Open AccessWHO YOU ARE AND HOW YOU WORK: EMBEDDING POSITIONALITY IN ENGINEERING DESIGN
Author(s) -
Noosheen Walji,
Patricia Sheridan,
Penny Kinnear,
Robert Irish,
Jason Foster
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
proceedings of the ... ceea conference
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2371-5243
DOI - 10.24908/pceea.vi0.14209
Subject(s) - reflexivity , empathy , engineering ethics , engineering education , work (physics) , sociology , pedagogy , engineering , engineering management , psychology , social science , mechanical engineering , psychiatry
As the Engineering profession increasingly explores the complex relationships between technology and society, the responsibility of engineers is evolving to include considering the socio-technical complexities in which their technology will be embedded [1]. This evolution has led to interest in teaching empathy and reflexivity in undergraduate engineering education, in part to prepare student engineers for effective community engagement in their engineering practice [2] [3]. This practice paper discusses considerations, approaches, and theories that informed our design practice as we incorporated positionality into our course. Positionality was introduced as a foundational design tool to approximately 300 students in a first-year design course at a large, public, research-intensive university. In this work we discuss the integration of positionality as a framework to facilitate self-awareness, intentionality, leadership, reflexivity, and empathy in individual and team engineering design activities.