DIVERSITY
KU Leading Program to Bring Teachers into Research Labs, Design Education to Draw Diverse Scholars to Engineering by Mike Krings
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mproved recruitment of women, racial and ethnic minorities to engineering and the sciences has long been a goal in the field. Now, a multidisciplinary team of education and engineering researchers at the KU will work with middle school teachers to encourage potential scholars at a younger age. KU has secured a three-year, $586,645 grant from the National Science Foundation to establish the Research Experience for Teachers: IDEA-BioE. The project will pair six middle school math and science teachers from the Topeka Public Schools and six pre-service science teachers from KU’s STEMTeach program with researchers in the School of Engineering. In addition to learning from the latest in bioengineering and engineering design research, the teachers will develop education modules that expose students to the sciences and include psychological aspects that research has shown to attract individuals to a career field. The work will include educational interventions that address gender stereotyping, self-efficacy and relevant occupational values that often stand in the way of women and other underrepresented students from joining or remaining in the profession. Prajna Dhar, professor of chemical and petroleum engineering, is principal investigator of the project and will partner with Meagan Patterson, co-principal investigator and professor of educational psychology, and Douglas Huffman, professor of curriculum and teaching. Dhar said she’s long wanted to help improve diversity in the engineering field but was especially moved to do so in 2020 after experiencing the isolation of the pandemic and witnessing the year’s protests and reckoning with racial justice. “I wanted to do something, and clearly in education we can make a difference. We have very low representation of people of color and women in our field,” Dhar said. “The very next day after feeling isolated and upset, I saw the NSF had an RET request for proposals for this area. I have worked to present engineering concepts to a broader audience before, but I do not have expertise in educational psychology. So, I reached out to Meagan to initiate a collaboration
that would go beyond just showcasing engineering, by integrating the knowledge from educational psychology and STEM curriculum design with research experience in bioengineering labs. The goal was to allow targeted interventions and lesson design that address the barriers often faced in increasing diversity in engineering.” Patterson specializes in educational psychology, and Huffman specializes in science and engineering education. Together with Dhar, they will help teachers create engineering modules based on their research experiences. “We know from research that women and people of color often state that they want to help people in their careers, and you absolutely can do that through engineering,” Patterson said. “We’re going to help teachers talk with their students and provide them engaging, hands-on experiences about engineering in ways that show the possibilities there are in bioengineering and engineering design.” The working and pre-service teachers will be matched with KU researchers working in a variety of bioengineering topics such as aging, women’s health, vaccine stabilization and related areas. The experiences will help teachers explore the intersections between engineering and various fields of sciences and how to share those experiences with students while addressing common stereotypes. “What is unique here is the integration of psychology, bioengineering, and science and engineering education. We will help build and review the education modules the teachers design to ensure all those components are there and show the possibilities of engineering,” Dhar said. The first cohort of teachers will arrive on KU campus to join research labs in summer 2022. The partnership with Topeka Public Schools is appropriate, researchers noted, as the district was at the heart of the historic Brown v. Board of Education case that ruled state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality. The project will help develop a pipeline of underrepresented students to enter the field of engineering. Beginning teachers in the STEMTeach program will take the engineering models they create into their own classrooms
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