Engineering Education Designing an Adaptive System (1995) / Chapter Skim
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V. A CALL TO ACTION
V. A CALL TO ACTION
Pages 44-55
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From page 44... ...
If substantial and necessary change is to occur throughout the engineering education system, performance evaluation and feedback are needed on the extent to which new engineers meet the needs of society in the twenty-first century -- that is, on how well they satisfy the vision outlined in Chapter 2 (and summarized in Table 1-1)
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From page 45... ...
Engineering educators must strive for flexibility and adaptability in everything they do as educators. Therefore, given the decentralized and diversified nature of the engineering educational system, it is essential for each engineering institution to update itself within the context of an institutionally shared vision of the overall system and its goals -- a concept best expressed by the phrase "think globally, act locally." Such an undertaking will involve certain actions common to all schools; other actions will depend on the specific character and mission of the individual school and will be identified through self-assessment and collective discussion of the institution's goals and areas requiring change.
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From page 46... ...
Expand the working definition of scholarship to include "peda gogy" (research and development on teaching methods and curricu lum development) , and redefine "publications" to include formal curriculum model development, multimedia teaching approaches, and the creation of tutorial modules.
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From page 47... ...
Strive to create a positive, supportive climate for engineering students by emphasizing success and personal encouragement rather than the "weeding-out" approach that has often been taken in the past. Establish mechanisms to provide faculty members with greater exposure to engineering practice, such as: • recognizing relevant types of consulting in promotion and tenure evaluations; • providing industrial sabbaticals; • encouraging joint research with industry colleagues and adjunct faculty; and 2More useful than the standard student evaluation of teachers would be evaluations based on surveys of students five years beyond graduation who are actively involved in their careers.
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From page 48... ...
Pursue appropriate undergraduate curricular reform, including the following, for example: • Ensure early exposure to engineering practice and a sense of the role of engineers in society.
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From page 49... ...
• Monitor ongoing experiments in curricular reform (e.g., engi neering education coalitions) , and implement aspects pertinent to the institution, ensuring continued strong grounding in engi neering science and math.
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From page 50... ...
Institutions should move toward the following self-imposed goals, with the recognition that the appropri ate mix of faculty characteristics will differ for institutions of different mission: • Achieve greater diversity of race, gender, ethnic background, and age by altering the mix of faculty characteristics through self-initiated actions by department heads, deans, and univer sity administrators; and • Employ on the faculty more engineers from private industry and government who have engineering design experience and man agement experience and who have demonstrated good teaching abilities. Strive to develop a "new collegiality" -- a shared sense of mission and purpose that will better integrate both the faculty and the process of engineering education.
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From page 51... ...
To that end, actions might include the following: • Require all non-engineering undergraduates in the institution, including science and math education majors, to take one or two survey courses on engineering and technology. • Establish, through statewide consortia, centers where K–12 teachers could acquire in-service training on teaching tools and topics in support of technological literacy.
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From page 52... ...
• Encourage faculty to establish mentoring relationships with middle- and high-school teachers and students, perhaps utiliz ing electronic networking. Action to be Undertaken by Industry The BEEd urges companies to consider the following possible actions: Remove barriers and provide incentives to engineers to pursue continuing technical education.
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From page 53... ...
Resulting curriculum modification and application efforts at various institutions should be monitored and reported on a nationwide basis, perhaps through the National Engineering Education Delivery System, as it becomes established. NSF could expand its existing Course and Curriculum Development program, which works to develop teaching tools for use by engineering educators.
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From page 54... ...
The engineering education community, perhaps through the Na tional Research Council, should proactively support ongoing efforts to reform K–12 science and mathematics at the national, state, and local levels. A task force should be established, perhaps through the National Research Council, to examine the college curricula of education students who are planning to teach K–12 math and science from the standpoint of technological literacy and the presentation of engineer ing awareness and examples of engineering achievements.
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From page 55... ...
The Beed believes that such a change is occurring in engineering education -- indeed, at some places in the system it is well under way, and recently a number of authoritative reports have urged changes similar to those that the board recommends. The BEEd hopes that a special contribution of this report, based on discussions with a very broad cross-section of the engineering community, will be to provide a clearer view of the specific areas where change is needed and to suggest workable mechanisms for achieving positive change.
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