Abstract
Implementing ENGAGE Strategies to Improve Retention: Engineering Schools Discuss Successes and ChallengesENGAGE - Engaging Students in Engineering, (www.EngageEngineering.org) is a five-yearExtension Services project funded by the National Science Foundation's GSE program.Extension Services projects are modeled after the Cooperative Extension Service in Land GrantInstitutions and are intended to extend proven, research-based strategies into STEM education.The overarching goal of ENGAGE is to increase the capacity of engineering schools to retainundergraduate students by facilitating the implementation of three strategies to improvestudents’ day-to-day classroom and educational experience.The first cohort of 10 engineering schools (20 more will be added) are working to implementENGAGE strategies in the 1st and 2nd year when student attrition is highest. The followingstrategies were selected because research indicates that they improve retention of undergraduateengineering students, particularly women; and because they are enhancements rather thanwholesale changes to the curriculum: Everyday Examples in Engineering (E3s): Involve faculty who teach 1st and 2nd year courses in efforts to use and develop examples that are familiar and engaging to students to illustrate theoretical concepts. Spatial Visualization Skills: Assess students’ spatial visualization skills and implement proven teaching and learning strategies to improve students’ spatial skills. Faculty- Student Interaction: Involve engineering faculty who teach 1st and 2nd year courses in efforts that build faculty knowledge and skill to better engage and interact with undergraduate engineering students inside and outside of the classroom.Although schools who are participating formally in ENGAGE are supported in their efforts in avariety of ways, ALL engineering schools have the ability and capacity to integrate ENGAGEmethods into the undergraduate experience. The objective of this session is to: highlightbriefly, the research that serves as the foundation of each strategy; identify ENGAGE resourcesthat are available to all schools; and learn from the experiences of ENGAGE schools who areemploying the three strategies with their undergraduates. Preliminary evaluation andassessment data of both the ENGAGE project overall and individual schools will be presented.To accomplish this objective, moderated by the PI, individuals from three of the currentENGAGE schools who have compelling experiences and data to share will discuss how they areimplementing the strategies, and will address their successes and challenges. Current ENGAGEschools include: Kettering University, Purdue University, Rose-Hulman Institute ofTechnology, Stevens Institute of Technology, The Ohio State University, The University ofTexas at Austin, University of Louisville, University of Maryland, University of South Carolinaand Virginia Tech.