Transforming Engineering Education
The Road Ahead
Moshe Kam, IEEE
“Transforming Engineering Education” Program Chair
Drexel University
4/13/2015
Outline
 Why
do we need to transform
engineering education?
 Broad
themes discussed in the
conference
 The

2
Road Ahead
What are we going to do after this
conference?
4/13/2015
Why do we need to transform
engineering education?
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
Decline in interest in engineering as a career
path among young people in several major
industrial countries

The sense that entry level engineers lack
necessary skills

The sense that the business environment has
changed but engineering education did not
keep pace
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Broad Themes

Increasingly, engineers face challenges that
involve large scale, complex systems


Current curricula rarely address such
challenges


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…requiring strong interaction with non-engineer
experts and the public
… (overly) focused on preparation in mathematics
and physics and on engineering science
Making engineering education crossdisciplinary is a hard but worthy challenge
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Desired Skills of Graduating
Engineers

Able to communicate effectively to technical and nontechnical audiences

Able to self educate



Able to work in heterogeneous teams (including virtual
teams)


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‘Process’ large volumes of information – sift through and generate
knowledge
Understand that education of engineers continues for a lifetime
And to converse with professionals in Law and Business
Willing to take risks, experiment, and be innovative
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Engagement with the
Community

Many curricula operate with little regard to the
community wherein they reside


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Engagement of students in their local community can
provide a partial solution.
Examples:

Conduct student design projects in the community
 Such as Purdue University’s EPICS project

Place graduate students as trainee teachers in high
schools as part of their training
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Better Communication Skills…

Would improve the public discourse on
science and engineering

Would help communities understand the
potential and impact of proposed
engineering projects

Increase understanding of engineering
among young people


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…and their parents and teachers
…with potentially positive impact on choosing
engineering as a career path
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Observations on the Curriculum
The
current engineering curriculum is jampacked
We have hard time eliminating existing
taught material
One
possible “solution” is to try to imbed
new themes in the existing curriculum
Rather
than starting new courses
“Significant
changes may be possible
without a major overhaul”
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More on the curriculum

We lack a common view of what the
curriculum is trying to achieve

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One model:
 Undergraduate education – broad
background for entry level engineering
practice
 M.S. level education – specialization for
professional practice
 Ph.D. level education – preparation for
specialized R&D
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Technology and the curriculum

Technology changes continue to affect
delivery and content of the curriculum:




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Ability of students to discover and process
on-line information
Impact of distance learning and online
delivery on quality and efficiency of
teaching and learning
Emergence of scientific computing software
as a tool in design
Role of software engineering in engineering
curricula
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The Road to Reform: the
University Reward System

If Engineering Education is to change, the
university reward system will have to
change as well


If improvement is to be made ‘continuous,’
we need to be able to measure it


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At present many schools weigh scholarly
publications, graduate student advising and
research funding much more than excellence
in undergraduate education
Identify the metrics
Align improvement with the reward system
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Thinking Globally
 Wide
agreement on the need to
increase global understanding and
engagement
 Proposed
ways to achieve this goal:
Semester abroad
 Participation in Engineers without
These recommendations are
Borders projects
not exactly “global”
 Study of languages

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Engineering Literacy for nontechnical students
Sure engineers need to learn how to talk to
non-technical audiences…
 But non-technical audiences need to be
exposed to some level of understanding
of engineering as well
 Engineering departments have the obligation
to provide engineering literacy courses and
labs to non-engineers


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Political leaders of the future should possess at
least a minimal level of engineering literacy
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University-Industry Exchanges

Feedback from industry to academia is needed


Co-op and industry internships can help

Few university professors have practiced in
industry. Still…

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At present it is often indirect and ineffective
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…while many faculty members spend sabbatical
leaves in industry and serve as consultants to
industry… it is very rare that established industry
practitioners come to the university for extended
residence
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The Road Ahead
What are we going to do after this conference?
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4/13/2015
A few conference-related
activities
 Develop
and disseminate the
Proceedings of the Conference

All papers and presentations
 Provide
a summary and a
‘manifesto’

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A more formal presentation of the
main themes, ideas and proposals
discussed at the Conference
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Implementation of proposals and
action items

We need to make a concrete list of
‘desired but missing’ skills


To encourage development of ‘desired but
missing’ skills we will develop a set of
recommendations and resources


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First iteration: find out what training
industry is already paying for and label it
“important for industry”
 Identify what is appropriate for the
curriculum
For schools
For regulatory bodies and accreditation
agencies
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How would the recommendations
Principal dissemination
be expressed?
 As “best
tool – a web portal on
ideas for a better
engineering curriculum
practices”
 As repositories of case studies
 As proposals for stand-alone courses

Along with detailed curricular materials
and on-line resources
 As
proposals to imbed skill training
in existing curricula

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With examples and training materials
4/13/2015
More concretely…

IEEE will provide IBM with a proposal for
joint development of the curricular resources
(within 45 days)



We will use an existing resource to get the
project underway


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A proposed joint IEEE/IBM project
Open invitation to other professional associations
and corporations to join
Real World Engineering Projects or TryEngineering
Aim at first launch by the second quarter of
2011
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Questions and Comments
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