Background: There is limited research exploring the experiences of engineering education scholars transitioning into faculty positions. It is an opportune time to explore these transitions because there is a growing number of scholars identifying with the community, a growing number of doctoral programs being developed, and growing interest in hiring people with engineering education expertise. Purpose/Hypothesis: The purpose of this study is to examine the transitions experienced by our research team of early career engineering education faculty. We describe and systematically analyze our personal experiences to capture the significant events and isolating factors that impacted our transitions. Design/Method: We engaged in a multiphase, multi-method, longitudinal research design grounded in collaborative autoethnography and collaborative inquiry. We leveraged Transition Theory and a multiple case study approach to examine written reflections recorded monthly for two years and ultimately identify the incidents that were critical to defining our experiences within our new roles. Results: While we each held positions in different institutional contexts, we found ourselves negotiating our legitimacy as faculty members, researchers, educators, and administrators. Three themes emerged: 1) understanding the expectations of our roles, 2) establishing our visibility, and 3) fulfilling our own purpose within our institutions. In response to these experiences, we sought support from others within our institutional context and among the engineering education community. Yet, the success of this support-seeking strategy varied across our group. Conclusions: The results of this work signify a need to support early career engineering education scholars in the development of local support networks as well as in their attempts to negotiate their legitimacy in faculty positions. Continued education of administrators and faculty members on the differences between engineering education research and scholarship will be helpful in ensuring that early career engineering education faculty have the support and resources necessary to succeed as researchers and educational change agents.
Strong works and teaches at the intersection of engineering education, faculty development, and complex systems design. Alexandra completed her doctorate in aerospace engineering at Georgia Tech in spring 2014. Prior to attending Georgia Tech, Alexandra received a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering from MIT (2007) and a master's degree in systems engineering from the University of Virginia (2010). Alexandra comes to FIU after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Georgia Tech's Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning (CETL) and three years as a faculty member at Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts. Alexandra's research aims to improve the design of educational experiences for students by critically examining the work and learning environments of practitioners. Specifically, she focuses on (1) how to design and change educational and work systems through studies of practicing engineers and educators and (2) how to help students transition into, through and out of educational and work systems.
In this work-in-progress, we will illustrate how we used two collaborative, qualitative research methods to narrate the experiences of six engineering education researchers (EERs) as we transition into new faculty roles within the EER community. To explore this phenomenon, we developed a community of practice where we shared our experiences and informed our practice through written reflections and weekly meetings. Using the Q3 qualitative research framework as a guide for establishing procedures, we combined elements from collaborative autoethnography and collaborative inquiry to narrate our experiences. We analyzed a subset of our first semester reflections to understand the challenges we faced in our new positions and support we received from our weekly meetings. We found the time management of teaching, research, and service to be overarching challenges. Additionally, the support from our weekly meetings provided a sense of community and place to receive advice to address these and other challenges. We found that the proposed collaborative qualitative research methodology was useful for not only exploring the experiences of new faculty, but also supporting the development of EERs.
Dr. Bodnar's research interests relate to the incorporation of active learning techniques in undergraduate classes as well as integration of innovation and entrepreneurship into the engineering curriculum. In particular, she is interested in the impact that these tools can have on student perception of the classroom environment, motivation and learning outcomes. She obtained her certification as a Training and Development Professional (CTDP) from the Canadian Society for Training and Development (CSTD) in 2010, providing her with a solid background in instructional design, facilitation and evaluation.
. His research interests relate to engineering design cognition and instruction, and helping teachers build their own design pedagogical content knowledge, create their own video-based design teaching portfolios, and do integrated STEM instruction using design challenges with their students.c American Society for Engineering Education, 2016 Towards a Scholarship of Integration:Lessons from Four Cases AbstractThe purpose of this theory paper is to illustrate possible approaches to the scholarship of integration and explore features, challenges and outcomes of these approaches. Among the forms of scholarship -i.e., discovery, teaching and learning, integration, and application -the scholarship of integration emphasizes bringing together otherwise isolated knowledge by making generative connections within and across different perspectives and disciplines. These connections lead to new insights and language, and place specialized knowledge in a broader context, often revealing patterns that can be useful to specialists and non-specialists.Some argue that this form of scholarship is becoming more central to academic work because it is better equipped for building interdisciplinary partnerships, developing frameworks that transcend disciplinary paradigms, and responding to complex issues at the individual and societal level. For engineering education, this type of scholarship can provide a mechanism for scholars to create new language, theorize and develop conceptual frameworks, and make cross-disciplinary translations for use in discovery, teaching, and practice. Yet, although valuable, the scholarship of integration is relatively underdeveloped and under-theorized.In this paper, we unpack four scholarship of integration cases -focused on systems thinking, innovation, design teaching and learning, and reflection -with a goal of enhancing our collective understanding of this form of scholarship and ways to use it in engineering education. We employ a process of collaborative inquiry to reflect upon, analyze, and highlight common strategies and challenges in each of and across our cases. First, we provide individual accounts of our experiences, lessons learned, and scholarship of integration features, revealed through our collaborative process, that are embedded in our cases. We then highlight a common strategy and three common challenges that emerged through the collaborative inquiry process. We conclude with a question about the implications of this exploration for individual researchers, the community, and policy makers that warrant further conversation.
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