Showing papers on "Engineering education published in 2002"

Reforming Science Teaching: What Research says about Inquiry*

Abstract: Inquiry has a decades-long and persistent history as the central word used to characterize good science teaching and learning. Even at a time when a new word, constructivism, had entered the general educational lexicon as the descriptor of good education, the authors of the National Science Education Standards (NSES) chose to stay with inquiry and totally ignore the new word. But in spite of its seemingly ubiquitous use, many questions surround inquiry. What does it mean to teach science as, through, or with inquiry? Is the emphasis on science as inquiry, learning as inquiry, teaching as inquiry or all of the above? Is it an approach to science education that can be realized in the classroom or is it an idealized approach that is more theoretical than practical? Is it something that the “average” teacher can do, or is it only possible in the hands and minds of the exceptional teacher? What are the goals of its use? Does it result in greater or better learning? How does one prepare a teacher to utilize this type of science education? What barriers must be overcome to initiate such science education in the schools? What dilemmas do teachers face as they move to this form of science education? The list of questions goes on. They are of particular importance to people committed to the NSES and wanting to see these standards put into greater practice. Reformers from all categories—teachers, teacher educators, administrators, policy makers and members of the general public want to know what answers research has for such questions. Given the central role of teacher education in the process of educational reform, however, these questions are of particular interest to science teacher educators. Researchers’ pursuit of answers has resulted in an extensive literature. Defining the arena broadly, the number of studies is in the hundreds and probably more. This body of research literature is worth exploring, but it will be necessary to limit and focus. Since the NSES is at the center of current discussions of U.S. science education improvement, it is well to begin with that document and consider its use of inquiry. This beginning point, of course, does not imply that the NSES document is without problems or that is fully grounded in the latest research. It is well to remember that it is a political document, based on an attempt to find consensus among the various educational, scientific and public constituencies in the realm of science education. As a result of its wide usage, the language of the document is useful for our communication. Consideration subsequently can be given to how far research goes in answering the questions at hand. *This article is based on a commissioned paper prepared for the Center for Science, Mathematics and Engineering Education at the National Research Council.

Tracking the Processes of Change in US Undergraduate Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology

Abstract: This paper describes some features in the changing landscape of activities intended to improve both quality and access in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology (SMET) undergraduate education. Observations are offered from the viewpoint afforded by my work—broadly over the last 10 years—both as a researcher, and as an evaluator for projects related to the improvement of undergraduate SMET education. Over that period, I have watched the landscape change—some issues, at first prominent, have diminished in importance; some are emergent; and yet others lie on the horizon. I have also observed that actions in pursuit of various reform goals reflect a variety of theories about how change can be accomplished that are not necessarily complementary. This short history of shifts in the focus of our efforts, and in our beliefs about how they may be achieved, is offered as a framework for discussion of these nationwide endeavors and as an aid in considering next steps. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Sci Ed86:79–105, 2001.

The future of engineering education

Abstract: Thirteen engineering educators and researchers were each asked to choose a particular aspect of engineering's future to address. Each of the authors has contributed a short piece that has been edited into a discussion of the future as we collectively see it. Topics include the stimulating change, the changing university, teaching, learning, research, outcome assessment and technology as well as a look back at predictions for 2000.

Impact of undergraduate research experience in engineering

Abstract: A survey of alumni from the College of Engineering at the University of Delaware was conducted to assess the impact of the undergraduate research experience. Students who had participated in undergraduate research were matched with a comparable group of alumni who had no research experience. Alumni were unaware that their responses would be used to assess the impact of undergraduate research. Respondents who had participated in research indicated that this experience was “very” or “extremely” important, with a greater perceived benefit for students who had participated in research for a longer time. Alumni with research experience were more likely to pursue graduate degrees, and they reported greater enhancement of important cognitive and personal skills. In addition, respondents who had been involved in research were much more likely to have reported that they had a faculty member play an important role in their career choice.

Enhancing the engineering curriculum through project-based learning

Abstract: Project-based learning (PBL) is an instructional approach that is gaining increasing interest within the engineering education community. The benefits of PBL include enhanced student participation in the learning process (active learning and self-learning), enhanced communication skills, addressing of a wider set of learning styles, and promotion of critical and proactive thinking. PBL also facilitates the development of many of the "soft skills" demanded from engineering graduates, as embodied in the ABET EC 2000. Examples include effective teaming skills, project management, communications, ethics, engineering economics, etc. At Stevens Institute of Technology the undergraduate engineering curriculum has undergone significant revisions to reflect the latest trend towards enhancement of traditional lecture-based courses with both a design spine and a laboratory experience propagating through the entire educational program. Project-based learning is also being integrated throughout the curriculum. An initial implementation of PBL and its preliminary assessment in a freshman-level course on Mechanics of Solids and a junior-level course on Mechanisms and Machine Dynamics is presented.

The Urgency of Engineering Education Reform

Abstract: There are academies of science and academies of engineering all around the world. Except for in the former Soviet Union, they share two properties. First: they are not part of their government, but are private corporations. Second: they are honorific entities, that is, it is considered a great honor to be elected to one of these academies. You cannot join the Royal Society in London; you have to be elected by the existing membership. It is considered a very high honor, and recognition of a lifetime of contributions to science or engineering.

Creating the CDIO Syllabus, a universal template for engineering education

Abstract: This paper details how a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology identified and codified a set of goals for engineering education, which can serve as the basis for curricular improvement and outcome based assessment. The result of two years of scholarship, these goals are embodied in the CDIO Syllabus, A Statement of Goals for Undergraduate Engineering Education. The specific CDIO (conceive-design-implement-operate) Syllabus objective is to create rational, complete, universal and generalizable goals for undergraduate engineering education. The Syllabus focuses on personal, interpersonal and system building skills, and leaves a placeholder for the disciplinary fundamentals appropriate for any specific field of engineering. It complements and significantly expands on ABET's criteria. The process of adapting the Syllabus to a degree program includes a survey step to determine the desired level of proficiency in the designated skills that is, by consensus, expected of program's graduates. With rationale, detail and broad applicability, the CDIO Syllabus' principal value is that it can be generalized to serve as a model from which any university's engineering programs may derive specific learning outcomes. A work in progress, we encourage examination, comment and potential adoption. Widespread adoption of the Syllabus will facilitate sharing of the best curricular and pedagogic approaches, and it will promote the development of standardized assessment tools.

Roles for learning sciences and learning technologies in biomedical engineering education: a review of recent advances.

Abstract: ▪ Abstract Education in biomedical engineering offers a number of challenges to all constituents of the educational process—faculty, students, and employers of graduates. Although biomedical engineering educational systems have been under development for 40 years, interest in and the pace of development of these programs has accelerated in recent years. New advances in the learning sciences have provided a framework for the reexamination of instructional paradigms in biomedical engineering. This work shows that learning environments should be learner centered, knowledge centered, assessment centered, and community centered. In addition, learning technologies offer the potential to achieve this environment with efficiency. Biomedical engineering educators are in a position to design and implement new learning systems that can take advantage of advances in learning science, learning technology, and reform in engineering education.

Adoption of active learning in a lecture-based engineering class

Abstract: Three years ago, the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT expanded its repertoire of active learning strategies and assessment tools with the introduction of muddiest-point-in-the-lecture cards, electronic response systems, concept tests, peer coaching, course web pages, and web-based course evaluations. This paper focuses on the change process of integrating these active learning strategies into a traditional lecture-based multidisciplinary course, called unified engineering. The description of the evolution of active learning in unified engineering is intended to underscore the motivation and incentives required for bringing about the change, and the support needed for sustaining and disseminating active learning approaches among the instructors.

Engineering Entrepreneurship: An Example of A Paradigm Shift in Engineering Education

Abstract: This paper describes a course on technology-based entrepreneurship. Brown University's Division of Engineering has created a two-semester course sequence designed to introduce students to entrepreneurship through a unique merger of classroom learning and industry participation. The course is open to advanced undergraduates from all engineering disciplines, and emphasis is placed upon recruiting almost half of the student participants from outside of engineering in order to develop “team building” skills. Local “parent companies” provide seed ideas or concepts to student groups who use skills learned in the classroom (both in this course as well as other courses) to develop and refine the parent company's idea and turn it into a viable simulated spin-off business or new start-up. Managers from the parent companies serve in an evolving role over the two-semester sequence beginning as a “board of directors” for the spin-off and eventually evolving into a potential source of start-up capital (or possibly a customer for the products of the company). The faculty carefully manage the student-company interface. Deliverables at the end of the two-semester sequence include a business plan and a prototype product.

A Colloquy On Learning Objectives For Engineering Education Laboratories

Abstract: As distance learning programs become more prevalent and as we begin to offer undergraduate engineering programs in a distance format, the question of laboratories and their role in engineering education becomes increasingly important. There is an ongoing debate about whether a remote laboratory experience can really accomplish the goals of educational laboratories. This leads, then, to the question of what are the true goals of a laboratory experience. This question has been addressed before, but not extensively in the context of distance education or with regard to the massive computing power that now enables highly sophisticated simulations. In January 2002, ABET, with support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, held a colloquy to explore this issue. This paper reports the preliminary conclusions of that colloquy.

The Role of Laboratory Work in Engineering Education: Student and Staff Perceptions

Abstract: Most science-based courses include practical experimental activity in the laboratory. Many academics and authoritative bodies would claim that a significant level of such activity is essential to the formation of technologists. This paper reviews the literature on laboratory practice. It also reports on an internal survey of staff and student perceptions of the practical work and its value in their courses in the School of Engineering at the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. It discusses the degree to which practices both within and outwith the School appear to match the declared aims of participants. It concludes by suggesting some strategies, which may lead to laboratory work becoming more effective.

The scholarship of teaching and learning in engineering

Abstract: Engineering professors, like professors in every field, have always experimented with innovative instructional methods, but traditionally little was done to link the innovations to learning theories or to evaluate them beyond anecdotal reports of student satisfaction. More scholarly approaches have become common in the past two decades as a consequence of several developments, including a change in the engineering program accreditation system to one requiring learning outcomes assessment and continual improvement, and the literature of the scholarship of teaching and learning in engineering has grown rapidly. Most published studies have used surveys and quantitative research methods, approaches with which engineers tend to be relatively comfortable, but studies that use some of the qualitative methods characteristic of social science research have also begun to appear. The challenge to engineering education is to make the scholarship of teaching and learning equal to the scholarships of discovery, integration, and application in the faculty reward system.

Re-Engineering the Curriculum for the 21st Century.

Abstract: Engineering lies at the interface between science on the one hand and society on the other. It is concerned with the systematic application of scientific and mathematical principles towards practical ends for the benefit of people. Traditionally the emphasis in engineering education has been on the scientific side, with students given a thorough grounding in the basic scientific and mathematical principles underpinning their discipline. However, the constraints on engineering problem-solving today are increasingly not technical, but rather lie on the societal and human side of engineering practice. These changes require new approaches within the curriculum and by promoting active learning and encouraging students to experiment and be more creative, eLearning is one of an important number of strategies for achieving the paradigm shift that is required.

Engineering Design Assessment Processes and Scoring Scales for Program Improvement and Accountability

Abstract: Assessment of student achievement in engineering design is an important part of engineering education and vital to engineering program accreditation. Systematic assessment of design is challenging yet necessary for program improvement. Programs with design distributed across the curriculum and with significant numbers of transfer students face special challenges in assessing students' design capabilities and providing meaningful feedback to improve design education. This manuscript presents an assessment process that supports effective transfer of design credits, feedback for improvement of design education, and evaluation of program success in design education. Mid-program and end-of-program assessment strategies are included. Design scoring standards are presented to establish a basis for making performance comparisons within and among programs.

Mode 2 knowledge and institutional life: taking Gibbons on a walk through a South African university

Abstract: This paper examines the response of a blackuniversity in South Africa to the challengesposed by the mode 2 knowledge thesis of MichaelGibbon. The case material is based on theFaculty of Engineering at the University ofDurban Westville, which in the period 1999–2000grappled with the implications of Gibbon’sthesis for knowledge, inquiry and professionalidentity in a proposed university-industrypartnership. The author argues that entrenchedinstitutional rules and behaviours threaten toundermine any attempt to rethink the researchand practice of engineering education even whensuch restructuring appears to work in the bestinterest of students.

A Survey of Faculty Teaching Practices and Involvement in Faculty Development Activities

Abstract: As part of its program assessment activities, the Southeastern University and College Coalition for Engineering Education (SUCCEED) conducted a faculty survey of teaching practices, involvement in facult y development programs, and perceptions of the importance of teaching in the faculty reward system. The survey was first administered late in 1997 and a modified version was administered late in 1999. This paper summarizes results from the 1999 survey tha t address the following questions: (1) To what extent do engineering faculty write instructional objectives and use active and team-based learning? (2) How effective are faculty development programs at changing professors’ teaching practices? The results indicate that well over half of the 1999 respondents were using the stated teaching methods, with most attributing their use of the methods to their participation in teaching workshops and seminars.

Effects of faculty interaction and feedback on gains in student skills

Abstract: Researchers have identified a number of variables including how the nature and frequency of instructor-student interaction affect students' gains in learning outcomes and course satisfaction. This study specifically examined the relationships between engineering faculty teaching practices and classroom climate and students' gains in communication skills, problem-solving skills, occupational awareness, and engineering competence in a curriculum emphasizing engineering design activities. The study was based on data gathered from more than 1500 students taking the first-year design course offered at 19 campuses of the Penn State University system over a period of two years. The results suggest that faculty interacting with and providing constructive feedback to students was significantly and positively related to student gains in several engineering design and professional skills. These relationships remained after control for student demographic characteristics and campus location. The focus of this paper is to provide engineering instructors with insights about the relationships between faculty-student interaction and selected student gains. Recommendations regarding specific teaching practices are provided.

Gender and achievement-related beliefs among engineering students

Abstract: are more likely than men to leave such majors. The results indicated that (a) among the engineering majors, women were more likely than men to identify engineering aptitude as a fixed ability, a belief that was associated with a tendency to drop classes when faced with difficulty; (b) female engineering majors were more likely to perceive male and female engineering students as receiving different treatment than their male counterparts; and (c) female engineering majors tended to place more emphasis on extrinsic factors and less emphasis on intrinsic factors than female nonengineering majors, a pattern not seen among men. Implications for intervention programs are discussed.

Service-learning in engineering

Abstract: Service learning is a pedagogy that integrates academic learning with community-based work. Service learning has been widely adopted within higher education nationally in many disciplines and offers engineering a compelling environment to meet many of the EC 2000 criteria that may be difficult to integrate into traditional engineering courses. There is also a growing case that service learning presents opportunities to attract underrepresented groups to engineering through the context of community-based projects. Despite the vast potential for service learning, engineering has lagged behind most other disciplines in the acceptance of this pedagogy. To encourage more widespread adoption of service learning within engineering, a panel session presents several successful models of engineering service learning and discuss the benefits and outcomes of the programs. This paper provides overviews of the participants' service learning programs along with contact information.

A process for curriculum change in engineering education

Abstract: This paper identifies a process, developed in recent research, to provide curriculum leaders and policy-makers with a practical and flexible approach for designing and implementing curriculum. It is a changed way for bringing about change. Founded on sound principles of curriculum theorizing, it refines existing curriculum theory in higher education contexts and contributes to the ever-growing body of understanding on curriculum decision-making. A thorough investigation of the engineering education context, including the analysis of an engineering case study, was carried out to identify issues that impinge on curriculum decision-making, including the consideration of professional engineering needs, the social and economic pressures, institutional parameters and student factors. As no such systematic process currently existed for this context, the investigation also considered the curriculum and pedagogical theories that underpin the strategic and operational nature of bringing about curriculum change. The...

Characteristics of engineering systems thinking - a 3D approach for curriculum content

Abstract: The main idea underlying a study of high-tech enterprises was to identify cognitive, personal, and professional characteristics of engineers who have a high capacity for "engineering systems thinking." It was assumed that a curriculum developed to increase an engineer's capacity for "engineering systems thinking" might be developed on the basis of those characteristics. The principal questions that the study asked were: what qualifications (knowledge and skills) should a proficient systems engineers possess, and further, how is "engineering systems thinking" capability acquired? Raw data was gathered from 28 interviews, 14 lectures, and two observation sites. Eighty-three distinct categories of responses emerged. The study's findings were then applied toward the construction of a three-dimensional (3-D) model that would aid in the development of a curriculum designed to increase the capacity for "engineering systems thinking.".

Using Community-Based Projects in Civil Engineering Capstone Courses

Abstract: The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology has been and still is encouraging different ways of integrating design content of individual courses for students to get a meaningful design experience. In response to this emphasis on design integration, a capstone course was instituted 10 years ago in the Civil Engineering and Construction Department of North Dakota State University. This course has successfully evolved over the years. Initially, artificial projects were constructed for the course. Recently, real-life projects for the course are carefully selected from the community. Faculty members expend considerable time in seeking suitable community-based projects for the course. In this setting, students have plenty of opportunity to interact with clients and present their results to the community. The use of community-based projects in the capstone course is discussed in this paper. Overall, students and faculty are satisfied with the experience.

Integrating the Use of Commercial Simulators into Lecture Courses

Abstract: Since commercial simulators are commonly used in the practice of engineering, we need to ensure they are included in engineering education. Computer laboratory sections were added to a “lecture” course to teach the use of a simulator and to give the students practice in solving realistic problems. By thinking about the computer lab as a problem-based learning environment, minimal lecture time was necessary to train the students on the simulator. Examples of instructions, problem statements and results from a student survey are presented.