1. Co-PI: Elizabeth Briody, Anthropologist (Cultural Keys, LLC)
An Engineering Education ‘Skunkworks’ to
Spark Departmental Revolution
PI: Anil Bajaj, Head of the School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University
Co-PI: Ed Berger, Engineering Education Researcher (School of Engineering Education and School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue)
Co-PI: Elizabeth Briody, Anthropologist (Cultural Keys, LLC)
Co-PI: Ed Morrison, Change Agent (Purdue Center for Regional Development)
How will you be a national leader for revolutionizing engineering departments?
papers/reports/presentations
Successful?
Promising?
workshops
engineering
departments
MACH team
plan do
assess do
assess
adjust
idea
how-to tools and evidence
Purdue MES; key issues: evidence, context, bookkeeping
Purdue ME Program; key issues: evidence, context, scaling
Purdue Foundry & NSF I-corps
Research Plan
Vision
Barriers
Goals
Research Questions
Culture and change research questions
CCRQ1: How do ME dept. members describe the current culture, and how does that compare to the envisioned future culture?
CCRQ2: Using Strategic Doing, can a leadership team guide agile networks to use research-based pedagogies at scale?
CCRQ3: How does the Purdue MES enable broad-scale cultural change by driving the conversation at the borderlands?
Trust, human nature
Critical competing demands on time
Academic norms about performance, metrics, individuals
SD helps build trust in networked organizations
SD demands agile, evidence-driven decisions based upon measureable outcomes
ME undergraduates will experience powerful educational programs under continuous innovation by faculty, staff, and students.
ME students will achieve PFE outcomes in radically improved ways that prepare them for future opportunities.
ME students, faculty, and staff relationships will be rooted in trust developed through execution of a shared mission.
Engineering education research questions
EERQ1: How do students navigate the pedagogical borderlands encountered in concurrent/consecutive classes?
EERQ2: How do faculty calibrate their pedagogical approaches for student achievement of PFEOs?
EERQ3: What are the most useful and effective tools for assessment at scale?
Data Collection
Students (~400)
Staff (~130)
Faculty (~70)
surveys
Objectives
Students (~20)
Staff (~20)
Faculty (~20)
interviews
Students (~10)
Staff (~5)
Faculty (~10)
External (~4)
Skunkworks
Students with dramatically improved PFE outcomes, defined as (5XME report*):
Flexibility and agility
Innovation and creativity to benefit society
Global focus
Teamwork and leadership
Communication skills
An ME program with dramatically improved levels of trust, more student-centrism, and a massively expanded capacity to develop/deploy educational innovations
Theory of Change
Faculty (~35)
in-class observations
plus routine data collection from alumni and employers for ABET and other self-study purposes, augmented with specific questions related to achievement of PFE outcomes
Transformation requires strategic design of open, loosely joined networks among students, faculty and administrators.
These new networks must engage individuals at both an intellectual and emotional level in the creation of new, shared value.
Strategic Doing (SD) provides a tested protocol to design and guide these networks.
* A. G. Ulsoy, “Report of The ‘ 5XME ’ Workshop : Transforming Mechanical Engineering
Education and Research in the USA,” Arlington VA, 2007.
Roadmap for Scaling and Adaptation
Faculty Development
NSF I-corps
The SD approach might be one of the most effective ways of implementing change on campus.… Our diverse team of faculty and administrators have pivoted many times because of the continuous feedback that we analyze and plug back in into the decision making process.
Ilya V. Avdeev, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Founder, UWM Student Startup Challenge (SSC)
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
scaling and adaptation
To create new more powerful educational experiences, faculty need more productive collaborations with colleagues and students.
Skunkworks will provide guided workshops for faculty to develop these skills as they design/test/use educational innovations.
Incentives emerge as faculty learn to “link and leverage” their assets and become more productive. Less wasted time meeting, more time engaged in teaching and research.
Purdue Foundry--commercialization
Workshops—ASEE, ASME, special sessions
“traditional” dissemination
Publication—ASEE, ASME, organizational change, anthropology
Cultural context—characterization of current and envisioned culture
roadmap
Evidence—research questions, both EERQ and CCRQ (quantitative, qualitative)
Bookkeeping—time, money, people, collected throughout project—the “cost”
time