Programs, Pedagogy, and Process: Institution-Wide Improvement of Undergraduate Education at The Colorado School of Mines

在科罗拉多矿业学院(CSM)，我们即将进入全面课程改进进程的第四个年头，以回应对工程教育中系统性问题的担忧。到目前为止，我们已经制定了一份使命宣言和一套我们希望学院所有毕业生都能达到的品质，包括技术深度和广度、沟通技能、国际意识、灵活性和道德。我们还研究了我们目前的课程和其他领先工程学校的课程，并为新课程制定了一个初步框架，其中我们强调课程、教学方法和过程。在接下来的几年里，我们计划在CSM现有的优秀课程的基础上，开发一个跨课程设计的课程计划，一系列的系统课程，以及增强和彻底整合的人文和社会科学部分。此外，我们将在我们悠久的教学历史和我们的教学有效性办公室的基础上，为这些新课程探索最佳的教学方法，并为教师在其中进行教学做好准备。最后，我们将在新课程中加入一项精细化的评估/持续改进计划。该计划将在我们已经成熟和公认的州强制投资组合评估计划的基础上发展起来。随着我们开发、试点和全面实施独特的本科工程课程，我们的有形产品将包括新教材、实验室实验、硬拷贝和多媒体课程材料。更重要的是，我们将培养为科学和工程职业做好更好准备的学生，以及为教授这些职业做好准备的教职员工。从长远来看，这个项目将帮助我们继续从一个专注于教学的机构转变为一个专注于学习的机构。我们的项目可以作为其他地方课程修改的产品和过程的基准。

At the Colorado School of Mines (CSM) we are about to enter the fourth year of a comprehensive curriculum improvement process undertaken in response to concerns about systemic problems in engineering education. To date we have developed a mission statement and a set of attributes which we wish all graduates of the School to achieve including technical depth and breadth, communication skills, international awareness, flexibility, and ethics. We have also studied our current curriculum and the curricula at other leading engineering schools and have developed a tentative framework for a new curriculum in which we emphasize programs, pedagogy, and process. In the next few years we plan to build on existing excellent programs at CSM to develop a design-across-the curriculum program, a sequence of Systems courses, and an enhanced and thoroughly integrated humanities and social sciences component. In addition, we will build on our long teaching history and our Office of Teaching Effectiveness to explore the best pedagogies for these new programs and to prepare faculty for teaching in them. Finally, we will incorporate a refined assessment/continuous improvement program into our new curriculum. This program will grow out of our already mature and well-recognized state-mandated portfolio assessment program. As we develop, pilot, and fully implement a unique undergraduate engineering curriculum, our tangible products will include new texts, laboratory experiments, and hard copy and multimedia course materials. More importantly, we will produce students who are better prepared for science and engineering careers and faculty who are better prepared to teach them. Over the long-term, this project will help continue our transformation from an institution focused on teaching to one focused on learning. Our project can serve as benchmark for both the products and the process of curricular revision elsewhere.