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
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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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