Tech professors and students honored for award-winning engineering education research
From left, student Priyanka Mahajan, Tech professor Pedro Arce, and student Hoda Ross.
Tennessee Tech University professors Pedro E. Arce and Andrea Arce-Trigatti were recently selected to give the prestigious Thomas C. Evans Award lecture at the annual meeting of the American Society for Engineering Education Southeast Section (ASEE-SE). Their lecture was based on their award-winning engineering education paper, co-authored with chemical engineering graduate students, Hoda Ross and Priyanka Mahajan.
“We were extremely honored to receive this award,” said Arce. “The paper was selected by a committee of faculty across the southeastern region of the American Society for Engineering Education as a paper showing innovation and excellence in teaching engineering.”
The research addresses a topic rarely covered in textbooks from the student’s perspective: the development of fluid velocity profiles in pipes, ducts and capillaries. To help students better grasp the abstract subject, the team used the Renaissance Foundry Model—an interdisciplinary teaching platform developed at Tech—to connect classroom lessons with real-world lab examples.
“In close collaboration with our grad students, we focused on systematically integrating the critical role of kinematics and mass conservation … via the use of the Renaissance Foundry Model as the learning strategy," added Arce.
Mahajan said the Foundry Model has changed how she approaches learning and research. “It has helped me break down the complexity of technical challenges into manageable components,” she said. “This approach has not only deepened my understanding but also encouraged me to innovate in ways I hadn’t considered before.”
Arce-Trigatti noted that the students initiated the collaboration after showing interest in how to apply the Foundry Model to their own learning. “That got us really excited to do these explorations into how we can make this a better process,” she said, “and to encourage their motivation for exploring applications of the Foundry to hydrodynamics.”
The co-authored paper, which was presented by the students at last year’s ASEE-SE conference, was expanded this year through a plenary lecture by the professors. The lecture focused on how instructors can support student learning and mentorship using the Foundry Model.
“When I first joined the graduate program, having the opportunity to co-author and present a paper at a major educational conference was an incredibly impactful experience,” Ross said. “Being treated as a true partner … provided me with invaluable professional experience that has shaped my path forward.”
During the conference, Arce-Trigatti said it was encouraging to hear from attendees—especially students—who noted that the conversation around student-instructor partnerships was rare at their institutions.
The Tech professors emphasized that the Foundry Model is designed to be a flexible structure that can adapt across academic disciplines to foster innovation and deep learning. The model is especially helpful for instructors facilitating challenging or abstract topics in their curriculum and making connections to practical applications.
“If there’s a subject that’s just falling hard on students, try the Foundry,” said Arce-Trigatti. “It offers a guiding learning structure … adaptable to the context, to the discipline, to what you’re trying to teach. But on top of that, it adds a layer of innovation, and it adds a layer of collaboration.”
She added that the Foundry invites students to engage deeply with material and with one another. “When you’re asking students to innovate, you’re asking students to put their own voice into the conversation,” she said. “The Foundry is an effective way to design something so that it feels seamless and that students can actually start talking about the topic in different ways and coming up with new ideas.”
Both professors are repeat winners of the ASEE-SE’s top award. Arce has received the Thomas C. Evans Award six times, more than any other faculty member in the award’s history. Arce-Trigatti has earned the award three times while at Tech, all for work related to the Foundry Model.
“We’re very, very excited to be part of a tradition of winning this award,” Arce said. “And like Andrea said, these students are very eager to learn more about the application of the Foundry in topics related to engineering education, which for us is fantastic.”
To learn more about the Renaissance Foundry Model, visit https://sites.tntech.edu/foundrymodel/.