Conference: Caring for the Future: Empathy in Engineering Education

在当今快节奏的世界里，工程师扮演着至关重要的角色，不仅仅是解决技术问题。为了建设一个可持续发展的互联世界，工程师们需要的不仅仅是技术技能——他们还需要同理心。同理心帮助他们理解不同的观点，与他人合作得很好，并解决影响我们所有人的重大挑战。由于这些原因，通过这个项目，来自不同学科的教育工作者和研究人员将在为期三天的论坛上聚集在一起，讨论如何将同理心纳入工程教育课程。主要目标是培养具有同情心和社会意识的新一代专业人士，使他们能够在多元文化环境中茁壮成长，并作为尽责的全球公民做出贡献。通过培养拥抱合作、重视不同观点、以道德和同理心视角处理问题的工程师，本次会议将解决工程教育中的一个关键缺口。通过关注同理心，工程教育工作者传授的不仅仅是技术技能；他们在教未来的工程师如何成为世界的好公民。这一举措与美国国家科学基金会工程教育中心促进创新和社会影响的总体目标相一致。通过将同理心纳入工程教育的议程，我们不仅仅是在为学生的职业生涯做准备——我们还在帮助建立一个人们更好地理解彼此、更有效地合作、做出有利于每个人的决定的世界。为了应对不断变化的全球格局，工程师越来越需要拥有超越技术熟练程度的技能。本论坛将提倡将同理心融入工程教育，以建立一个可持续和有凝聚力的全球社区。为期三天的会议将召集不同学科的高等教育研究人员和教育工作者，讨论和设计在工程课程中嵌入同理心的方法。总体目标是培养一批具有同情心和社会意识的年轻工程师，他们能够驾驭多学科、多元文化的环境，并承担起尽职尽责的全球公民的角色。通过促进来自不同领域的教育工作者、研究人员和实践者之间的合作，该计划旨在促进向移情驱动的工程教育的范式转变，最终目标是培养不仅精通而且具有移情能力的工程师。会议的成果具有重要的智力价值，因为它努力弥合工程教育的关键差距。通过将移情融入工程课程，它预示着未来工程师准备的范式转变。这一倡议通过三个关键途径为学术领域做出贡献：促进对移情在工程教育中的作用的理解，促进创新课程开发，促进跨学科合作。此外，这次会议的广泛影响在学术界、工业界和社会中引起反响。它重新定义了教学规范，提高了工程教育的质量和相关性，促进了工业的创新和可持续发展，并通过培养富有同情心、负责任的工程师，培育了一个更加和谐和包容的全球社会。在整个会议过程中，将通过调查、反馈机制和参与者互动积极收集数据，以获得对会议讨论、研讨会和合作努力的有效性的有价值的见解。这些数据将作为生成一份综合报告的基础，该报告将在美国国家科学基金会和更广泛的从业者群体中传播。预期成果在以下领域：研究和课程议程；资源共享;网络和协作；研究结果的知识传播，使更多的教育工作者、研究人员和工程教育的实践者受益。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

In today's fast-paced world, engineers play a crucial role that goes beyond just fixing technical issues. To build a sustainable and connected world, engineers need more than just technical skills – they need empathy. Empathy helps them understand different viewpoints, work well with others, and tackle big challenges that affect us all. For these reasons, through this project educators and researchers from different disciplines will come together in a three-day forum to talk about how to include empathy in the engineering education curricula. The primary objective is to cultivate a new generation of empathetic and socially conscious professionals capable of thriving in diverse, multicultural settings and contributing as conscientious global citizens. By nurturing engineers who embrace collaboration, value diverse viewpoints, and approach issues with ethical and empathetic lenses, this conference will address a critical gap in engineering education. By focusing on empathy, engineering educators are not only teaching technical skills; they are teaching future engineers how to be good citizens of the world. This initiative aligns with the National Science Foundation Engineering Education Centers’ overarching goal of fostering innovation and societal impact. By setting up an agenda of how to include empathy in engineering education, we are not just preparing students for their careers – we are helping to build a world where people understand each other better, work together more effectively, and make decisions that benefit everyone. In response to the evolving global landscape, engineers are increasingly required to possess skills beyond technical proficiency. This forum will advocate for the integration of empathy into engineering education to foster a sustainable and cohesive global community. The three-day conference will convene higher education researchers and educators across diverse disciplines to deliberate and devise methodologies for embedding empathy within the engineering curriculum. The overarching objective is to cultivate a cadre of empathetic and socially conscious young engineers capable of navigating multidisciplinary, multicultural environments and assuming roles as conscientious global citizens. By fostering collaboration among educators, researchers, and practitioners from diverse domains, this initiative seeks to catalyze a paradigm shift towards empathy-driven engineering education, with the ultimate objective of producing engineers who are not only proficient but also empathetic.The outcomes of the conference hold significant intellectual merit as it endeavors to bridge a critical gap in engineering education. By integrating empathy into the engineering curriculum, it heralds a paradigmatic transformation in the preparation of future engineers. This initiative contributes to the academic realm through three key avenues: advancing comprehension of empathy's role in engineering education, fostering innovative curriculum development, and promoting interdisciplinary collaboration. Moreover, the broader impacts of this conference reverberate across academia, industry, and society. It redefines pedagogical norms, enhances engineering education quality and relevance, promotes innovation and sustainability in industry, and nurtures a more harmonious and inclusive global society through the cultivation of compassionate, responsible engineers.Throughout the conference proceedings, data will be actively collected through surveys, feedback mechanisms, and participant interactions to gain valuable insights into the efficacy of the conference discussions, workshops, and collaborative endeavors. This data will serve as a foundation for generating a comprehensive report, which will be disseminated among NSF and the wider community of practitioners. Anticipated outcomes are in the following areas: research and curriculum agenda; resource sharing; networking and collaboration; knowledge dissemination of the findings to benefit a wider audience of educators, researchers, and practitioners in engineering education.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.