<p>  </p> <p>Recent technological advancements such as the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence, smart sensors, and Cloud Computing bring the world into a new era-Industry 4.0. The applications of Industry 4.0 technologies have been becoming prevalent in many aspects of the industry. Quality management experts view the application of the latest technologies in the quality area as leveraging quality management into the 4.0 era, called Quality 4.0. Lean Six Sigma (LSS) is a widely used methodology to improve quality. Many companies rely on LSS to improve quality. The current and future LSS practitioners need to tailor their skills to adjust to the Quality 4.0 environment. Therefore, undergraduate students in related majors must prepare themselves with adequate skills to adapt to the new Quality 4.0 era. The researcher aimed to find the skills needed for undergraduate students to learn to practice LSS in the Quality 4.0 environment. The researcher surveyed academia and industry experts in LSS to map the themes of skills needed for students to work as LSS experts in the Quality 4.0 environment after graduation. The researcher used the Delphi method to conduct surveys and justify the results.</p>

<p>This dissertation research used an embedded qualitative case study research design to investigate a single educator’s actions in teaching Black youth engineering and computing in a culturally appropriate and accessible manner. Historically, the engineering discipline has preserved and upheld Eurocentric standards for how learners should think and practice, perpetuating the marginalization of racially and ethnically diverse learners, such as Black American children. Such standards have excluded and pushed out diverse learners, and it is not uncommon for Black youth seeking entry into precollege engineering pathways to make trade-offs that require them to compromise their culture, linguistic practices, literacy practices, histories, and authentic selves in order to succeed. Given the educational debt that persists in K-12 education for Black American learners, approaches that are meaningful, engaging, and culturally oriented should align with teaching engineering and computing alongside Black Americans' historical and current racial inequities, injustices, and disenfranchisement. The research problem addressed in this dissertation study is the significance and influence of the culturally centered and community servant facilitator who teaches with relevance to the development of the whole Black child's mind, body, and soul while developing their knowledge in engineering and computing.</p><p>This project was founded on an asset-focused culturally relevant pedagogy to reveal how a Black STEM educator’s teaching supported the STEM learning of Black youth at an intentionally designed informal summer camp— Hit Maker Summer Camp (Hit Makers). Hit Makers was purposefully designed by a collaborative group of educators, directors, researchers, and artists at the intersection of engineering, computing, hip-hop culture, dance, and Makerspace culture for 28 Black youth learners who resided in a mid-sized Midwestern city. This study investigated the teaching practices enacted by the STEM educator that led the Black youth learners to become more academically, socio-politically, and culturally engaged in STEM. The facilitator’s beliefs, role, ethos, and influence were investigated using a data corpus that included a single narrative interview, in-field observations by the researcher, facts gathered from ongoing conversations (2019 - 2022), and video and audio recordings of the facilitator while teaching.</p><p>A qualitative embedded case study design was employed for this research. Data collection occurred continuously from July 2019 to February 2022, utilizing a range of methods including in-situ field observations, video and audio recordings, and a formal online interview. The findings of this study underscore the influence of Black STEM educators' beliefs and previous instructional approaches on their teaching practices within the context of Hit Makers Summer Camp. Notably, the enacted teaching practices demonstrated a significant alignment with the tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy, particularly in the domains of academic success and cultural competence. Although the alignment with sociopolitical consciousness within the pedagogical framework was less pronounced, it is evident that the educator’s teaching philosophies were deeply entrenched in their own sociopolitical awareness. The study's findings empower educators in precollege engineering education to transcend traditional teaching paradigms by unraveling the interplay between pedagogical philosophies and culturally resonant practices, offering a tangible blueprint for fostering deeper connections with students, promoting diversity, and dismantling barriers to empower historically underrepresented Black students to excel in STEM.</p>

<p>  </p> <p>Informal learning environments are critical to supplemental student learning outside the formal classroom space. The problem the research addressed is the lack of informal STEM learning programs for underrepresented minority, female, urban, and rural students. The purpose of this research was to demonstrate the effect informal STEM learning has on the population’s self-efficacy and interest in STEM. The intervention for this research study was a seven-day informal learning summer camp involving five STEM projects from around the field and aligned with relevant fields offered by the Purdue University Polytechnic Institute. The participants worked in large and small group sessions with program volunteers to gain foundational learning outcomes. The outcome was measured using the STEM-CIS survey instrument in a pre-and post-testing format. The data was coded from the Likert scale and then used to calculate statistics and effect size for Likert-style data. The intervention was performed during the summer of 2021 and yielded results showing that students felt the effect of having role models and professionals involved in the STEM field. </p>