Empowering early mastery of spatial visualization skills in under represented minority engineering students

Students entering university-level engineering programs must be adept at spatial visualization and reasoning. The Cornell University Engineering Success (CUES) program used the NSF ENGAGE curriculum to introduce spatial visualization basics through an innovative project-based course to a select group of first year students. Students in the course were chosen to participate based on multiple background characteristics that place them at risk and may hinder their persistence in engineering. Course results were strong, with an overall 13% improvement in tested skills. Additionally, our teaching team believed that skills application in authentic spatial visualization projects would provide deeper learning. Student teams worked with biomedical researchers who asked for professional-level visualizations. We employed an action research methodology (observations, instructor journals, expert responses, and e-portfolios), tracking their acquisition of spatial concepts, representations and critical stances. Our hope was to give students a competitive edge, taking advanced visualization techniques and professional skills into future projects.