An International, Bilingual Engineering Design Course: Faculty/Student Experiences and Lessons Learned

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Paper ID #43262
Board 130: An International, Bilingual Engineering Design Course: Faculty/Student
Experiences and Lessons Learned
Dr. Jorge Ivan Rodriguez-Devora, University of Georgia
Dr. Rodriguez serves as the industry capstone project coordinator for the College of Engineering at the
University of Georgia. He is a faculty member of the School of Environmental, Civil, Agricultural and
Mechanical Engineering.
David Emory Stooksbury, University of Georgia
I am an atmospheric scientist with a background in agriculture, astrophysics, and applied statistics that
turned up in an engineering program. My major engineering education interests are in international
engineering education and teaching conceptually de
Dr. John Ray Morelock, University of Georgia
Dr. Morelock is an Assistant Professor of Practice with an emphasis on engineering education research,
and the Associate Director of Educational Innovation and Impact for UGA’s Engineering Education
Transformations Institute (EETI). In addition to coordinating EETI’s faculty development programming,
Dr. Morelock conducts research on institutional change via faculty development, with an emphasis
on innovative ways to cultivate and evaluate supportive teaching and learning networks in engineering
departments and colleges. He received his doctoral degree in Engineering Education at Virginia Tech,
where he was a recipient of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. His dissertation studied the teaching
practices of engineering instructors during game-based learning activities, and how these practices affected
student motivation.
Dr. Sonia J Garcia, University of Georgia
Dr. Sonia Garcia is the Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. In this role,
Garcia is responsible for the initiation, development, management, evaluation of various DEI Programs.
Animesh Paul, University of Georgia
Animesh, originally from Tripura, India, brings a diverse and liberal background, shaped by his military
upbringing, to his role as a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Georgia’s Engineering Education and
Transformative Practices program. Holding a bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Electrical Engineering
from KIIT University, he currently conducts research under Dr. Racheida Lewis, focusing on equity
and inclusion within engineering education. Animesh is dedicated to facilitating the transition of STEM
students into the workforce and advocates for a learning environment enriched with diversity and fairness.
He identifies with the pronouns ”He/They” and is known for his creativity, positivity, and outgoing
personality.
Deborah Moyaki, University of Georgia
Deborah Moyaki is a doctoral student in the Engineering Education and Transformative Practice program
at the University of Georgia. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Educational Technology and is excited
about the possibilities technology offers to the learning experience beyond the formal classroom setting.
Her research focuses on improving the educational experience of engineering students using virtual reality
labs and other emerging technologies.
©American Society for Engineering Education, 2024

An International, Bilingual Engineering Design Course: Faculty/Student
Experiences and Lessons Learned
Abstract – Early in 2023, the University of Georgia (UGA), located in Athens,
Georgia, United States, and the Universidad de Guadalajara (UG), located in
Guadalajara, Jalisco, México conducted a bilingual, international design course via
Zoom, called “ACTIVA tu Speaking (AtuS).” The USGA students spoke Spanish while
MexicanUG students spoke English. The students jointly chose two projects, performed
necessary research, and designed prototypes to meet the design needs of their respective
communities. This course was not originally conducted as an engineering education
research project; thus, this is a retrospective summary. Using a promotional video that
the USGA students produced about the course and the course reflection paragraph that
each USGA student wrote, we performed a word frequency analysis. Based on the word
frequency analysis, we conclude that the students’ identification as engineers increased,
students connected their academic engineering to real-world problems, the students
developed professional skills necessary for working on international engineering projects,
and students developed greater international engineering awareness and confidence in
working in a global environment. Courses like the one presented herein offer
opportunities for students to collaborate internationally without the financial and time
commitment of regular study abroad programs. The authors aim to continue the research
on understanding the impact that this type of course can have as an intermediate
alternative to immersive programs.
Keywords – Bilingual, International, Zoom, Engineering Identity, Professional
Skills, International Engineering
I. INTRODUCTION
Educating engineers to work on a global and multilingual scale is a critical need in
contemporary higher education. In 2009, The Newport Declaration—resulting from the NSF
(National Science Foundation) funded National Summit Meeting on the Globalization of
Engineering Education—stated that the globalization of engineering education is urgently
needed [1]. Additionally, engineering students with international experience are increasingly
being sought by engineering firms [2]. To meet this demand, universities in the United States,
including the University of Rhode Island, Valparaiso University, the University of Georgia,
and many others, have developed international engineering programs that include earning
undergraduate degrees with an engineering major and a foreign language major [2]. Many of
these programs include a year of studying and working in a foreign country (traditional
immersive programs). These international engineering programs have significant drawbacks:
1) an extra year of study and 2) a financial cost associated with an extra year of study, the cost
of living in another country, and 3) the loss of wages from full-time employment as an engineer
[3]. Thus, students from lower economic backgrounds often cannot take advantage of these
dual-degree immersive programs.
Financial considerations are the most reported barrier by students in participating in study
abroad programs [4]. Warnick, Call, and Davies argue that financial barriers are probably
overstated but also indicate that lower-income students are less likely to participate in study
abroad programs than higher-income students [4]. This paper reports on a novel course

allowing students from the U.S. and Mexico to collaborate across national and lingual
boundaries without leaving their home campuses, lowering the financial barriers typically
associated with international experiences.
II. REVIEW OF RELEVANT LITERATURE
The need for engineers to solve complex problems with international peers has been reiterated
in many studies and reports. A most recent report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific,
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) highlights the importance of building engineering
capacity across national borders for sustainable development of our global world [5].
Additionally, our fast-paced global economy places an unending demand for engineers who
can work effectively in global environments [6]. The development of global competency in
engineers and technical knowledge has become a focal point of many engineering programs
across higher education institutions in the US. Giovannelli & Sandekian [7] operationalizes a
global engineer as one who has an appreciation for international colleagues, poses cultural
sensitivity, and has a forethought of physical and social design consequences. Our research
project goals align with this definition as we sought to foster cultural awareness in students’
engineering design process while working with international colleagues.
Effectively teaching engineering design in a globalized economy presents several challenges,
such as assessing student learning, developing culturally aware design skills, and engaging
diverse student populations [8]. Addressing these challenges is pivotal for enhancing the
quality of engineering design education. To better equip engineering students for the global
workforce, educational institutions have introduced bilingual/international engineering design
courses, study abroad programs, and courses with a large global component [9-11]. These
initiatives aim to cultivate students' cross-cultural communication and collaboration skills and
their proficiency in working within multilingual environments. With the financial
implications/additional requirements of study abroad programs and the COVID-19 pandemic,
institutions have begun to explore options for students to foster inclusion among diverse student
groups. One such option is that described by Giovannelli & Sandekian [7]. The course offers
an immersive experience within the institution bringing together students from diverse ethnic
groups to discuss course content in relation to their cultural beliefs. This served as a student-
equipping gateway for the meaning and consequences of global engineering. as well as others
to foster knowledge of complexity in global engineering. The course, however, does not
involve culturally sensitive engineering design projects. Similarly, Joshi et al., [12] explored
students' responses to challenges in global virtual teams while working on global engineering
design projects. They uncovered relevant insights on navigating teamwork challenges within
global virtual environments and recommended time investment in conflict resolution strategies
education by instructors before and during the course. In their study, projects were selected by
instructors and a single solution was required for each project.
These studies reflect a largely overlooked aspect in the design of courses across international
context as an alternative to study abroad programs. Courses have either been designed with no
engineering design component or with requirements for the same solution irrespective of
student context. As consumers' demand for personalized products increases, engineers must be
equipped to adapt design needs to applicable cultural contexts; on-size-fits-all no longer works
[13]. Following from prior work showing the promise of virtual international collaboration in
engineering education [14], our project, Activa tu Speaking seeks to redress this gap by
providing students with an opportunity to work on an engineering design project with
international peers to develop solutions relevant to both contexts, as is obtainable in the

workforce while developing competency, confidence, and a sense of cultural sensitivity in
speaking the primary language of international peers.
II. BACKGROUND
A. The origins of the course
“Activa tu speaking,” the precursor to our course, was initiated in 2018 as an exchange program
between high schools in Mexico and the US, in the regions of Guadalajara and South Carolina,
respectively. Upon the pandemic lockdown in 2020, the program moved into connecting
college students in a virtual environment via a course by the same name. In this environment,
students from the US and Mexico practiced their language skills while learning about a
meaningful scientific topic with the expectation of broad public dissemination via videos,
presentations, and infographics. Table 1 shows the list of project names and the number of
students from the US and Mexico that participated in the course in the previous three years.
Table 1. A summary of the projects since the course's inception. The semester, project names,
and the number of US and Mexican students.
Year, semester
Project name
# US
# MEX
2020, Fall
Stress during the pandemic
3
3
2020, Fall
Facts and Myths about cayenne
pepper and peppermint
3
5
2020, Fall
Music to my Ears
3
4
2021, Spring
The effect of aloe vera on Hair
3
4
2021, Spring
Infectious happiness, the effect
of the pandemic of self-
satisfaction
3
4
2021, Spring
Reduce carbon footprint
3
5
2021, Fall
You are what you eat
3
5
2022, Spring
Caffeine consumption in college
3
5
2022, Fall
Teen Smoking
2
6
2023, spring
Trash management
4
4
2023, spring
Sustainable Energy
4
4

Figure 1. Prototype schematic of a bottle cleaner for the trash management project done
during the spring of 2023.
B. Course details
“ACTIVA tu Speaking (AtuS)” is a project-based course in a Spanglish environment about a
relevant scientific/engineering topic where engineering students enrolled in the University of
Georgia collaborate with students from a Spanish-speaking country (i.e., Mexico). For
students from the US, this course is a 3-credit course that is offered either as part of a
junior/senior level technical elective or as a Spanish elective for students minoring in
Spanish. The course requires skills in spoken Spanish and a basic understanding of the
scientific method and/or engineering design process. For students from Mexico, this course
is part of their elective class “Ser Global” (Trayectoria Académica Especializante, TAE,
Specialized Academic Trajectory), where students focus on developing their command of
spoken English by designing and building STEM projects. The course is set up to have two
sessions per week, where one of the sessions is dedicated to a virtual meeting (Zoom) with
the international partner, and the second session was conducted intranational (i.e., US and
Mexico meet separately) to discuss the progress of the project and topics that help teams stay
accountable for the goals of the project. Some of the topics included leadership, teamwork,
project management, decision-making, and developing engineering specifications,
verification, and validation tests. The authors of this manuscript served as the primary
instructors and mentors for the teams; however, graduate students were also engaged in the
mentorship of the students, providing an environment to develop their mentorship and
leadership skills.
The general topical outline established for the class during the spring semester was as
follows:
1. Outline the project topic/challenge.
2. Research areas of interest.
3. Build a hypothesis.
4. Define the objectives (general and specifics).
5. Develop a methodology and schedule to achieve the goals (including facilities, personal,
financial, and other resources).
6. Evaluate the findings/achievements of the project.

7. Present/publish findings/results to a broader audience.
8. Spread out the results among the scholar communities and the society.
In May 2023, students were able to present to a broad bilingual audience that included faculty
members and professionals associated with the University of Georgia, the University of
Guadalajara, the US consulate in Jalisco, and Clemson University. As an example of the
artifacts developed in class, Figure 1 shows an exploded view of the CAD developed as part
of the trash management project in the US. US students created a cleaning station to prevent
cross-contamination in the recycling center, while the Mexican team developed a can crusher
to save space and a bicycle and a picnic table with solar panels to charge electronic devices on
campus. Exemplifying how the cultural environment draws different needs and solutions.
Each team of students actively worked on their own solution while also providing guidance,
support, and feedback to their counterparts on how to direct their own solution.
III. DATA COLLECTION
This course was not originally planned as a research project; thus, the data available for analysis
was limited to a promotional video created by students and end-of-semester, voluntary, written
reflections about the course. The promotional video was transcribed using Otter AI software
[6]. After transcription, we corrected the errors and removed contractions. On the last day of
classes, the University of Georgia’s students (8) were asked to voluntarily write a course
reflection paragraph. The handwritten course reflection paragraphs were typewritten and stored
as a text file for use in a word cloud package for its analysis. The study excluded Universidad
de Guadalajara's students (8) because many of them were underage. After consultation with the
institutional review board (IRB), it was rendered that this analysis does not require IRB
approval for human research because of its haphazard research design.
IV. DATA ANALYSIS
We analyzed the transcripts of the promotional video and the students’ reflections using the
open-source statistical program R [15], RStudio [16], and the word cloud package [17].
In the analysis, we removed common English words as defined by the word cloud package and
other words that were common in the transcripts that did not add to our understanding of
students’ experiences. The list of words removed is shown in Table 2.
Table 2: Additional Common Words Removed
activa, uga, like, favorite, part, really, able, get,
lot, well, say, definitely, also, just, can, major,
majors, come, environmental, regular, getting,
another, class, kind, something, tu, helped,
wanted, will, take, open, course, setting, great,
helps, ways, day, might, classes, today, college,
minor, actually, miss, help, courses, couple,
challenges, comes, year, maybe, behind,
challenged, challenging, curriculum, always,
little, going, even, everyone, many, first, now,
way, quick, got, friend, friends

V. RESULTS
In the promotional video, the students were asked to describe their favorite part of the course.
The most common word was “engineering” (Figure 1); suggesting that even though the main
differentiator of the class was to have the Spanish language in a technical engineering elective
class, the students still identified the engineering design process used in the class as the driven
component of their experience. Secondly, the students talked about their experiences using
Spanish in a technical environment and the development of professional skills as well as
international awareness and developing confidence in working in an international environment.
Figure 2. What was your favorite part of this bilingual, international Engineering course?
Thirdly, the students were asked to discuss how this course differed from other engineering
courses they had completed. The most common word was “Spanish,” which is not a surprise
since all other engineering courses at their institution are taught in English (Figure 2). Some
students identified the usefulness of having a high command of English and Spanish as many
US corporations have operations in Latin-America. These students also expressed their desire
to join the workforce that connects such businesses. The students also expressed how they were
learning engineering by dealing with real and relevant problems and the challenges of learning
new technical vocabulary in another language. As with the first prompt, students mentioned
developing the professional skill of working in a team.

Figure 3. How did this bilingual, international engineering course differ from other
engineering courses?
The third prompt asked the students to discuss the challenges with the course. The most
common word used was different (Figure 3). This is perhaps expected because the course has
a different structure compared to traditional engineering courses. For most students, this was
their first or second design-heavy course; thus, learning to define the problem and develop a
design project was demanding. The concept of "People" was highlighted as an opportunity for
students to enhance their work ethic by collaborating with a diverse international team. This
challenge allowed individuals to adapt to different leadership styles and work dynamically with
others.
Figure 4. How were you challenged in this bilingual, international engineering course?
The fourth prompt in the video was asking the students if they would recommend this course
to other students (Figure 4). They all responded yes, with many saying “definitely yes”. Once
again Spanish and engineering were prominent words.
Students appreciated the fact that the class count towards the graduation credits as a technical
elective and having the option of using as Spanish credit for their minor.

Figure 5. Would you recommend to others this bilingual, international engineering course?
The students’ end-of-course reflection paragraph commonly mentioned engineering and
Spanish. There is preliminary evidence of the students developing a professional identity as
engineers (technical, research, projects, professional, work), engineering academics (learning,
knowledge, vocabulary), developing professional skills (team, speaker, confidence,
comfortable), and international awareness (world, international, locations).
Figure 6. Student’s reflections on this bilingual, international engineering course.
When all responses, including the promotional video and the written reflections, were analyzed,
31 words occurred five or more times as reported in Table 3. The word cloud for all responses
is shown in figure 6. We grouped the most frequent words into four groups: Professional
Identity (engineering, work, real, future, project, technical, engineer, problems, and
professional), Engineering Academics (different, learning, think, know, experience, skills, and
learn), Professional Skills (team, people, time, students), and International Culture (Spanish,
language, country, and international). There were a few words that did not fall in any category
(good (6), recommend (6), feel (5)). These terms are primarily related to how students felt
about the course. The students in this class expressed their professional identity (86) and
engineering academics (96) strongly through their word usage, which was surpass by the
international culture (58) followed by professional skills (27).

Table 3: Total Word Frequency
Word
Freq.
Word
Freq.
Professional Identity
Professional Skills
Engineering
22
Team
7
Work
16
People
7
Real
9
Time
7
Future
8
Students
6
Project
7
International Culture
Technical
7
Spanish
36
Engineer
6
Language
6
Problem
6
Country
5
Professional
5
International
5
Engineering Academics
World
6
Different
27
Learning
16
TOTALS
Think
16
Prof. identity
86
Know
12
Eng. Academics
96
Experience
10
Prof. Skills
27
Skills
9
International C.
58
Learn
6
VI. CONCLUSIONS, IMPACTS ON ENGINEERING EDUCATION, AND FUTURE
WORK
The course was successful in having students from the University of Georgia and the
Universidad de Guadalajara work together in a bilingual, international environment. Our
analysis suggests that the course helped University of Georgia students build their engineering
identities; however, a future study with a stronger framework is needed to confirm the
dependency. The students also reported interest and increased confidence in their ability to
work in a bilingual, international environment. Additionally, both heritage Spanish-speaking
students and students who learned Spanish in the classroom reported increased confidence in
using technical vocabulary in Spanish and expressing engineering concepts in Spanish. The
University of Georgia students report that the course helped in developing their identity as
engineers and developing engineering academic skills. The students also showed development
in professional skills and international awareness.
Some lessons learned included the coordination of different time zones and school schedules.
During the spring semester, a shift in daylight savings time occurred, and that placed the
meeting times in an off-regular schedule. Moreover, the spring semester calendar is different
in both institutions; in particular, the University of Guadalajara had five extra weeks to work
on the project during the months of May and June. For the next cycle, the class will be offered
as undergraduate and graduate to allow graduate students to develop their leadership and
mentorship skills.
More importantly, the students discovered that while they were working on the same project,
the specific needs of each community led to unique requirements and priorities. As an example,
in Athens Georgia US, the recycling center relies on having aluminum cans intact for the

purpose of sorting while in Guadalajara Mexico compacted cans were desirable to reduce the
space while stored.
Given the success of increasing students' competence and confidence in their engineering skills
in this initial class, research questions have been identified for future work, such as: 1) How is
this type of international experience compared with other local corporate project-based classes,
such as in the Capstone program of the University of USGeorgia? 2) How close is this
experience to a study abroad experience in terms of academic experience and teamwork? 3)
How do the course perceptions of students from Mexico Guadalajara differ from those of U.S.
students?
For future work, we will assess the effect of the experience on students’ engineering identity
and cultural awareness in greater detail, and work to include the perspective of Mexican
students in addition to U.S. students. Furthermore, we are currently developing agreements
with other Universities located in Spanish-speaking countries (i.e., Mexico, Spain, Chile) to
consider a diverse cultural environment.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors acknowledge the US consulate in Jalisco, the educational system of the University
of Guadalajara, and the University of Georgia for providing the educational resources to make
possible this bilingual/international collaborative engineering course.
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