Powerful forces, including demographics, globalization, and rapidly evolving technologies are driving profound changes in the role of engineering in society.
The purpose of this study is to pull together the principal findings and recommendations of the various reports concerning the profession of engineering, the technology and innovation needs of the nation, and the role played by human and intellectual capital.
It is clear that our nation faces the very real prospect of losing its engineering competence in an era in which technological innovation is key to economic competitiveness, national security, and social well being. Bold and concerted action is necessary to sustain and enhance the profession of engineering in America. It is the goal of this report both to sound the alarm and to suggest a roadmap to the future of American engineering.
The report can be downloaded from here. Other iFoundry readings can be found here.
At Olin College today, at 5:15 pm, attendees at the Summit on the Engineer of the Future 2.0 signed the “transformation proclamation” to promote change in engineering education in harmony with the practice of engineering in the 21st century.
The transformation proclamation is the founding document of a larger grassroots Alliance for Promoting Innovation in Engineering Education (APIE2). APIE2 seeks to connect the dots between different individuals, institutions, and organizations in the furtherance of principled change in engineering education.
Individuals including students, educators, and friends of engineering education who wish to read and possibly sign the document can go to the online petition site gopetition.com here. For more information about the transformation proclamation or APIE2 contact Sherra Kerns or Dave Goldberg.
You have heard about how a musician loses herself in her music, how a painter becomes one with the process of painting. In work, sport, conversation or hobby, you have experienced, yourself, the suspension of time, the freedom of complete absorption in activity. This is “flow,” an experience that is at once demanding and rewarding–an experience that Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi demonstrates is one of the most enjoyable and valuable experiences a person can have.
For more information or to buy to book please check here. For other recommended readings refer to our reading page (here).
The curricula and pedagogy of engineering disciplines face mounting pressure to change in response to the national need for engineers who can compete in the global workforce.
In order to understand the social and human dynamics that facilitate and inhibit the diffusion and acceptance of new engineering curricula and pedagogy, the CASEE in collaboration with the ASA convened a two-day workshop in April 2006. This text (here) presents the final report from this workshop.
In October 2007 Jonathan Glancey reported to The Guardian that Britain is 20,000 engineers short (here). This article by Chris Wise (here) is a response to Glancey’s report. According to Wise we don’t need more engineers, “we need better engineers. We need more thinkers, more engineering designers, more people who can conjure up something magical out of a complex world. We need an overhaul of engineering education.”
This earnest guide to career transition periods asserts, reassuringly, that navigating the all-important first 90 days is a “teachable skill.” Business professor Watkins lays out a “standard framework” for leadership transitions, based on “five fundamental propositions,” “ten key challenges,” and a four-fold typology of situations that new managers find themselves in.
The First 90 Days can be purchased here. Other readings that inspire innovation in engineering education are listed here.
Goldberg, D. E. (2006). Human artifacts, phenomena, and interaction themes in the IESE curriculum (IESE whitepaper 06002). IESE Department, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL. Download PDFhere
Goldberg, D. E. (2006). The times they are a changin’ (IESE whitepaper 06001). IESE Department, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL. Download PDFhere
Monday 13 April, 4:00 p.m., 1000 Micro and Nanotechnology Lab (MNTL)
Sheri D. Sheppard, Professor—Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, and Consulting Scholar—Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
Abstract: A recently published Carnegie Foundation study of engineering education describes and analyzes both typical and exemplary approaches to teaching and learning engineering at the outset of the new century.It addresses the major questions of what engineering education looks like and how it prepares practitioners by exploring what lies inside the “black box” of preparation for the engineering profession.These questions are addressed in ways that will assist educators, students, university leaders, and practicing engineers to prepare future engineers more effectively.The study also provides an important point of linkage to foster an exchange of insights and best practices among and between disciplinary fields, and both graduate and undergraduate programs.
Educating Engineers: Designing for the Future of the Field is the final report from the Foundation’s study. As the Senior Scholar at the Foundation and lead author of the report, Professor Sheppard will describe the dominant model of engineering education, outline improvements to better align educational practices with the needs to today’s engineering professionals, and propose an alternate (and fairly radical) model suggested by new understanding of how people learn.Ample time will be allotted in the session for Q&A, and discussion.
Sheri D. Sheppard, Ph.D., P.E., is the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Consulting Senior Scholar principally responsible for the Preparations for the Professions Program (PPP) engineering study, the results of which are in the report Educating Engineers: Designing for the Future of the Field.In addition, she is professor of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University.Besides teaching both undergraduate and graduate design-related classes at Stanford University, she conducts research on weld and solder-connect fatigue and impact failures, fracture mechanics, and applied finite element analysis.In 2003 Dr. Sheppard was named co-principal investigator on a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to form the Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education (CAEE), along with faculty at the University of Washington, Colorado School of Mines, and Howard University.She was co-principal investigator with Professor Larry Leifer on a multi-university NSF grant that was critically looking at engineering undergraduate curriculum (Synthesis); one of her key contributions in Synthesis was the development of a pedagogy called mechanical dissection.
Sheri served as co-director of Stanford’s Learning Lab (1997-1999), was Chair of Stanford’s Faculty Senate in 2006-2007, and since September of 2008 has served as Associate Vice provost of Graduate Education.For the last ten years she has been the faculty advisor to the Stanford graduate student group MEWomen.
Sheri is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE). She was awarded the 2004 ASEE Chester F. Carlson Award in recognition of distinguished accomplishments in engineering education, and the 2005 ASEE Wickenden Best Journal of Engineering Education Paper Award. Before coming to Stanford University, she held several positions in the automotive industry, including senior research engineer at Ford Motor Company’s Scientific Research Lab.Dr. Sheppard’s graduate work was done at the University of Michigan.
Sheppard’s co-authors on Educating Engineers: Designing for the Future of the Field are Kelley Macatangay, Anne Colby and William Sullivan.
Wednesday 29 April, 4:00 p.m., 301 Coordinated Science Lab (CSL)
Professor Tim Stelzer, Department of Physics
Abstract: The Department of Physics at the University of Illinois has a long tradition of innovation in undergraduate education. From PLATO (the first computer based learning system) to Tycho (web-based homework employing the Socratic method), to Peer Instruction with i>clickers, we have continually led the development and implementation of the best instructional practices for large-enrollement introductory physics courses. The tradition continues with our most recent innovation— prelectures. These short (<20-min) narrated Flash(r) animations are designed to introduce students to the fundamental concepts before they attend lecture, so they are better prepared to participate and learn in lecture. In addition to screening a typical prelecture, results from our published clinical studies, eyetracking studies, and student outcome data from the use of prelectures in our introductory E&M course will be presented.
Timothy Stelzer received his bachelor’s degree in physics from St. John’s University in 1988, and his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1993. A high-energy particle theorist, Professor Stelzer has concentrated on standard model physics at hadron colliders. He has written extensively on top-quark physics and radiation in top events. In addition, he has developed computational methods that have dramatically reduced the difficulty of performing complex cross section calculations. He is the primary author of MadGraph®, a software program that automatically generates the Feynman diagrams and helicity amplitude code for tree-level standard model processes. Most recently, he has been working on a new program to predict how often rare new particles would be produced and also what signatures would distinguish these new particles from the large background of particles already known. He has developed a novel multi-channel approach that efficiently integrates any scattering amplitude to obtain the cross section of any desired process.
Professor Stelzer has also been heavily involved with the Physics Education Group at Illinois, where he has led the development and implementation of tools for assessing the effectiveness of educational innovations in introductory courses and expanding the use of web technology in physics pedagogy. He was instrumental in the development of the I-clicker™ and is a regular on the University’s “Incomplete List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students.”
7:39 ifoundry co-director and William H. Severns Chair for Human Behavior at the University of Illinois, Raymond L. Price, speaks on his new book, "The HP ...
