Drexel's E4 Program: A Different Professional Experience for Engineering Students and Faculty

In 1988, Drexel began a project which involves a comprehensive restructuring of the lower division engineering curriculum. The program provides an early introduction to the central body of knowledge forming the fabric of engineering, the unifying rather than parochial aspects of engineering, experimental methods, the computer as a flexible, powerful professional and intellectual tool, the importance of personal communications skills, and the imperative for continuous, vigorous, life-long learning. The subject matter is organized in four major components replacing and/or integrating material in thirty-seven existing courses in the traditional curriculum. The theme of all activities is a central focus on the students as emerging professional engineers and the faculty as their mentors from the very beginning of their education. To date, 500 students and 50 faculty have participated in the project. Preliminary results of evaluations are encouraging. Retention rates and achievement levels are high. Performance tests indicate that most students develop excellent levels of computer and laboratory skills. Their written and oral presentations demonstrate achievement of superior levels of communication skills. Personal interviews and evaluations indicate that student response is quite positive and they place a high value on faculty participation in a team effort. Both faculty and students indicate that this different experience has given them an insight into the importance and scope of the engineering profession and a sense that its practice can be exciting, rewarding and enjoyable.     

Writing Across the Chemical Engineering Curriculum at the University of North Dakota

In order to prepare engineering graduates with the written and oral communication skills needed in their professional careers a coordinated writing across the curriculum (WAC) program has developed in the chemical engineering department at the University of North Dakota. The students practice and develop their skills with writing assignments in both lecture and laboratory courses from the first-year level through the fourth-year capstone design course. The coordinated approach, especially in the four-semester laboratory sequence, allows the students to develop their skills by building on communication experiences in previous courses. The WAC program at UND including writing and public speaking assignments is described.     

数字化印刷背景下印刷图文信息处理专业教育改革

随着数字化印刷技术的发展,中国高等学校印刷图文信息处理专业原有的教育模式凸显出了技术滞后、教师缺乏专业实践及生产经验、学生的实践性教学环境尚不能满足生产性实训要求等问题,必须采取以下措施,才能培养满足社会需求的专业人才:加强专业课程体系的构建;加强专业知识结构的调整;根据现实变化,优化课程内容;改进教育模式和教学手段,提高教学效果;创建校办实训工厂,增加学生实践机会;加强师资队伍建设,提高专业教师的教学水平。     

Beyond the classroom: integrating improvement learning into health professions education in Norway.

BACKGROUND: Students in the health professions must internalize the subject matter--professional knowledge--to acquire the necessary skills to serve as practitioners. Yet the ability to engage in continuous improvement is attainable only when combining professional knowledge with improvement knowledge. It is a challenge to strike a balance between theoretical teaching and practical training when working with personal quality improvement (QI), observing processes, and employing new methods and tools for problem solving and improvement work. EVOLUTION OF EFFORTS TO INTEGRATE IMPROVEMENT KNOWLEDGE INTO HEALTH PROFESSIONS EDUCATION: In February 1995 A National Strategy for Quality Improvement in Health Care stipulated that training in quality improvement be an integral part of the education of health care personnel. A program was developed at Bergen College in 1998 to integrate the philosophy and methodology of quality improvement (improvement knowledge) into students' learning of professional knowledge. This program involves a variety of pilot projects in personal improvement, practice-related instruction on training wards, observation practice, clinical studies, cross-education student projects, and thesis writing. PERSONAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS: With the starting point "quality is personal," students can work on personal change and improvement. If students learn methods and tools for improvement in their personal realm, they can transfer and use this knowledge in their professional work. Problems experienced by students in relation to their studies can be addressed by the Plan-Do-Check-Act problem-solving method. DISCUSSION: A longitudinal, personal-then-clinical, approach enables students to learn techniques and tools they can use as professionals, both in the care for patients and in contributing to organizational improvement.     

Enabling Effective Engineering Teams: A Program for Teaching Interaction Skills*

A program for teaching interaction skills to engineers and engineering students has been developed. Based on cognitive style theory, this customized program uses the typical engineer's problem solving strengths to teach skills of interviewing, questioning, exchanging ideas, and managing conflict. The goal of this program is to enable these problem solvers to apply their technical skills more effectively by improving interpersonal interactions. The modular nature of the training program makes it easily transportable, and all or part of it can be used in courses that require students to work in teams. This paper discusses what makes this training “a good fit” with engineering students, the background for its content, and the program's six modules. Personal experiences with teaching this material and recommendations for implementation are discussed. Similarities and differences between teaching the engineering professional and student, themes of student perceptions about the training, and future directions are also addressed.     

Developing a Systems Approach to Engineering Problem Solving and Design of Experiments in a Racecar‐Based Laboratory Course

A capstone mechanical engineering laboratory course is being implemented at the University of South Carolina that develops the student's abilities to analyze complex mechanical and thermal systems, to design experiments, and to develop their professional skills. The course is based upon an integrated sequence of laboratory experiments on a Legends‐class racecar. This vehicle is chosen as the system of study because it provides opportunities for the students to apply the spectrum of their mechanical engineering knowledge. It's also exciting to the students. As the students progress through the series of experiments, they are increasingly involved in experimental design (selecting sensors, sensor locations and experimental operating conditions). The course culminates in a truly open‐ended design of an experiment of their choosing. This course development project is supported by the National Science Foundation's Instrumentation and Laboratory Improvement Program, the NSF's Course, Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement Program, and the University of South Carolina. This paper describes the work in progress.     

The ABET “Professional Skills” — Can They Be Taught? Can They Be Assessed?

In developing its new engineering accreditation criteria, ABET reaffirmed a set of “hard” engineering skills while introducing a second, equally important, set of six “professional” skills. These latter skills include communication, teamwork, and understanding ethics and professionalism, which we label process skills, and engineering within a global and societal context, lifelong learning, and a knowledge of contemporary issues, which we designate as awareness skills. We review these skills with an emphasis on how they can be taught, or more correctly learned, citing a number of examples of successful and/or promising implementations. We then examine the difficult issue of assessing these skills. We are very positive about a number of creative ways that these skills are being learned, particularly at institutions that are turning to global and/or service learning in combination with engineering design projects to teach and reinforce outcome combinations. We are also encouraged by work directed at assessing these skills, but recognize that there is considerable research that remains to be done.     

Empowering production workers with digitally facilitated knowledge processes – a conceptual framework

Recent digital advancements, including social software, mobile technologies and augmented reality, offer promising opportunities to empower knowledge workers in their production environment by leveraging their knowledge processes, decision-making skills and social interaction practices. This paper proposes a conceptual framework for empowering workers in industrial production environments with digitally facilitated knowledge management processes. The framework explores four concrete facets of digital advancements that apply to a wide range of knowledge processes and production strategies in manufacturing companies. Each of these advancements are capable of supporting one specific facet of the individual knowledge management processes of workers; knowledge transfer, discovery, acquisition and sharing. The study contributes to the production research community by aligning emerging digital technologies and current trends in advanced manufacturing environments to benefit workers and improve job satisfaction, efficiency and productivity. The paper also contains suggestions about developing innovative solutions for production environments that support workers with digital technologies for flexible production.     

Bringing Adjunct Engineering Faculty into the Learning Community

Adjunct faculty can offer enrichment to an engineering program by bringing practical experience and by introducing relevant industrial applications and problems to the classroom. The industrial perspective of adjunct faculty often manifests itself through an emphasis on communication and presentation skills, and concern for customer needs. Students observing these attributes come away with a better appreciation for the demands of the engineering workplace. Adjunct faculty members can also provide important linkages for developing industrial affiliate programs, co‐op activities, and employment opportunities for graduates. Nevertheless, the position of adjunct faculty is tenuous, subject to shifting enrollments, negative student perception, and limited connectivity with the mainstream issues of the academic department. Adjunct faculty who teach in engineering programs will almost always come with excellent technical credentials, but they will have little or no teacher training or knowledge of learning principles and cognitive psychology. With limited time on campus, adjunct faculty have little opportunity to improve their teaching skills and methods, resulting in a “sink or swim” environment. At the Colorado School of Mines (CSM), we have evolved a regimen of strategies to ensure the quality of the educational program and to support the teaching effectiveness and professional commitment of adjunct faculty. These strategies have improved student and faculty satisfaction with adjunct faculty, and indeed have improved adjunct faculty self‐satisfaction. These strategies are described in the current paper.     

Scientific mapping to identify competencies required by industry 4.0

The objective of this study was to identify what competencies are identified in the literature as necessary for Industry 4.0 by conducting a survey of the literature and a scientific mapping of the evolution of the issues related to the qualification of professionals for Industry 4.0 and possible paths for research and education. A search was conducted on the Scopus, Web of Science and Science Direct databases for the interval from 2010 to 2018. This systematic review revealed topics and authors currently specialized in the field and allowed mapping the field of study. The identification of journals and keywords useful in future studies was also an object of this study. SciMAT software was used for the systematic literature review. The results are highlighted by the set of competencies (knowledge and skills) that must be developed in professional education to accompany the new industrial revolution, as well as the importance of integrating efforts by companies, governments and universities. These efforts should focus on creating “learning factories”, which are understood to be environments that provide practical experiences to these professionals, preparing them in the best way possible for the requirements of Industry 4.0. This conceptual map showed that the main competencies needed include skills: (leadership, strategic vision of knowledge, self-organization, giving and receiving feedback, pro-activity, creativity, problem solving, interdisciplinarity, teamwork, collaborative work, initiative, communication, innovation, adaptability, flexibility and self-management) and knowledge of contemporary fields (information and communication technology, algorithms, automation, software development and security, data analysis, general systems theory and sustainable development theory).     

Student Learning and Gender

Using a qualitative research design and an anthropological theory of learning, I studied a sophomore design class to investigate how teams of women and men student engineers acquired and shared scientific and technical knowledge while developing solutions to real-world problems for government and industry clients. The course provided a forum where women and men students not only learned technical information critical to their project, but also learned how to function as engineers on a team. The design class improved some women students' experiences, but these opportunities did not exist for all women in the class or in all settings on the campus. In spite of its notable successes, some facets of the organization of the course, its implementation by the faculty, and students' beliefs that their work was “basically useless” detracted from collaborative aims. These findings suggest classroom practices to create and maintain an environment where all students can participate and learn.     

Using the Affinity Research Group Model to Involve Undergraduate Students in Computer Science Research*

The Affinity Research Group model is an attractive vehicle for involving undergraduates in research, retaining them, and fostering their interest in higher education. Using this model, students are given opportunities to develop, employ, and integrate knowledge and skills required for research with knowledge and skills required for cooperative work. Potential adopters of the model often inquire about the feasibility of applying the model in a field like computer science, in which it often is the case that a student must have a solid academic foundation in order to be involved in research. This paper addresses this question by illustrating how the model has been applied to computer science research projects that involve students with different skill levels and experience. In particular, the paper presents example structured tasks and related activities that demonstrate how students develop domain expertise, gain an understanding and appreciation of the research process and its practice, and acquire technical, team, communication, problem‐solving, and higher‐level thinking skills.     

Personal and professional skills for engineers: one industry'sperspective

This paper covers the nontechnical skills required by engineers working in the oil and gas industry and is based on a survey conducted during the first quarter of 1995 which dealt specifically with employers' opinions on the personal and professional skills required by their engineers. The survey also canvassed the views of employers on what additional training in specific areas would benefit recent graduated and more mature engineers     

Speaking and Writing Proficiency of International Graduate Students in Elective,Mentoring Environments

Technical communication skills are critical for non‐native speakers who must study and interact in English‐only professional settings. Often, formal instruction to pass admission thresholds and other minimum requirements are not sufficient to attain proficiency. This paper describes elective, long‐term programs that provide systematic opportunities for both speaking and writing development. These programs are tailored to international students through the key features of individualized activities, applied task‐oriented practice, and social interaction. The elective programs attract and retain participants with interest and need for high‐level language proficiency. Program evaluations show that participating graduate students give primary credit for their growing fluency to individualized practice and to sustained interaction with native speakers.     

Programmable Calculators in Engineering Education—One Approach

Personal computing presents many opportunities to introduce real world problems into the classroom, but most classrooms lack PCs for each student. The programmable calculator offers a cheap, universally available tool, with the power of a PC, to exploit the opportunities of personal computing. Now the student can concentrate on how to apply new mathematical principles to real world applications. The programmable calculator has successfully been integrated into a linear algebra course at the University of Kansas. This has changed the course.     

Reverse Engineering and Redesign: Courses to Incrementally and Systematically Teach Design

A variety of design‐process and design‐methods courses exist in engineering education. The primary objective of such courses is to teach engineering design fundamentals utilizing repeatable design techniques. By so doing, students obtain (1) tools they may employ during their education, (2) design experiences to understand the “big picture” of engineering, and (3) proven methods to attack open‐ended problems. While these skills are worthwhile, especially as design courses are moved earlier in curricula, many students report that design methods are typically taught at a high‐level and in a compartmentalized fashion. Often, the students' courses do not include opportunities to obtain incremental concrete experiences with the methods. Nor do such courses allow for suitable observation and reflection as the methods are executed. In this paper, we describe a new approach for teaching design methods that addresses these issues. This approach incorporates hands‐on experiences through the use of “reverse‐engineering” projects. As the fundamentals of design techniques are presented, students immediately apply the methods to actual, existing products. They are able to hold these products physically in their hands, dissect them, perform experiments on their components, and evolve them into new successful creations. Based on this reverse‐engineering concept, we have developed and tested new courses at The University of Texas, MIT, and the United States Air Force Academy. In the body of this paper, we present the structure of these courses, an example of our teaching approach, and an evaluation of the results.     

Student Focus Group Results on Student Team Performance Issues

Use of project teams is increasing in the engineering environment due to their many benefits. These include increased creativity, productivity, and reduced time‐to‐market of engineering concepts. Good team skills are desired by engineering employers, prompting universities to focus on curriculum development with strong team utilization. While team projects significantly increase opportunities for team interaction, they rarely provide sufficient training to enable students to function most effectively in a team environment. In addition, there is lack of standardization in how teams are used, and inconsistency in team performance expectations and training. These concerns led to our current efforts to develop a standardized team‐training format for faculty and students. To provide the basis for development of team training materials, faculty interviews and student focus groups were conducted to assess perceptions of team project work and training as well as expectations and definitions of successful team performance. Results of student focus groups on team project class experiences are discussed.     

Experiences with a Consulting Engineering Application of TQM

ABSTRACT

Integrating management and staff training in interpersonal skills with training in TQM concepts and problem-solving techniques is essential for success in a service organization. This effort to apply TQM to a 1,500-person, 32-office engineering and architecture firm began by training quality improvement teams in three offices. By initially focusing on a limited number of projects, we learned to apply TQM concepts within the context of our organization. These successful pilot projects converted the skeptics, and the process is now being expanded. TQM team members report increased self-confidence, communication, and conflict resolution skills. Specific improvements in work processes have been achieved, and, most importantly, our clients have been so pleased with the results that several of them have adopted TQM for their organizations and have referred new clients to us.     

Outcomes of a Longitudinal Administration of the Persistence in Engineering Survey

Background Understanding more about student decisions to leave engineering may lead to higher retention. This study builds on the literature and focuses on the experiences of a cohort of students who aimed to complete their undergraduate work in 2007. Purpose (Hypothesis ) This paper presents the outcomes of the longitudinal administration of the Persistence in Engineering survey. The goal was to identify correlates of persistence in undergraduate engineering education and professional engineering practice. Design /Method The survey was administered seven times over four years to a cohort of students who had expressed interest in studying engineering. At the end of the study, the participants were categorized as persisters or non‐persisters. Repeated measures analysis of variance was used, in conjunction with other approaches, to test for differences between the groups. Results Persisters and non‐persisters did not differ significantly according to the majority of the constructs. Nevertheless, parental and high school mentor influences as a motivation to study engineering, as well as confidence in math and science skills, were identified as correlates of persistence. Intention to complete an engineering major was also a correlate of persistence; it appears to decline sharply at least two semesters prior to students leaving engineering. The findings also suggest that there might be differences among non‐persisters when they are further grouped by when they leave engineering. Conclusions Facilitating higher levels of mentor involvement before college might increase student motivation to study engineering, and also constitute a mechanism for fostering confidence in math and science skills. Since the intention to complete an engineering degree decreases well before students act, there may be opportunities for institutions to develop targeted interventions for students, and help them make informed decisions.     

Gender‐Informed Mentoring Strategies for Women Engineering Scholars: On Establishing a Caring Community

Improved mentoring of women graduate students and young faculty is one strategy for increasing the presence, retention and advancement of women scholars in engineering. We explore the sociological literature on interpersonally‐ and institutionally‐generated gender roles and dynamics that make the construction and maintenance of mentoring relationships especially difficult for women in male‐dominated fields. In addition, we review non‐traditional strategies including peer‐, multiple‐ and collective mentorships that are likely to be more successful for most women (and many men). Finally, organizational change strategies designed to provide a more egalitarian and cooperative atmosphere in engineering programs and departments are presented. These ideas represent a social contract for a caring community more supportive of all members' personal and professional growth and success.