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| Dr. Glen Ellis has been recognized for his research involving teaching techniques. joanne ciccarello – staff |
How to reengineer an engineering major at a women's college
A Smith College professor's program may provide a pattern for how to attract and keep women engineers.
from the February 14, 2008 edition
Page 2 of 3
Coach more, lecture less
When he first arrived at Smith, Ellis had to break some habits he'd formed as a student and professor in the crucible of more-traditional engineering.
"I did some things that were horribly wrong in terms of education methods," he says with the laughter of hindsight. "I would cold-call on students.... Everywhere else I'd been, no one ever called me intimidating ... but I got feedback from my [Smith] students saying my class was scary."
Current students wouldn't believe it. Consulting with a scholar in Smith's education department, Ellis discovered ways to approach classes differently: to let students work in groups and wait longer for responses to his questions; to coach more and lecture less. To make the goals of the class explicit and have students discover key concepts on their own. To assure them that mistakes are a natural part of the learning process.
The whole faculty discusses teaching methods regularly. "It's a real community feeling here," Ellis says, "and we know from the research that's absolutely critical for retaining women in engineering."
Briana Tomboulian, a senior and an occasional teaching assistant for Ellis, says the collaborative approach has worked well for her. She's leaning toward accepting a job at an environmental engineering company with a similar culture.
Ellis is the best teacher she's ever had, she says. "His classes are so welcoming and supportive.... No matter what it is, he can talk about it in such an enthusiastic way that you want to learn.... And he will explain something 100 times without getting frustrated, until you understand it."
Ellis received a teaching award at Smith last spring, but he says winning the national prize "was an absolute shock." Both came with $5,000, and he spent the first prize on a backhoe because he loves digging in the dirt. But he feels a large responsibility attached to the national award: "It's a challenge to me to do my job better."
Linda Jones, director of the Picker program, says the national award also affirmed the college was right to take the risks it did in launching the engineering degree. She recalls the Provost wiping away tears during the award presentation, a symbol of the hard work – and heart and soul – that people poured into the effort.
Another signal that they're on the right track is feedback from employers. During a visit to a Ford plant, an engineer came off the plant floor to talk with Ms. Jones. She was a Smith grad who had been pulled out of a mandatory writing class for new employees after the first day and asked to facilitate it instead.
An early start for engineers
Ellis offers an education course at Smith to prepare people to teach math and science at the K-12 level and he conducts workshops for teachers. "If you care about getting women in engineering, you had better go to the high school, middle school, and elementary level," he says.
He and a colleague are working on a fiction book that will be packaged with preengineering activities for middle-schoolers. It features an eighth-grade girl who faces an ethical dilemma similar to one that her mother, an engineer, is experiencing at work. Students who get hooked into the story will have a chance to learn the basics of computer-aided design by drafting a bedroom setup; they'll explore artificial intelligence through conversations with "chatterbots" – computer programs that imitate human conversation.
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