The National Science Foundation and other organizations have spent, and will continue to spend, millions of dollars each year supporting educational innovation projects to broaden participation, improve student learning, and positively impact undergraduate engineering students. However, for various reasons, many of these educational innovations are never implemented beyond the classrooms they were initially designed for. In an attempt to improve the likelihood that educational innovations will be widely used, this research examines ways in which educators develop, share, and implement new ways of teaching. In particular, this project focuses on educational innovations that are shared through "engineering education guilds," which are large groups of faculty who are organized around a specific innovation (for example, the use of reflection in engineering education). The goals of this research are to understand (1) how the innovations championed by two well-established guilds were designed to be easily adopted by educators and (2) what resources educators use when adopting new ways of teaching, including the guild's role in that adoption. If these goals are met, designers and users of educational innovations will be better informed and supported in educational change development and adoption, ultimately leading to an increase in the adoption of research-based classroom practices.
- Focus: Engineering faculty
- Team:Kaitlin Mallouk mallouk@rowan.edu (Principal Investigator), Courtney Faber (Co-Principal Investigator), Alexandra Strong (Co-Principal Investigator)
- Award Number: #1927268
- Award Amount: $199,999.00
- Contact: Alexandra Coso Strong