Contextualized, Social, Self-paced Engineering Education for Life-long Learners

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This planning grant is to redesign the Electrical and Systems Engineering (ESE) instructional programs at the University of Pennsylvania. Conceived as a "tree of learning," the new program unifies the diverse degree pathways through a common, stable, narrow "trunk" of newly conceived, required courses in the freshman and sophomore years - the focus of proposed effort. "Branching" out into specialties inherited from the various legacy programs in junior and senior years (and beyond), the new curriculum adds continuing attention to the "roots" in the form of a service-based learning component incorporated into key required courses throughout the four years. The dual concerns of this re-invention are to articulate the new intellectual foundations of a 21st Century undergraduate ESE degree and, simultaneously, to coordinate throughout the entire program the careful attention to human resource development (recruitment at the "roots" and retention through the "trunk" of the tree) now widely acknowledged as vital to the national interest.The new ESE program aims to produce students who develop beyond technical mastery to become innovators, adept enough to lead the global market of ideas and products and adaptable to changing technology throughout their careers because of their comfort with self-directed learning. Adopting a research platform - the RHex robot - as the unifying lab focus in the early "trunk" semesters of the major will increase the rate of undergraduate participation in original research. The diversity of learning styles supported by such project-based, contextualized courses promises an increased retention rate, particularly among women and underrepresented minorities. Group work (project proposals, progress presentations, and so on) addresses the widely perceived need to bolster communication and writing skills in engineering training.