This report was published by ASEE in 2009. Read it in its entirety.
The report asks a fundamental question: How do we create an environment in which many exciting, engaging, and empowering engineering educational innovations can flourish and make a significant difference in educating future engineers? The purpose of this report is to catalyze a conversation within the U.S. engineering community on creating and sustaining a vibrant engineering academic culture for scholarly and systematic educational innovation—just as we have for technological innovation—to ensure that the U.S. engineering profession has the right people with the right talent for a global society.
Most reports on engineering education emphasize “what” needs to be changed. “How” the change should be driven and “who” should drive the change—both of which largely determine how quickly and how well change occurs and how it is sustained—have not been as fully addressed. This report addresses who, what, and how and their interrelationships. It also spotlights several illustrative examples.
We focus first on how. We hypothesize that, as in our traditional engineering disciplines, innovation in engineering education depends on a vibrant community of practitioners and researchers working in collaboration to advance the frontiers of knowledge and practice.
Next, we address who. While a quality higher education experience involves many stakeholders, we assert that the responsibility for the quality of the engineering educational experience rests with the engineering faculty and administrators.
Finally, we discuss what. Three elements, and their alignment, are central to an effective educational environment: curriculum, instruction, and assessment. In engineering today, most approaches to curriculum, instruction, and assessment are based on implicit and limited conceptions of learning and used in fragmented educational practices. A more effective engineering education enterprise could be achieved if all three were derived from a scientifically credible and shared knowledge base on engineering learning and employed in more contemporary approaches to education, such as inquiry-based learning and experiential curricula.
We conclude the report by offering some specific actions for those individuals (i.e, engineering faculty, chairs, and deans) and organizations (e.g., ASEE, ABET, NAE, professional engineering societies, funding agencies, industry) who are ready to begin creating a culture for scholarly and systematic innovation in engineering education.
This report was published by ASEE in 2009. Read it in its entirety.
The report asks a fundamental question: How do we create an environment in which many exciting, engaging, and empowering engineering educational innovations can flourish and make a significant difference in educating future engineers? The purpose of this report is to catalyze a conversation within the U.S. engineering community on creating and sustaining a vibrant engineering academic culture for scholarly and systematic educational innovation—just as we have for technological innovation—to ensure that the U.S. engineering profession has the right people with the right talent for a global society.
Most reports on engineering education emphasize “what” needs to be changed. “How” the change should be driven and “who” should drive the change—both of which largely determine how quickly and how well change occurs and how it is sustained—have not been as fully addressed. This report addresses who, what, and how and their interrelationships. It also spotlights several illustrative examples.
We focus first on how. We hypothesize that, as in our traditional engineering disciplines, innovation in engineering education depends on a vibrant community of practitioners and researchers working in collaboration to advance the frontiers of knowledge and practice.
Next, we address who. While a quality higher education experience involves many stakeholders, we assert that the responsibility for the quality of the engineering educational experience rests with the engineering faculty and administrators.
Finally, we discuss what. Three elements, and their alignment, are central to an effective educational environment: curriculum, instruction, and assessment. In engineering today, most approaches to curriculum, instruction, and assessment are based on implicit and limited conceptions of learning and used in fragmented educational practices. A more effective engineering education enterprise could be achieved if all three were derived from a scientifically credible and shared knowledge base on engineering learning and employed in more contemporary approaches to education, such as inquiry-based learning and experiential curricula.
We conclude the report by offering some specific actions for those individuals (i.e, engineering faculty, chairs, and deans) and organizations (e.g., ASEE, ABET, NAE, professional engineering societies, funding agencies, industry) who are ready to begin creating a culture for scholarly and systematic innovation in engineering education.
