[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

My scholarship currently focuses on applying liberative pedagogies in engineering education, leveraging best practices from women’s studies and ethnic studies to engage students in creating a democratic classroom that encourages all voices. In 2005 I received a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation to support this work, which includes developing, implementing, and assessing curricular and pedagogical innovations based on liberative pedagogies and student input at Smith, and understanding how students at Smith conceptualize their identities as engineers. I seek as an engineering educator to be part of a paradigm shift that these pedagogies demand, repositioning concerns about diversity in science and engineering from superficial measures of equity as headcounts, to addressing justice and the genuine engagement of all students as core educational challenges.

Riley’s research interests include engineering and social justice; engineering ethics; social inequality in engineering education; and the liberal education of engineers. In 2005 she received a National Science Foundation CAREER award on implementing and assessing critical and feminist pedagogies in engineering classrooms. Students in Riley’s research group are pursuing interests including culturally inclusive pedagogies; understanding faculty motivations and approaches to teaching engineering ethics; connections between critical thinking and engineering ethics pedagogies; engineering education policy; and public participation in engineering projects impacting communities.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Notice her “scholarship” does not include designing things so they don’t fall down. No, what’s important now is “understanding how students conceptualize their identities as engineers.” That’ll keep the bridges up!