In problem-based learning, students working in collaborative groups learn by resolving complex, realistic problems under the guidance of faculty. In this chapter, we examine the evidence for effectiveness of the method to achieve its goals of fostering deep understandings of content and discuss the potential for developing process skills: research, negotiation and teamwork, writing, and verbal communication.

Problem-based learning

Since the new ABET accreditation system was first introduced to American engineering education in the middle 1990s as Engineering Criteria 2000, most discussion in the literature has focused on how to assess Outcomes 3a-3k and relatively little has concerned how to equip students with the skills and attitudes specified in those outcomes. This paper seeks to fill this gap. Its goals are to (1) overview the accreditation process and clarify the confusing array of terms associated with it (objectives, outcomes, outcome indicators, etc.); (2) provide guidance on the formulation of course learning objectives and assessment methods that address Outcomes 3a-3k; (3) identify and describe instructional techniques that should effectively prepare students to achieve those outcomes by the time they graduate; and (4) propose a strategy for integrating program-level and course-level activities when designing an instructional program to meet the requirements of the ABET engineering criteria.

Designing and Teaching Courses to Satisfy the ABET Engineering Criteria

Contributors
Michael Alley, The Pennsylvania State University; Cindy Atman, University of Washington; David DiBiasio, Worcester Polytechnic Institute; Cindy Finelli, University of Michigan; Heidi Diefes-Dux, Purdue University; Anette Kolmos, Aalborg University; Donna Riley, Smith College; Sheri Sheppard, Stanford University; Maryellen Weimer, The Pennsylvania State University; Ken Yasuhara, University of Washington

Background
Although engineering education has evolved in ways that improve the readiness of graduates to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century, national and international organizations continue to call for change. Future changes in engineering education should be guided by research on expertise and the learning processes that support its development.

Purpose
The goals of this paper are: to relate key findings from studies of the development of expertise to engineering education, to summarize instructional practices that are consistent with these findings, to provide examples of learning experiences that are consistent with these instructional practices, and finally, to identify challenges to implementing such learning experiences in engineering programs.

Scope/Method
The research synthesized for this article includes that on the development of expertise, students' approaches to learning, students' responses to instructional practices, and the role of motivation in learning. In addition, literature on the dominant teaching and learning practices in engineering education is used to frame some of the challenges to implementing alternative approaches to learning.

Conclusion
Current understanding of expertise, and the learning processes that develop it, indicates that engineering education should encompass a set of learning experiences that allow students to construct deep conceptual knowledge, to develop the ability to apply key technical and professional skills fluently, and to engage in a number of authentic engineering projects. Engineering curricula and teaching methods are often not well aligned with these goals. Curriculum-level instructional design processes should be used to design and implement changes that will improve alignment.

Engineering education and the development of expertise

We explore the relationship between second language (L2) learners’ vocabulary size, lexical text coverage that their vocabulary provides and their reading comprehension. We also conceptualize “adequate reading comprehension” and look for the lexical threshold for such reading in terms of coverage and vocabulary size. Vocabulary size was measured by the Levels Test, lexical coverage by the newest version of Vocabulary Profile and reading comprehension by a standardized national test. Results show that small increments of vocabulary knowledge contribute to reading comprehension even though they hardly improve text coverage. We suggest two thresholds: an optimal one, which is the knowledge of 8,000 word families yielding the coverage of 98% (including proper nouns) and a minimal one, which is 4,000‐5,000 word families resulting in the coverage of 95% (including proper nouns).

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Lexical threshold revisited: Lexical text coverage, learners' vocabulary size and reading comprehension

Background
Prior efforts have built a knowledge base of effective undergraduate STEM pedagogies, yet rates of implementation remain low. Theories from higher education, management, communication, and other fields can inform change efforts but remain largely inaccessible to STEM education leaders, who are just beginning to view change as a scholarly endeavor informed by the research literature.

Purpose
This article describes the goals, assumptions, and underlying logic of selected change strategies with potential relevance to STEM higher education settings for a target audience of change agents, leaders, and researchers.

Scope/Method
This review is organized according to the Four Categories of Change Strategies model developed by Henderson, Beach, and Finkelstein (2011). We describe eight strategies of potential practical relevance to STEM education change efforts (two from each category). For each change strategy, we present a summary with key references, discuss their applicability to STEM higher education, provide a STEM education example, and discuss implications for change efforts and research.

Conclusions
Change agents are guided, often implicitly, by a single change strategy. These eight strategies will expand the repertoire of change agents by helping them consider change from a greater diversity of perspectives. Change agents can use these descriptions to design more robust change efforts. Improvements in the knowledge and theory base underlying change strategies will occur when change agents situate their writing about change initiatives using shared models, such as the one presented in this article, to make their underlying assumptions about change more explicit.

Increasing the Use of Evidence-Based Teaching in STEM Higher Education: A Comparison of Eight Change Strategies

Engineering curricula are increasingly focused on developing student competencies. Many new competencies needed by engineers today are professional skills (sometimes called the ‘soft skills’). Among the new competencies for engineering graduates is global competence, the ability to work knowledgeably and live comfortably in a transnational engineering environment and global society. While there is broad agreement within the engineering community for the need to better prepare engineers for global practice, there is much less agreement as to what skills and abilities define global competence, what combination and duration of international education and experiences best instil it and what means and metrics should be used to judge whether students have attained it. This paper presents a conceptual model to define global competence, a curriculum model for instilling it and an assessment model to determine if graduates have attained it. It concludes with a description of a quasi-experimental research effort no...

Defining, developing and assessing global competence in engineers

Contrary to serial replacement, parallel replacement problems require a decision maker to evaluate a portfolio of replacement decisions in each time period because of economic interdependencies among assets. In this paper, we describe a parallel replacement problem in which the economic interdependence among assets is caused by capital rationing. The research was motivated by the experience gained from a vehicle fleet replacement study where solutions to serial replacement problems could not be implemented since they violated management's budget plan. When firms use budgets to control their expenditures, competition for the limited funds creates interdependent problems. In this paper, we formulate the problem as a zero-one integer program and develop a branch-and-bound algorithm based on Lagrangian relaxation methodology. A multiplier adjustment method is developed to solve one Lagrangian dual.

Parallel replacement under capital rationing constraints

A generalization of Wagner's dynamic programming model for the replacement economy decision problem is presented. The model, illustrated by numerical examples, classifies relevant cash flows into three components: capital transfers, operating disbursements, and operating revenues. Conceptually, this model could be extended easily to an arbitrary number of component cash flows. Multiple alternative challengers to a current defender are considered, and each component cash flow of each challenger can vary independently according to the time of acquisition; thus differential inflation and prospective technological changes could be dealt with easily. A PASCAL implementation of the model, included as an appendix, was used to identify prospectively optimal sequences of assets in three numerical examples.

A Dynamic Replacement Economy Decision Model

A Dynamic Infinite Horizon Replacement Economy Decision Model

For infinite-horizon replacement economy problems it is common practice to truncate the problem at some finite horizon. We develop bounds on the error due to such a truncation. These bounds differ from previous results in that they include both revenues and costs. Bounds are illustrated through a numerical example from a real case in vehicle replacement. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Jack R. Lohmann

Papers

Defining, developing and assessing global competence in engineers

Parallel replacement under capital rationing constraints

A Dynamic Replacement Economy Decision Model

A Dynamic Infinite Horizon Replacement Economy Decision Model

Equipment replacement under technological change