Transforming Undergraduate Education in Engineering-- Phase 1: Mobilizing the Community for Change

工程本科教育转型——第一阶段：动员社区推动变革

• 批准号: 1256350
• 负责人: Norman Fortenberry
• 金额: $ 19.86万
• 依托单位: American Society For Engineering Education
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-10-01 至 2015-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1256350&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Transforming; Undergraduate; Education; Engineering; Phase

The "Transforming Undergraduate Education in Engineering-- Phase 1: Mobilizing the Community for Change" project run by the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) is initiating a process to identify the critical components of engineering curricula, pedagogy, and educational culture to support the education of engineers over the next several decades. The explosion of technology over the 20th century, epitomized by advancing from the first flight in 1903, to landing a man on the moon in 1969 has radically changed the world we live in. Engineers, scientists, mathematicians and technologists have been central to the development. Technology has transformed the typical engineering workplace and practice; where drafting boards were commonplace, now laptop computers have increased the precision and work volume of engineers. Pencil and paper calculation performed with a pocket calculator has given way to sophisticated computer simulations. Practicing engineers working today have little need for many of the facts and methodologies that were essential just a decade ago and now have skills and knowledge that was difficult to anticipate. Unfortunately engineering education, if measured by the amount of sustained change over the past several decades, has not kept pace. In fact, some would say engineering education is not even in the race. If it is natural for education to follow a changing society then this project is perfectly timely. If education should lead society, then this project is even more critical. Content, pedagogy, and university culture has remained relatively static for 50 years and although there have been minor changes; the most common engineering classroom is still passive lecture. Content, although modernized in many ways, still clings to the time honored traditional prerequisite materials of science and highly sophisticated mathematics. Students have also changed. Today traditional students are so accustomed to technology that they have radically different ways to interact with the world and society. Students find more information via the Internet than the library. They stay in touch with each other more than previous generations even when distantly separated, or in the car. Use of technology feels natural and comfortable, unlike most engineering educators and practitioners who have had much of the technology thrust upon them and adapted. Because of these radically different behaviors, it seems obvious to expect that future students will have an equally radical view of what is important and makes sense. This project is studying many questions. Is there value in dropping some time honored content? Are such areas all critically important to engineering practice today or were they critically important to the way engineering was performed in 1980? Is it critical for students to solve equations by hand with pencil, paper and a calculator or can they understand them even when a computer solves the equations? Is it possible to understand a square root without being able to compute it to six decimal points? Or can students grasp the big picture of problem formulation and solution while delegating the tedious work to technology? Are future students likely to understand material in radically different ways from existing engineering practitioners? How can these different ways of thinking be harnessed to create the ideal engineering graduate? If the engineering education culture feeds the strengths of students, can engineering be transformed into an exciting program of study that will draw students in rather than requiring massive recruitment and retention programs?This project is bringing together a key group of engineering education experts in designing a large-scale change effort to address important questions on the future of engineering education in the United States. American Society for Engineering Education staff are collecting and synthesizing ideas from the attendees in advance of the workshop, ensuring that face-to-face meeting time is optimized. The results of this initial planning process are being used to develop a full-scale plan for effecting change across all engineering disciplines in cooperation with a wide range of stakeholders from industry, education and government.

由美国工程教育协会 (ASEE) 运营的“工程本科教育转型——第一阶段：动员社区变革”项目正在启动一个过程，以确定工程课程、教学法和教育文化的关键组成部分，以支持未来几十年的工程师教育。 20 世纪技术的爆炸性发展，从 1903 年的首次飞行到 1969 年人类登陆月球，从根本上改变了我们生活的世界。工程师、科学家、数学家和技术人员一直是发展的核心。技术改变了典型的工程工作场所和实践；以前绘图板很常见，现在笔记本电脑提高了工程师的精度和工作量。用袖珍计算器进行的铅笔和纸计算已经让位于复杂的计算机模拟。今天的执业工程师几乎不需要十年前必不可少的许多事实和方法，而现在却拥有难以预测的技能和知识。不幸的是，如果以过去几十年持续变化的程度来衡量，工程教育并没有跟上步伐。事实上，有些人会说工程教育甚至不在竞争中。如果教育自然会跟随不断变化的社会，那么这个项目就非常及时了。如果教育要引领社会，那么这个项目就更关键了。 50 年来，内容、教学法和大学文化一直保持相对稳定，尽管发生了微小的变化；最常见的工程课堂仍然是被动讲授。内容虽然在很多方面都实现了现代化，但仍然坚持历史悠久的传统科学必备材料和高度复杂的数学。学生也发生了变化。如今，传统学生已经习惯了技术，以至于他们与世界和社会互动的方式截然不同。学生通过互联网找到的信息比图书馆更多。即使相隔很远或在车里，他们也比前几代人保持更多的联系。与大多数工程教育者和实践者不同，技术的使用感觉自然而舒适，他们接受了很多技术并进行了适应。由于这些截然不同的行为，很明显，未来的学生对重要和有意义的事情会有同样激进的看法。这个项目正在研究许多问题。放弃一些历史悠久的内容是否有价值？这些领域对当今的工程实践都至关重要，还是对 1980 年的工程实施方式至关重要？对于学生来说，用铅笔、纸和计算器手工解方程是否至关重要，或者即使计算机解方程，他们也能理解吗？是否可以在无法计算到小数点后六位的情况下理解平方根？或者，学生能否掌握问题提出和解决的全局，同时将繁琐的工作委托给技术？未来的学生是否可能以与现有工程从业者完全不同的方式理解材料？如何利用这些不同的思维方式来培养理想的工程毕业生？如果工程教育文化能够培养学生的优势，工程是否可以转变为一个令人兴奋的学习项目，吸引学生，而不是需要大规模的招聘和保留计划？该项目正在汇集一组关键的工程教育专家，设计一项大规模的变革工作，以解决有关美国工程教育未来的重要问题。美国工程教育协会的工作人员正在研讨会之前收集和综合与会者的想法，以确保优化面对面的会议时间。初步规划过程的结果被用来制定全面计划，与来自工业、教育和政府的广泛利益相关者合作，实现所有工程学科的变革。