Higher seminar with Greg Strimel from Purdue University

Mission, Meaning, Making (M3) program

Innovation requires a transdisciplinary approach, yet higher education institutions often operate within silos. To address this challenge, we created the Mission, Meaning, Making (M3) program to encourage transdisciplinary learning among all college students, regardless of their major or background. The program brings together the engineering/technology, liberal arts, and business colleges to create a transformative undergraduate experience within a research-intensive university. The program includes a sequence of design and innovation coursework that involves cross-college co-teaching to create a community to nourish student innovative ideas over multiple semesters.

The M3 program has been successful, as evidenced by the number of innovation challenges/grants won by students and the transformation of their ideas into tangible solutions for people. While the teaching of design and innovation is not novel in itself, providing a way to teach collaboratively across colleges within large universities can be of benefit when reaching toward more transformative, innovative, and/or potentially more valuable learning experiences for students. Disciplinary structures and systems within universities today, while not all bad, make curriculum approvals and instructor assignments across academic units difficult. To address the difficulties related to transdisciplinary education, research was conducted with the M3 program to establish a model for disciplines to more easily converge at the undergraduate level.

Join this seminar to explore the lessons learned from this multiyear project and to consider ways to improve STEM education through institutional transformation in pursuit of innovative educational programming. This research has implications beyond the M3 program, as it provides a framework for other institutions to encourage transdisciplinary learning and innovation.

About the speaker

Greg J. Strimel, PhD., is an associate professor of Technology Leadership & Innovation at Purdue University, where he coordinates the Design & Innovation minor degree and educates pre-service engineering technology teachers. His scholarly efforts focus on enhancing student design capabilities and improving the landscape of STEM education through research on design-based instructional interventions, design cognition, and institutional transformation.

Preparatory Reading

Website: Design and innovation minor

• Strimel, G. J., Briller, S., Pruim, D., Kelley, T. R., and Kim, T.J. (2022). Understanding institutional barriers toward transforming undergraduate learning in the pursuit of innovation. Paper presented at the American Society of Engineering Education Annual Conference. peer.asee.org/42029
• Otto, J., Strimel, G. J., Briller, S. & Kelley, T. (2022). A collaborative model of teaching and learning for undergraduate innovation education. Paper presented at the 2022 American Society of Engineering Education Annual Conference. peer.asee.org/40521

Contact Kristina if you would like to attend.

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