First-Hand:History of an ASEE Fellow - Rebecca Brent

History of an ASEE Fellow

Rebecca Brent

Written on May 27, 2018

Birthplace: Jackson, Mississippi

Birth date: September 26, 1956

Family

Both sides of my family were in the States since before the Revolutionary War. My father and mother were United Methodist ministers, and I was their only child. We moved around a lot—in fact, I went to 8 different schools in my 12 years of public education. None of my family members were engineers, but there were lots of teachers!

Education

I attended Millsaps College in Jackson, MS as an undergraduate and graduated with a B.A. in music education with vocal performance as my instrument. I was very close to a double major in elementary education and completed the last couple of courses to qualify for my K-8 license shortly after graduation in 1978. I got a M.Ed. in education from Mississippi State University in 1981 and my Ed.D. in education from Auburn University in 1988. In 2008, I completed a Certificate in Evaluation Practice from The Evaluators’ Institute associated with George Washington University.

Employment

Throughout my career, I have tried to help people become better teachers at all levels from K-12 to community colleges and universities. From 1978-1986, I taught kindergarten and elementary grades in Jackson, MS and Mobile, AL. From 1986-1988, I was in residence at Auburn University and had a position supervising student teachers. After graduation, I taught for one year as an Assistant Professor of Education at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, FL before moving to Greenville, NC as an Assistant Professor of Education at East Carolina University. I left ECU in 1996 as an Associate Professor and co-directed the faculty development portion of the National Science Foundation SUCCEED Coalition (Southeastern University and College Coalition for Engineering Education) from 1997-2002. From 1993 to the present, I have been a faculty development consultant giving workshops to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) faculty across the country and the world with my colleague and husband, ASEE Fellow Richard Felder. I am president of our company called Education Designs, Inc. where in addition to conducting faculty development activities, I am a program evaluator for a number of education-related projects.

Rich Felder and I have presented over 500 workshops on effective teaching, course design, mentoring and supporting new faculty members, and faculty development, on campuses around the world, and I co-directed the American Society for Engineering Education National Effective Teaching Institute from 1995 to 2015.

Research and Scholarship

Since my teacher education career began, much of my early scholarly work was in that area. I published articles about microteaching, listening skills, writing, reading, simulations and school reform. As my career gradually shifted toward faculty development, my scholarly activity changed also. I published over 120 journal articles. Some of my scholarly activity involved writing with Richard Felder. In 2016, we published Teaching and Learning STEM: A Practical Guide (Jossey-Bass, 2016, www.educationdesignsinc.com/book/), the product of 15 years of effort!

Philosophy of Engineering Education

I strongly believe that every engineering teacher needs to know how to get students actively engaged in learning in and out of class, as opposed to just being passive recipients of information. That belief is a key to much of my work over the years, permeating both my teaching and my writing.

More Information

To find out more about me and my work, take a look at the following:

• Resources for Teaching and Learning STEM at http://educationdesignsinc.com/ This is our company’s website and it has information on workshops and evaluation projects as well as a blog about teaching and learning.

• Rebecca Brent: A Change Agent for Faculty Development at http://depts.washington.edu/celtweb/pioneers-wp/?p=683 This profile was written about me in 2014 and is a part of the Engineering Educator Pioneers project funded by the National Science Foundation.

ASEE Activities

My main contribution to ASEE was as co-director of the National Effective Teaching Institute from 1995-2015. James Stice from the University of Texas and Rich Felder from North Carolina State University started the NETI in 1991, and I joined them in 1995. For many years, the NETI was held before the start of the ASEE Annual Conference. Deans of engineering across the country were invited to nominate 2 faculty members to attend the 3-day workshop to learn about effective teaching in engineering. The NETI was always filled and usually had a waiting list. In 2008, Michael Prince joined the NETI staff and in 2009, Jim Stice retired. In 2012, we began to offer an advanced NETI that covered cooperative learning and problem-based learning every other year. In 2013, we began offering a second NETI in January, and that offering quickly filled as well. One aspect of NETI I am proud of is the naming of NETI Fellows. We started inviting engineering educators interested in faculty development to join us for the NETI where they presented topics of interest and learned everything we knew about giving effective teaching workshops. Many of those fellows, including the first one, Mike Prince, have gone on to be active in faculty development both in the United States and around the world. When Rich and I retired from the NETI in 2015, Mike Prince added former NETI Fellows Susan Lord and Matthew Ohland to the leadership team. We are very proud that the NETI is still going strong!