Workshop Proposal: Assessment and Dissemination of Educational Innovations in Introductory Engineering Science Courses

The project is supporting a workshop that is bringing together experts in assessment and dissemination along with engineering education scholars who have projects to enhance learning in introductory engineering sciences courses. The experts in assessment and dissemination are being actively recruited from outside of engineering as well as from the engineering education community. Workshop participants are being selected from current awardees via an application process in which they submit an extended abstract describing their project with an emphasis on their assessment and dissemination plans. At the workshop, the engineering education scholars and experts are engaging in facilitated, small group discussions of the assessment and dissemination plans. The goals of these discussions are: (1) to identify successful strategies for assessment of innovations in early engineering science courses by types of intervention (e.g., hands-on learning) and by category of project goal (e.g., improve problem solving skills), (2) to delineate major challenges to successful dissemination by type of innovation, and (3) to develop strategies for overcoming these challenges. The organizers are preparing a workshop report which includes case studies of effective assessment and dissemination approaches identified during the workshop. They also are planning a workshop on assessment and dissemination for the ASEE Annual Meeting and a paper for submission to Advances in Engineering Education to provide wide access of the workshop findings within the engineering education community.