Work in Progress: Community of Practice as a Theory of Change for Infrastructure Education

Paige, F.; Parker, P. J.; Valdes-Vasquez, R.; Sanford, Kristen

Work in Progress: Community of Practice as a Theory of Change for Infrastructure Education

Abstract

A national faculty Community of Practice (CoP) has created a model course for undergraduate infrastructure education as a part of its shared agenda. This CoP has collectively defined the domain of knowledge for undergraduate introductory infrastructure education; co-created and peer-reviewed more than 40 complete lessons for an introductory infrastructure course; shared best practices and resources among members; and provided mentorship to newer members adopting or adapting the materials. The Center for Infrastructure Transformation and Education (CIT-E) considers infrastructure as a system rather than a collection of unrelated structural/environmental/transportation components; even more importantly, this system is conceived of as a social-technical system that must be designed with equity and justice factors prioritized to include the diversity of users’ lived experiences. To that end, CoP members have recently produced learning materials on Equity, Inclusion, and Justice (DEIJ) in infrastructure provision. The operationalizing of CoP as a theory of change by CIT-E has emerged beyond the initial National Science Foundation (NSF) funding a decade ago, employing various change strategies. Example strategies include expanding membership and creating alternative educational practices to support change and transformation. Recent NSF funding and new membership have created opportunities for the CoP to lead change at a much broader level across civil and environmental engineering education in the U.S. As part of this work, we conducted semi-structured interviews with seven change leaders in engineering education and DEIJ. We asked their perspectives on community of practice as a theory of change and whether it is appropriate for this work. Their responses were coded, revealing 169 codes, some of which advisors agreed upon, and many representing alternative perspectives. Processes such as considering, accepting, asking, and acknowledging are easy to overlook while executing change through mentoring, funding, and doing. The results of this work are helpful for civil and environmental engineering (CEE) faculty members interested in operationalizing change in their classroom and on their campus to meet ABET’s relatively recent DEI criteria, and the process in this study is transferrable to other fields that are also mobilizing transformative practices for integrating DEIJ principles into their curricula.

Title	Work in Progress: Community of Practice as a Theory of Change for Infrastructure Education
Creator	Paige, F.
	Parker, P. J.
	Valdes-Vasquez, R.
	Sanford, Kristen
Publisher	ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition Proceedings
Academic Department	Civil & Environmental Engineering
Division	Engineering
Organization	Lafayette College
Date Issued	June 2023
Date Available	2023-07-27
Type	Article
Language	English
Bibliographic Citation	Sanford, K., et al. (2023 June) “Work in Progress: Community of Practice as a Theory of Change for Infrastructure Education.” ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition Proceedings. Paper 39438.
Standard Identifier	Handle 10385/k3569603r
Permalink	http://hdl.handle.net/10385/k3569603r
Rights Statement	In Copyright
Rights Holders	American Society for Engineering Education