Summer Faculty Immersion: A Program with the Potential to Transform Engineering Education

Abstract

This paper describes a faculty development program that was recently funded by the U.S. Department of Education as part of a $4.34 million Title V, Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) - STEM grant to Universidad del Turabo in Puerto Rico. The overarching goal of the grant is to increase the graduation rates of Hispanic engineering students. The specific objective of the faculty development program is to ignite innovative teaching in engineering and physics courses to assist students in achieving deep learning of fundamental engineering concepts. The summer program was proposed as a solution to recent research findings that show that, although innovative teaching methodologies are available and well researched, adoption by faculty is rare because it exceeds substantially the normal course preparation. The summer session will start with a two- day workshop on inductive learning methodologies by a highly esteemed researcher and innovator in engineering education. It will be followed by a one-month immersion to continue studying additional learning methodologies, and to prepare the innovations for two courses per faculty member. The effects of the innovations will be assessed to determine the efficacy of the proposed methodology. Details of the summer faculty immersion program, as well as the assessment plan, are presented in the paper. Additional features of the grant, which complement the summer immersion program, are also presented.