IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2017 - 49

feels welcome, connected, respected, and valued. In academic settings, this means creating an equal
playing field in the classroom. At
t he st a r t of H E SE courses, students (and faculty) are reminded that
no matter your background, age, or
previous experience, everyone is
welcome and encouraged to voice
their ideas. Teams in HESE are created according to interest and passion in the challenge first, and then
educational background and skillsets. If too many people sign up for
one venture, students pitch why their
background and skills qualify them
to join the team.
Since HESE classes include both
undergraduate and graduate students, people are often quick to
assume that graduate students lead
the teams. That is sometimes the
case, but we've found the opposite
to be true just as often. Students
become so passionate about the
work they are doing that they spend
countless hours and long nights
working to build sustainable systems. There are almost no rules
or standardized processes on how
problems should be solved; teams
have significant creative freedom.
Teams are encouraged to embrace
the diversity of their peers. Research
has shown that diverse teams either
significantly under- or out-perform
more homogeneous teams [4].
When student teams ignore or
do not recognize present diversity,
they underperform. However, teams
outperform when they realize the
strength associated with team member diversity and leverage members'
multidisciplinary backgrounds. Furthermore, students who participate
in team-based projects cite experience in teaming as a major takeaway
both at the end of the semester as
well as several years after graduation
[2], [6]. Collaborative and inclusive
team experiences are increasingly
important in academic curricula.
DECEMBER 2017

For our students, we've seen how
team members can drive each other
to dive deeper into a project than
they previously thought possible.
Working in multi-disciplinary teams
also has profound influence for students as they take their next steps out
of academia and into the real world. In
the words of one student,
...one of the most vital things
I have learned by working on
this project is that life is multidisciplinary and therefore education should be as well. The
world does not exist in a vacuum and the more versatile
you can become as a person,
educator, citizen, business,
etc. the more of an impact
you will have on the world
(which I would view as the
ultimate goal). By redefining
who I am and opening myself
to new ways of thinking and
interacting I have found an
effective way to bridge the gap
not only between disciplines
but between people, countries, and cultures.
For students, gaining experience
working across disciplinary boundaries, across communities, and across
cultures, is critical for developing
communication competencies. We
believe that learning such communication skills is critical to developing workforce leaders, which many
HESE students go on to become!

#5 Promote Autonomy
A key aspect of HESE is that it provides and even requires significant
student autonomy. Resources are
available when help is needed, but
students are told from the start to
solve challenges using whatever
means possible. We trust the students to put in the work to make
their projects succeed - and we
don't know the "correct" answers
∕

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

anyway. There is no "back of the
book" to check your answers, so
trusting students to act as leaders
and engage with real customers
builds their self-efficacy. The knowledge that real customers will test
their products and question their
decisions pushes teams to work
diligently and iterate designs past
the normal in-class grading rubrics.
They learn to reach out to multiple
faculty experts, industry specialists,
and anyone else that can help them
solve the problem. At the same time,
they learn very quickly that expert
insights can often be conflicting or
even downright wrong, and hence
they need to filter those insights and
make their own decisions. HESE's
lead faculty advisor helps students
filter information and make decisions but - unless the students
are compromising safety, ethics,
or long-term relationships - gives
them the creative space to succeed, fail, and recover. This sense
of autonomy boosts students' selfconfidence over time. We have seen
that the experience is particularly
beneficial for women students, as it
catalyzes their dedication to stay in
engineering, engenders a sense of
belonging, and proves to them they
can succeed.

#6 Enforce Rigor
Our expectations for students are
incredibly high - some say too
high. But enforcing this level of
rigor retains students that have prioritized HESE and truly care about
making impact. It also creates a
positive vibe in a fairly intense entrepreneurial environment. It doesn't
matter who does what, as long as
the work gets done well. If students
can get industry partners, subject
matter experts, their own friends, or
their grandmothers to get the work
done, that's okay too. They may ask
for, and receive, resources to hire
someone externally! All that matters

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2017