TY - JOUR
T1 - Catalyzing a research agenda for enhancing engineering education through institutional collaborations
AU - Buffinton, Keith W.
AU - Manno, Vincent P.
AU - Helble, Joseph J.
AU - Lord, Susan M.
AU - McKenna, Ann
AU - Ohland, Matthew W.
N1 - Funding Information:
Prof. Buffinton’s scholarly interests range across the areas of multibody dynamics, nonlinear control, mechanical design, systems thinking, entrepreneurship, engineering management education, and his primary research focus, the dynamics and control of robotic systems. He has been the recipient of external grants from a number of funding agencies including the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, the Ben Franklin Technology Center of Pennsylvania, and most recently the Kern Family Foundation. As Dean of Engineering, Prof. Buffinton particularly sought to enhance support for students from under-resourced backgrounds as well as to promote the creation of an Ecology of Entrepreneurship. Prof. Buffinton has been a past member of the Executive Board of the ASEE Engineering Deans Council and was formerly Co-Chair of the ASEE EDC Undergraduate Experience Committee.
Funding Information:
The authors gratefully acknowledge the efforts and engagement of the workshop participants. In addition, the authors thank the National Science Foundation (NSF) for support of this research (award EEC-1654206). The views expressed herein are solely those of the authors’.
Funding Information:
As a result of this workshop, the need became clear for the National Science Foundation to be willing to support the development and implementation of advances in engineering education rather just research into engineering education. There was also a fundamental challenge identified for pursuing support from NSF at schools for which institutional support, recognition, and time for grant related activities is limited. In fact, at some institutions at which NSF hopes to expand engagement in engineering education research, the potential negative impact of writing a funded proposal may be as high or higher than writing an unfunded proposal. In both cases, the investment of time and effort is significant, and in the case of the funded proposal, the bandwidth and support for achieving the goals of the proposal may be severely limited by competing institutional demands. Overall, institutions of higher learning, the NSF, and the engineering professional societies have not succeeded in creating the right culture, climate, and educational infrastructure for implementing change in engineering education based on the most effective approaches to engaging students. Traditional engineering education has focused on technical problem definition. We need to transform engineering education so that it focuses on defining problems differently and expands the base of engineering education and the students who are attracted to it.
Publisher Copyright:
© American Society for Engineering Education, 2017.
PY - 2017/6/24
Y1 - 2017/6/24
N2 - To augment the extensive engineering education research that has been done over the past decades, greater opportunities are needed for institutional leaders and education practitioners to directly share the pedagogical practices that have worked best (and perhaps not so well) at their institutions as well as to explicitly consider bi-directional scalability and adaptability between institutions. The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded workshop described here brought together a small group of thought leaders from various institutions to share their ideas and experiences and to develop a research agenda for creating productive collaborations among a wide range of institutions of different types, characteristics, and missions. The workshop sought to develop a framework for how diverse institutions can effectively impact engineering education in addressing questions such as: How to scale, adapt, and transfer best practices? What are the roles of differing types of institutions in engineering education research and innovation? How can engineering education research at all institutions be enhanced? Preliminary results presented in this paper include quantitative measures of the characteristics of the participating institutions, the results of a pre-workshop survey completed by each institution about educational constraints and opportunities, and highlights of the workshop itself. The workshop brought to light the significant changes that have already occurred in engineering education in recent years, the need to focus on cultural change rather than content change, and the recognition that institutions of higher learning, the NSF, and engineering professional societies have not yet succeeded in creating the right culture, climate, and educational infrastructure for fully implementing change in engineering education based on the most effective approaches to engaging students. Based on the outcomes of the workshop, engineering education must clearly change in ways that allow it to focus on defining problems differently and to facilitate a shift in both the mindsets of faculty and the mindsets they cultivate in students.
AB - To augment the extensive engineering education research that has been done over the past decades, greater opportunities are needed for institutional leaders and education practitioners to directly share the pedagogical practices that have worked best (and perhaps not so well) at their institutions as well as to explicitly consider bi-directional scalability and adaptability between institutions. The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded workshop described here brought together a small group of thought leaders from various institutions to share their ideas and experiences and to develop a research agenda for creating productive collaborations among a wide range of institutions of different types, characteristics, and missions. The workshop sought to develop a framework for how diverse institutions can effectively impact engineering education in addressing questions such as: How to scale, adapt, and transfer best practices? What are the roles of differing types of institutions in engineering education research and innovation? How can engineering education research at all institutions be enhanced? Preliminary results presented in this paper include quantitative measures of the characteristics of the participating institutions, the results of a pre-workshop survey completed by each institution about educational constraints and opportunities, and highlights of the workshop itself. The workshop brought to light the significant changes that have already occurred in engineering education in recent years, the need to focus on cultural change rather than content change, and the recognition that institutions of higher learning, the NSF, and engineering professional societies have not yet succeeded in creating the right culture, climate, and educational infrastructure for fully implementing change in engineering education based on the most effective approaches to engaging students. Based on the outcomes of the workshop, engineering education must clearly change in ways that allow it to focus on defining problems differently and to facilitate a shift in both the mindsets of faculty and the mindsets they cultivate in students.
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M3 - Conference article
AN - SCOPUS:85030570773
SN - 2153-5965
VL - 2017-June
JO - ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings
JF - ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings
T2 - 124th ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition
Y2 - 25 June 2017 through 28 June 2017
ER -