Workshop - Developing cross-disciplinary collaborations for engineering education research

More and more engineering faculty are moving beyond developing effective classrooms practices to conducting educational research, but this move is not without significant challenges. One set of challenges has to do with forming cross-disciplinary research collaborations. This involves attending to differences in disciplinary cultures and language, building trust, learning how to translate across cultures, and committing to an exploration of synthesis across different perspectives. It also requires knowing where to find collaborators to build networks of expertise. This workshop is designed for engineering education researchers who wish to forge cross-disciplinary partnerships. At the end of the workshop, participants will be able to (1) identify complementary expertise needs and communities for finding collaborators, (2) craft messages about research interests in everyday language that can spark the research interests of potential collaborators, and (3) describe strategies for making the most of first “cultural” exchanges in crossdisciplinary research collaborations. Participants are encouraged to bring their research ideas and questions to the workshop as the basis for working in small groups. This workshop is sponsored by the National Science foundation through Expanding and sustaining research capacity in engineering and technology education: Building on successful programs for faculty and graduate students (DUE – 0817461).