An Integrated Leadership and Innovation Curriculum for Undergraduate Mechanical Engineering

该项目正在实施一个独特的课程，以一种综合的、非侵入性的方式向机械工程本科生教授领导力和创新能力。这些技能对于国家在世界市场上保持竞争力至关重要。 该项目的研究部分正在帮助确定将这些技能融入工程课程而不牺牲技术内容的有效方法。 该项目团队是合格的和多样化的，包括工程学院与商学院一起工作与大学的卓越教学中心。这个协同团队正在提供工程和领导内容的知识与适当的教育教学法和评估方法，使项目取得成功。评估和评估活动包括定量和定性的方法，解决学生的学习和态度。 定性评估还包括对学生的焦点小组访谈。 研究人员打算探索的是，是否将领导力和创新材料整合到传统的技术工程课程中，以提供足够的深度来提高学生的技能。 这些成果还有助于教育界更好地了解如何以具有成本效益的方式教授这些重要技能，将其纳入现有课程。

This project is implementing a unique curriculum that teaches leadership and innovation in an integrated, non-obtrusive way to mechanical engineering undergraduate students. Such skills are critical for the nation to remain competitive in a world market. The project's research component is helping identify effective ways of integrating these skills into an engineering curriculum without sacrificing technical content. The project team is well qualified and diverse, consisting of engineering faculty working with business faculty together with the University's Center for Teaching Excellence. This synergistic team is providing the engineering and leadership content knowledge with proper educational pedagogy and evaluation methods to make the project successful.Assessment and evaluation activities consist of quantitative and qualitative approaches that address both student learning and attitudes. Qualitative assessment also includes focus group interviews of students. What researchers intend to explore is whether or not integrating leadership and innovation materials into a traditional technical engineering program provides sufficient depth to improve student skills. Results are also helping the education community better understand how to teach these important skills in a cost effective manner, by integrating them into existing curricula.