Full Paper: Future Design Studio – Building a Growth Mindset and a Path to Persistence Through Improvisation and Design Fiction

Wigner Broad where he teaches entrepreneurship to students from all majors across the campus. He has an undergraduate degree in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering and a Masters in International Political Economy of Resources, both from the Colorado School of Mines. His PhD is from Arizona State University in Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology. His research focuses on integrating Makerspaces and Design Thinking with higher education to enhance learning through hands on interdisciplinary practices. Record where he directs the Collaborative Experiential Learning Laboratory and teaches courses in philosophy of science, science and technology studies, and critical making. His research seeks to situate our epistemic and ethical circumstances within a network of values, capabilities, and material and social technologies. Isaac holds a PhD and MA from the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (IHPST) at the University of Toronto and a BS in Electrical Engineering and BS in Computer Engineering from the University of Maine. This paper presents the initial results of an orientation workshop for underrepresented and/or at-risk first year science, medical technology, mathematics, and computer science students. Nearly fifty percent of students entering STEM fields leave their majors after the first year, with lack of confidence in their ability to succeed and a sense of isolation cited as major factors. Women, first generation college students, underrepresented minorities and students from low-income families are most at risk for leaving STEM fields [1]. One way to address non-persistence among the above groups is to equip students with the psychological tools needed to succeed. One such tool is the growth mindset, a conceptualization of one’s own learning ability and intelligence as a fluid quality capable of growing through work, failure, and iteration [2]. For underrepresented groups in STEM this vision of intelligence as fluid runs counter to the myths (implicit theories) many students internalize that they are either naturally talented or not in math, good at biology or not, capable of being engineers or not. The development of a growth mindset requires experience with challenge, ambiguity, false starts, and eventual success which is praised on the value of the work done, and the processes engaged in, rather than perceived inborn traits [3]. One of the specific education policy recommendations surrounding the growth mindset is to “Integrate validated academic mindset programs and practices into existing school programs. ” [4]. In this paper, we present the early stage results of one such academic mindset program. Future Design Studio (FDS) is a multidisciplinary workshop combining science, technology, history, improvisation, design, and making. During the workshop, professional improvisational performers introduce students to improvisation through a series of warm-ups and games. Facilitators then lead a discussion of how science and technology have changed in the past 100 years, followed by a group activity in which they build an artifact from 100 years in the future. The workshop culminates with a performance during which the students work with the performers their artifacts societies.