A Broader Impacts Course for Engineering Graduate Students

This paper describes the development and first offering feedback of a course for engineering graduate students aimed at introducing students to the notion of broader impacts of engineering research. During the course, students explored ways in which an engineer’s activities can potentially benefit society and contribute to the achievement of specific, desired societal outcomes. The course incorporated lectures from the instructor and invited speakers. Students developed a personal broader impacts plan that is aligned with their personal and professional interests and goals. Students demonstrated attainment of course outcomes through assignments, class discussions and a final project that incorporated one or more suitable broader impact efforts in the context of their technical research area. The first offering of the course was taken by 13 students and student feedback indicated that 90% of the students gained a better understanding of broader impacts, could better articulate the impacts of their research and understood the importance of intentional efforts to achieve specific societal outcomes. Introduction Engineers must communicate the potential impact of their work beyond just the technical aspects. The ability to develop and articulate how one’s research benefits society and contributes to the achievement of societal outcomes are key skills for scientists and engineers in industry and academia. As a university, we must develop engineering graduates who recognize the importance of societal impact, are cognizant of ways to potentially achieve societal impact in the context of their technical expertise, and can effectively articulate their efforts in this arena [1]. There exist few courses that address these needs for graduate students and these have been aimed at the scientific disciplines such as biology and ecology or have focused on a particular activity such as community engagement or informal science education [2,3]. Upon hearing about such a course at the University of Florida developed by Prof. Bruce McFadden at a National Broader Impacts Summit, the author was motivated to develop a course for engineering students. At the time the course was developed and to the author’s best knowledge, no such course existed that engaged the engineering disciplines and that provided a holistic view of broader impacts. The course was developed and initially offered in Spring 2016 in the College of Engineering at Iowa State University (ISU). For the purposes of this course, activities with specific societal impact were grouped into the areas of K-12 engagement, broadening participation, public engagement and promoting teaching, training and learning. Course Content and Design Titled ‘Broader Impacts of Engineering on Society,’ this 2-credit course was aimed at engineering graduate students, with no stated pre-requisites other than graduate standing. The course objectives are to: • Introduce graduate students to the notion of broader impacts of engineering research • Inculcate a thinking in graduate students of the importance of broad based impacts of their work, both through communication strategies and planned efforts Accordingly, the learning outcomes of the course were set forth as the following abilities that students should be able to demonstrate upon completing the course: 1) Understand the importance of the notion of broader impacts of engineering research 2) Provide examples of broader impacts activities that engineers engage in to potentially benefit society 3) Identify potential partners on campus to engage in broader impacts activities 4) Articulate the significance and potential impact of their research activities on society at large 5) Design and/or develop one or more broader impact activities in the context of their research The course met once a week for approximately two hours of lecture and utilized a combination of lectures from the instructor as well as guest lectures from faculty and staff across campus with expertise in a particular topic related to broader impacts activities and selected TED talks and talks available on public sites such as YouTube. While the course did not have an assigned textbook, reading materials including journal papers and news articles were assigned. Table 1 shows the topics that were covered during the semester long course. At the time of the course development and initial offering, the author and course instructor served as Co-PI and platform leader for Broader Impacts on the Iowa NSF-EPSCoR grant and had significant experience in coordinating BI efforts. Guest lecturers with various subject matter expertise from across campus included Prof. Michael Dahlstrom from the School of Journalism and Communication (communicating with the public), Prof. Joanne Olson from the School of Education, Dr. Adah Leshem from the Center for Biorenewable Chemicals (K-12 engagement and pre-service teacher education) and Prof. Raj Raman from the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering (mentoring). In addition, as part of their learning about broadening participation, students were expected to attend at least 2 sessions of the Iowa State Conference on Race and Ethnicity, which is held on campus every spring. Table 1: Schedule of topics covered during the semester long course.