WIP: Contemplative Practices' Effects on Compassion, Belonging, and Self-Empowerment in Undergraduate Engineering Experiences

Abstract

This Work-in-Progress Research Paper examines the use of contemplative pedagogy for cultivating empathetic and compassionate learning environments in engineering education. Contemplation - often associated with heightened awareness and presence of mind - is comprised of such practices as deep listening, beholding, and meditation, which engage participants in intentional reflection, consideration, and thoughtful observation. Contemplative pedagogy supports participants, individually and collectively, in engaging deeply with themselves and the world by emphasizing empathy, compassion, self-compassion, and creativ-ity. Traditional engineering education engages students predom-inantly in cognitive ways of knowing. In comparison, contem-plative pedagogy creates learning environments that transcend cognition, thereby infusing emotional and embodied knowing into the educational paradigm. Such learning spaces can empower students to access their whole selves in their educational journeys and foster empathy, compassion, self-compassion, and ultimately, belonging to the learning process and learning environment. This paper describes two participants' journeys in one undergraduate physics foundation course delivered at a small, private, non-traditional, engineering college, where students were invited to engage with course content through contemplative pedagogy, including approximately weekly reflective assignments. Each assignment invited students to engage with meditation, curated contemplative activities, and contemplative readings in addition to the technical content. Two of the eighteen students enrolled both consented to participate in the study and engaged with every reflective assignment. Participants' data were analyzed as an instrumental case study using narrative and thematic approaches to allow for emergent phenomena to surface. We find that contemplative pedagogy offers students a scaffolding to reflect on themselves, the world, and the relationship between the two. As well the transformative power of contemplative pedagogy is affected by the participant's focus and orientation toward contemplative practices: one student focused on internal growth and experienced feelings of empowerment through improved connection with themself; another student focused on facilitating growth in others and did not perceive transformational changes.