Collaborative Research: From Cornerstone to Capstone and Beyond: Transforming Engineering Teaming to Support a Diverse and Empowered Engineering Community

This Level 3 Engaged Student Learning project aims to serve the national interest by creating inclusive environments in engineering design courses, which are pivotal in the formation of engineering identity and persistence. By implementing evidence-based teaching practices in engineering design courses from first year (cornerstone) to final senior design projects (capstone), the project aims to improve sense of belonging and retention of engineers, particularly those from historically excluded and marginalized populations. While more individuals from these communities are enrolling in engineering programs, students often face unwelcoming academic environments. As such, this project seeks to address a critical need in the engineering community: developing and validating scalable inclusive teaming models that foster a sense of belonging in undergraduate engineering communities for all students. In order to achieve the project goals, three aims are proposed: 1) identify the impact of INTEGRAL (Inclusive Teamwork for Engineering Advancement and Learning) training materials on students’ sense of belonging in engineering and their ability to develop collaborative and inclusive teams across varying student demographics and university settings; 2) foster instructors’ abilities to facilitate inclusive teaming through a validated train-the-trainer program, and; 3) increase sustainability and scale of inclusive teaming training by identifying what factors impede or enhance effective implementation in different university settings. The methods used in this project include both short-term (e.g. sense of belonging) and long-term (e.g. retention) components in collaboration with external evaluations. The mixed-methods approach is intended to lead to richly contextualized and generalizable data sets, transforming understanding of inclusive learning environments in STEM. The implementation and evaluation of the project's inclusive teaming educational practices seeks to impact 29,000 students and 140 faculty members across 12 campuses from two public universities. The systems focus (student, faculty, campus, and university lenses) are likely to lead to scientific advancements in how educators prepare, train, and implement inclusive teaming practices across different educational levels and institutions. The NSF IUSE:EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.