Discipline-Based Engineering Education Faculty Candidate Seminar
Robert Loweth, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan
Tuesday | February 22 | 10:15-11:15
Zoom Link: https://unl.zoom.us/j/96259614929
Title:
Supporting Students’ Growth as Engineering Practitioners through Inclusive, Socially-engaged Pedagogies
Abstract:
Universities are increasingly integrating socially engaged pedagogies into their undergraduate engineering curricula, often in the form of curricular and co-curricular learning opportunities that center the societal impacts of engineering work. The goal of these pedagogical approaches is to support students in developing important competencies, e.g., related to stakeholder engagement and systems thinking, that will enable them to address modern societal challenges. In this talk, I will share findings from my research exploring engineering students’ experiences within socially engaged learning opportunities. I will argue that, to achieve stated learning goals, socially engaged pedagogies must also be inclusive pedagogies, i.e., they must support the equitable participation of students with diverse identities and attend to differences of power between students and instructors. These inclusive pedagogical approaches are needed to disrupt inequitable norms and power structures in engineering; otherwise, students may reproduce these inequities within the socially engaged aspects of their engineering work.
Bio:
Robert P. Loweth is a PhD candidate in the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan. His research explores how engineering students and practitioners engage stakeholders in their engineering projects, reflect on their social identities, and consider the broader societal contexts of their engineering work. He earned a B.S. in Engineering Sciences from Yale University, with a double major in East Asian Studies. In addition to his doctoral work, Robert is a Graduate Facilitator with UM’s Center for Socially Engaged Design and an Engineering Teaching Consultant with UM’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching in Engineering.
Tuesday | February 22 | 10:15-11:15
Zoom Link: https://unl.zoom.us/j/96259614929