general. It requires an in-depth understanding of engineering, learning theory, and pedagogical practice as well as access to engineering students and their learning environments” (p.9).


At the present time many engineering faculty members don’t recognize a problem in modern engineering education. Crossing Jeremi comments about different types of engineering faculty (Jeremi, Nikitha, and I mentioned that in our group discussion today): there is a frequent misunderstanding in terms about what is “engineering faculty member”? Is he/she (1) a person who teaches about particular theoretical concepts? Or he/she is (2) a person who is doing research on “how students learn engineering?”Research-orientated institutions have both cathegories of faculty members. But teaching-orientated institutions of higher education usually recognize by “engineering faculty” the first category of professors: they are people who teach “nuts-and-bolts” of particular engineering discipline.


A couple of thoughts came to my mind about the “Western white male engineer” stereotype: from my international perspective, this character-type belongs specifically to AMERICAN engineering education. In European counties, and in Russia as well, the percentage of women, who is pursuing degree in technical or engineering fields, is significantly higher.

In Russia, for example, female role in society had been significantly changed after the WW2, because of dramatic demographic situation. Russia lost more than 50 million people, the majority of them were males. The lucky guys, who had a chance to come back home alive, were injured and wounded. In this situation, traditional stay-home-with-kids female role undergo big change. Women were strongly encouraged to take traditional male positions and to obtain technical or engineering education. Similar situation was in many European countries after the WW2. The percentage of female students in Russian technical schools/universities raised up to 40-50%. It was a question of National survival to involve women in industry as soon as possible. As a result, a completly distroyed economy/industry was shortly restored by women and teenagers hands (who after the war were forced to work at factories for 12-13 hours, 6 days in the week).



The USA, on the other hand, did not have those dramatic loss of male population; most of the guys came back home after the war. The majority of women, who were involved in industrial activities during the war, also had a chance to come back to traditional home activities after the war. As a result, integration of American women in engineering and technical fields is slower compare to other countries.

Atlas Shrugged at the status quo

Two years ago, I set a goal for myself to start reading quintessential literary works. I began the journey of reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged in July 2008 (50th Anniversary Edition by Signet). Although I still have 300 pages to go, I came across a few quotes last night that seem to fit with the content of this course.

"Whether it's a symphony or a coal mine, all work is an act of creating and comes from the same source: from an inviolate capacity to see through one's own eyes - which means: the capacity to perform a rational identification - which means: the capacity to see, to connect and to make what has not been seen, connected, and made before" (718). The 'ah ha' moment in this quote came to me after finishing this week's readings. The buzz word that emerged from each of them was innovation. To me, the last part of the excerpt from the book is innovation.

The next excerpt may not necessarily fit with this week's readings, but it does concern education. "I would not surrender [my children] to the educational systems devised to stunt a child's brain, to convince him that reason is impotent, that existence is an irrational chaos with which he's unable to deal, and thus reduce him to a state of chronic terror" (720). Is this what current engineering education does to its students? If so (in any way or to a certain degree), how can we change it?

Another quote concerns the tension between science and humanities, specifically between physics and philosophy. "They were majoring in two subjects: physics and philosophy. Their choice amazed everybody but me: modern thinkers considered it unnecessary to perceive reality, and modern physicists considered it unnecessary to think" (721). Not only does the Mann Report emphasize the need to include humanities and social sciences in engineering education, but this week's readings address the same need. It is a scary thought to imagine that those with the power to change education may still think (or not think if they're physicists) that thinkers do not need to perceive reality and physicists do not need to think.

The final excerpt refers back to the beginning of the semester when we discussed the philosophy of power. "Every man builds his world in his own image... He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice. If he abdicates his power, he abdicates the status of man, and the grinding chaos of the irrational is what he achieves as his sphere of existence - by his own choice" (725). We often ask the question: who has the power to decide? Well, we all have the power. I think it is how we choose (since we have the power of choice) to use it.

Just some food for thought...