Creating Future Female Engineering Leaders

Tufts University, Medford MA

Investigators

Abstract

This engineering education research project focuses on developing a program that will train two cohorts of female engineering doctoral candidates as teaching fellows. Students will participate in workshops and other professional development activities that will educate them in various teaching pedagogies. Through various group activities the PI intends to develop a community that both empowers and retains women, providing mentorship by more senior women faculty and addressing gender related challenges. An important focus of this project is the emphasis on multi-disciplinary education and research. Each fellow will participate in an orientation workshop followed by a week-long teaching boot camp. The boot camp focuses on essential skills for academia such as teaching pedagogies and student assessment. Each fellow then co-teaches a course with a Tufts faculty member who also serves in a mentoring role. Monthly meetings of the fellows and their mentors, led by a master teaching facilitator, provide the opportunity for the group to discuss instructional topics from a continuous improvement perspective. In their second year, the fellows are paired with an undergraduate student researcher in a mentoring relationship. This tiered mentoring program will help create a strong community of undergraduates, doctoral fellowe and senior faculty that acknowledges gender-related issues in the academic environment and works together to effect positive cultural change. The broader significance and importance of this project is the development and implementation of a sustainable and adaptable model for interdisciplinary graduate education. The doctoral fellows will become future leaders in our academic communities, promoting use of appropriate teaching pedagogies that create an inclusive classroom environment. Not only will they be excellent researchers in their chosen discipline area, they will also be excellent teachers that utilize learner centered techniques to convey the excitement and potential of engineering to students. This project overlaps with NSF's strategic goals of supporting, interdisciplinary, research and education that are central to the discovery of emergent properties and structures in physical, living, human, and engineered systems. This project promotes partnerships across disciplines and seeks to equip those entering academia with a skill set that promotes inclusivity and improved learning within the classroom. The creation of a community of learners, incorporating a tiered mentoring activity that reaches from senior women faculty to undergraduate students supports NSF's goal to broaden participation in engineering.