Engineering design is a technical as well as a social process. Developing an awareness of factors affecting groups’ dynamics during the decision-making process can help improve team-based engineering experiences. In this conversation, Drs. Robin Fowler and Trevion Henderson share their research and practical knowledge about ways of supporting equitable collaboration among students who identify with historically marginalized groups.

Bios:

Dr. Robin Fowler is a Teaching Professor in Technical Communication and an Engineering Education researcher at the University of Michigan. Her teaching is primarily in team-based engineering courses, and her research focuses on equity in communication and collaboration as well as in group design decision making (judgment) under uncertainty. She is especially interested in how power relationships and rhetorical strategies affect group judgment in engineering design; one goal of this work is to understand factors that inhibit full participation of students who identify with historically marginalized groups and investigate evidence-based strategies for mitigating these inequities. In addition, she is interested in technology and how specific affordances can change the ways we collaborate, learn, read, and write. Teaching engineering communication allows her to apply this work as she coaches students through collaboration, design thinking, and design communication. She is part of a team of faculty innovators who originated Tandem (tandem.ai.umich.edu), a tool designed to help facilitate equitable and inclusive teamwork environments.

Dr. Trevion Henderson (he/him/his) is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Tufts University. He earned his Ph.D. in Higher Education from the University of Michigan, as well as his M.A. in Higher Education and Student Affairs and his B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering from The Ohio State University. Dr. Henderson holds secondary appointments in the STEM Education program in the Department of Education, and he serves on Steering Committee for the Institute for Research on Learning and Instruction (IRLI) at Tufts University. Dr. Henderson’s research is broadly concerned with how students’ in- and out-of-classroom experiences affect their learning, focusing particularly on the ways that students’ socio-academic relationships shapes their learning in engineering education. Dr. Henderson uses both qualitative and quantitative methodological approaches to student the interactional dynamics that shape students’ learning, focusing particularly on teamwork