From In Vivo to In Vitro: Translating Industry Needs into Undergraduate Learning Experiences

The design of a complex system, like an aircraft or spacecraft, is the result of collaborative work by individuals from multiple disciplines and can impact (or be impacted by) a variety of stakeholders. To support the effective design of these systems, members of industry have called for engineering graduates who can view design from a systems perspective and understand the societal, environmental, and economic context in which engineering is practiced.

As educators and researchers, we may ask ourselves how we can support our students’ preparation for this complex systems design work environment. More specifically, I am proposing the following question: 

How can we leverage theories about, and the practices used in, engineering design to support the development of learning environments that prepare students to be complex systems designers?

Join your colleagues as we explore our own work environments and consider methods for supporting the preparation of students for these types of environments. We will also discuss a translational research approach that leverages explorations of complex learning and work environments to develop and evaluate learning experiences. This approach will be illustrated using a research study about preparing students to integrate stakeholder considerations into the design of a complex sociotechnical system.

Bio:

Dr. Alexandra Coso Strong is currently an Assistant Professor of Systems Design and Engineering at Olin College. She is an aerospace and systems engineer by training, with degrees from MIT, the University of Virginia, and Georgia Tech. Most importantly, however, her passions lie in learner-centered design and engineering education. Alexandra has been conducting engineering education research since the start of graduate school and also worked as a postdoctoral fellow in Georgia Tech’s Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning. For her Master’s work, she developed a mixed methods research design to examine undergraduate engineering students’ prior knowledge about interdisciplinary approaches to design and problem-solving. The goal of her doctoral research was to improve students’ abilities to think more broadly about complex systems design and to take into account stakeholder-related considerations within their design projects. In her postdoc, she explored the impact of a teaching certificate program on graduate student participants. Currently, Alexandra can be found exploring the work environments students enter following graduation and considering how to design learning environments that can foster student preparation for those work environments.