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”项目正在启动一项流程，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。从1903年的第一次飞行到1969年的人类登月，20世纪世纪的技术爆炸从根本上改变了我们生活的世界。工程师、科学家、数学家和技术专家一直是发展的核心。技术已经改变了典型的工程工作场所和实践;绘图板是司空见惯的，现在笔记本电脑增加了工程师的精度和工作量。用袖珍计算器进行的纸上计算已经让位于复杂的计算机模拟。今天工作的实践工程师几乎不需要十年前必不可少的许多事实和方法，现在拥有难以预料的技能和知识。不幸的是，如果以过去几十年来持续变化的数量来衡量，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比赛中。如果说教育跟随社会的变化是很自然的，那么这个项目就是非常及时的。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静止，尽管有一些微小的变化;最常见的工程课堂仍然是被动式的讲座。内容，虽然在许多方面现代化，仍然坚持历史悠久的传统科学和高度复杂的数学的先决条件材料。学生也变了。今天，传统的学生是如此习惯于技术，他们有根本不同的方式与世界和社会互动。学生们通过互联网找到的信息比在图书馆找到的信息多。他们比前几代人更能保持联系，即使相隔很远，或者在车里。技术的使用感觉自然和舒适，不像大多数工程教育者和从业者，他们有很多技术强加给他们和适应。由于这些完全不同的行为，很明显，未来的学生对什么是重要的和有意义的会有同样激进的看法。这个项目正在研究许多问题。删除一些历史悠久的内容有价值吗？这些领域是对今天的工程实践至关重要，还是对1980年的工程执行方式至关重要？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，或者即使在计算机解方程时，他们也能理解方程？有没有可能理解一个平方根，而不会把它计算到小数点后六位？或者，学生们是否可以在将繁琐的工作委托给技术的同时，掌握问题制定和解决的大局？未来的学生是否可能以与现有工程实践者截然不同的方式理解材料？如何利用这些不同的思维方式来创造理想的工程毕业生？如果工程教育文化培养了学生的优势，那么工程学能否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？该项目汇集了一批重要的工程教育专家，设计了一个大规模的变革努力，以解决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在研讨会之前收集和综合与会者的想法，确保面对面的会议时间得到优化。这一初步规划过程的结果被用于制定一个全面的计划，与来自工业、教育和政府的广泛利益相关者合作，在所有工程学科中实现变革。