Community-Centered Design Thinking as a Scalable Stem Learning Intervention
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2023-01-01
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Background: Through the human-centered design process (HCD), students, referred to as learners, can use a personal lens to contextualize engineering concepts and solve real-world problems (Goldman and Kabayadondo 2016). The Ignite program, created by the Center for Global Women’s Health Technologies (GWHT) at Duke University, integrates the HCD process into science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education to advance social justice through an iterative research-topractice methodology. Ignite fosters secondary school students’ ability to engineer viable solutions to pressing global issues outlined by the United Nations as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Purpose: This work evaluates the efficacy of the Ignite Water curriculum as a scalable and sustainable intervention for STEM opportunity gaps, SDG #4, and clean water, SDG #6. Ultimately, this work investigates the ability of a community-centered design thinking initiative to transform learners’ behavioral indicators, including their knowledge, attitude, and awareness. Methods: Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices (K.A.P.) methodology was used to capture changes in three indicators of behavior change: (1) learners’ relevant content knowledge, (2) their attitudes towards STEM and (3) awareness of healthy water management practices. The mixed methods research tabulated survey data and interviews to determine best practices for STEM intervention programs. Of the 697 participants, 523 learners across 6 schools served as a sample population for this study. Results: The innovative Ignite program engaged a diverse population in engineering solutions for water pollution in Lake Atitlán, Guatemala. The intervention increased students’ knowledge and awareness related to the local water contamination; especially, the causes of contamination and the treatment options. Female learners demonstrated an increase in self-efficacy in engineering careers, while male learners’ self-efficacy for math and community problem-solving increased. Overall, learners’ knowledge and awareness of water pollution and their attitudes towards STEM improved. Trainers echoed key findings in semi-structured interviews. Conclusions: Ignite, the sustainable and scalable intervention for social impact, integrated the HCD process with the SDGs to promote local problem solving, improve self-efficacy and broaden participation in engineering.
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Breen, KC, ME Dotson, MC Madonna, G Asturias, DM Peña, H Springate, V Alvarez, N Ramanujam, et al. (2023). Community-Centered Design Thinking as a Scalable Stem Learning Intervention. Advances in Engineering Education, 11(2). pp. 2–33. 10.18260/3-1-1153-36042 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/33425.
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Scholars@Duke
Megan Madonna
Nimmi Ramanujam
Nirmala (Nimmi) Ramanujam is the Robert W. Carr Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Professor of Cancer Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, and Global Health at Duke University. She founded the Center for Global Women’s Health Technologies (GWHT) in 2013 to reshape women’s health through technology innovation. Her translation program in cervical and breast cancer has brought together multiple partners across U.S. and international academic institutions, hospitals, companies, non-governmental organizations, and ministries of health.
Prof. Ramanujam creates technological solutions to detect cancer at its earliest stages, improve the effectiveness of current treatments and refine them to be more effective and less toxic. Prof. Ramanujam has developed point of care imaging technologies (Pocket colposcope and Callascope) and deep learning algorithms for the global prevention of cervical cancer. She has implemented these technologies in global health care settings where access to cancer prevention and treatment is sparse or non-existent. Towards cancer treatment, Prof. Ramanujam has developed a drug releasing immunomodulating polymer that simultaneously disrupts tumor cells and elicits an immune boost. This injectable therapeutic can be deployed in settings where treatment is unavailable owing to its simple and low-cost formulation, and it can also provide an immune boost to checkpoint inhibitors. To understand why some tumors are resistant to therapy, she has created tools to image basic cellular processes that provide insight into tumor resistance. She has shown that metabolic plasticity in human residual disease can serve as a cue for treatment optimization and patient management.
Prof. Ramanujam has created a global consortium, Women Inspired strategies for health or WISH to establish technology-enabled community clinics for cervical cancer detection in Peru and Kenya. The MacArthur Foundation recognized WISH in 2019 as one of the top 100 most transformative and impactful global solutions. She founded Calla Health in 2019 to commercialize women’s health technologies developed by her group. Through WISH and Calla Health, her femtech innovations have been disseminated in 11 countries and has reached more than 8,000 women globally. She has also co-developed the (In)visible Organ documentary on reshaping the future of women’s health through femtech. Her documentary was officially selected for the Women at the Center Film Festival at the International Papillomavirus Conference in 2020. Prof. Ramanujam has seen the value of co-creating solutions with those that are at the level of the problem. This has led to the creation of a global education program IGNITE that intersects engineering design thinking, STEM concepts, and the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. This peer mentoring model between undergraduate students and high school and middle students has been deployed in 5 locations globally, reaching more than 2,500 students and the online curriculum has more than 1000 users.
Prof. Ramanujam has received numerous awards, several of which are highlighted here. She received the prestigious DOD Breast Cancer Innovator award in 2024 given to gifted individuals who have a history of visionary scholarship, leadership, and creativity. She received the IEEE Biomedical Engineering Award Technical Field Award in 2023 given annually for outstanding contributions to the field of Biomedical engineering. She is a fellow of and has received several awards from professional societies in the field of biomedical optics. She is a Fulbright scholar, a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, and the American Institute of Biomedical and Biomedical Engineering (AIMBE). She has been invited as a speaker at the United Nations and at TEDx events. Her textbook, Biomedical Engineering for Global Health (2024), examines the intersection of health systems, point of care technologies, and data analytics / artificial intelligence and how these technological capabilities can broaden access to care in the 21st century.
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