Innovative Approaches to Engineering Education

Alan Finkel, President, Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering,

CAETS 2013 Budapest – June 27, 2013

Summary
Innovation in engineering education ensures that degree programs attract students and
transform them into graduates who are well prepared for future engineering practice that
exploits new science and technology, and is responsive to changing socio-economic and
environmental contexts. Drawing on examples from Australia and elsewhere, the paper
outlines the rationale and implementation of several recent innovations in engineering
education, and anticipates future directions.
During the past twenty years, university education has become more globalised, and has
changed from being teacher-centered to learner-centered. Industry is ever more demanding
of graduates’ employability and value. In consequence, current degree programs more
explicitly address the learning outcomes their graduates should attain. Typically, these cover
discipline and contextual knowledge, practice knowledge and skills, and personal and
professional attributes. Engineering, as a discipline, has led the development of graduate
attribute specifications and adopted the educational principle of constructive alignment (of
target outcomes, pedagogy and assessment) in curriculum unit design. Engineering
operates international movements for accreditation and curriculum reform.
In-curriculum innovation includes increasing use of problem and project-based learning,
group learning (and assessment) and threshold-concept learning, supported by engineering
education research and staff development. Having good quality work integrated learning
modules within engineering degrees enhances the authenticity of the curriculum with respect
to industry practice. Innovative remote laboratories and other internet-delivered course
material are encouraging more educators to share best practice, and ‘flip’ their classrooms to
improve students’ active learning. We envisage that MOOCs (massive open on-line courses)
will progressively be adopted in engineering degrees, and will encourage more students into
engineering.
Many reports on engineering have identified the diversity of professional pathways. An
innovative educational response has been to encourage students’ self-identity development,
often through the notion of being a ‘student engineer’ rather than an ‘engineering student’.
Some institutions have introduced ‘engineering leadership’ for selected students, and there is
perceived value in introducing business and entrepreneurial skills training. The need for
such innovations partly reflects the fact that in many industrial countries engineering is not
the first choice study area for many of the most able school leavers, and that engineering is
largely invisible in the school curriculum. We conclude the paper by mentioning one
innovative outreach program that takes engineering concepts and examples into secondary
schools, enriching their students’ educational experience and encouraging more to choose
engineering as a future study pathway and career.

Abstract
Innovation is about doing useful things differently: converting novel ideas and methods into
solutions that meet new needs, or adding significant value to established products and
services. In engineering education, new technological and practice requirements necessitate
curriculum innovation, while innovation in educational practice can improve students’ learning
and faculty productivity. Most education innovation takes place within prescribed degree
structures. This paper addresses the formative stage of professional engineering education:
usually the bachelor degree of four or five years duration that is accredited by an external
authority that represents the practicing profession.
The engineering profession in many countries has been constructively critical of its formative
education, as the demands placed on the profession have increased and diversified. The
most persistent general problem identified in the past two decades is that of authenticity: how
can the university environment and curriculum focused on discipline-based engineering
science and individual attainment adequately prepare graduates for engineering practice that
is largely project and team based, and is often multi-disciplinary. This ‘practice gap’ has
been exacerbated by most academics’ research focus on engineering science, and their lack
of engineering practice experience outside research. Related concerns have been a
reduction of emphasis on engineering design, thus undermining graduates’ preparation for a
core engineering activity. Some reports have argued for broader and longer degree
programs to address the tensions between generalization and specialization, and new and
innovative programs have been created, including in Australia. The enduring challenge for
most engineering education systems and providers is to resist packing more material into
degree programs, and concentrate on delivering the range of attainable graduate outcomes.
Sheppard and colleagues’ recent publication [1] on how US engineering education needs to
be transformed, and Graham’s international study [2] on achieving change, have wide
relevance.
In fact, engineering has been a leading university discipline in developing graduate attribute
specifications, for both program accreditation and curriculum design. Typically, these are
engineering-generic and cover knowledge, skills and personal attributes required to enter
practice. National program accreditation assures stakeholders (employers, students,
governments) of adequate graduate standards. Two international associations, with
overlapping membership, have each agreed exemplar specifications of graduate attributes
for benchmarking and mutual recognition of the graduates’ qualifications that, in turn, support
student and graduate mobility. Operating as the International Engineering Alliance (IEA), the
Washington, Sydney and Dublin Accords have agreed specifications [3] for qualifications to
enter the occupations of professional engineers, engineering technologist and engineering
technicians, respectively. The Washington Accord has grown from six country signatories in
1989 to fifteen in 2012, with several further provisional and prospective members. In Europe,
and consistent with the Bologna education process, the European Network for Accreditation
of Engineering Education (ENAEE) authorizes national accreditation agencies to award the
EUR-ACE label to first cycle (bachelor) and second cycle (master) degrees that meet the
required specifications [4]. ENAEE currently has nine authorized country members, four of
which are also signatories of the Washington Accord. Ongoing communication between the
executives of IEA and ENAEE are facilitating harmonization and mutual understanding of
their respective standards. .
A related international and innovative approach to the formulation and implementation of
engineering curricula has been the CDIO (conceive-design-implement-operate) movement
initiated by Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Sweden’s Chalmers University and
the Royal Institute of Technology. Realizing that their curricula over emphasized engineering
science at the expense of preparing graduates for engineering practice, the architects of
CDIO used the stages of the engineering process for curriculum specification and
implementation, with increased attention to engineering design and practice. CDIO defines a
generic engineering syllabus [5], and a set of standards for its implementation, that are
broadly compatible with national and international accreditation standards. Now with 90
universities and affiliate members in all continents, CDIO provides a valuable open standard
for contemporary global engineering education.
Accreditation and CDIO standards support, but do not guarantee, sound curriculum design
and good student learning. The ‘traditional’ situation of university educators having little
knowledge of educational principles, and ‘teaching as they were taught’, is becoming
outmoded. Perhaps it is remarkable that it is considered innovative to require new (and
experienced) educators to learn about and use best-practice educational techniques, as
several universities now do. In Australia, specifically, the wider understanding of constructive
alignment [6] has been instrumental in improving curriculum design and assessment at
program and unit levels. Full professors of engineering education have been appointed and
some countries, including Australia, have funding schemes to support innovation and quality
improvement in university education. Engineering education research and publication is
acquiring legitimacy through delivering improvements to education practice.
Three specific areas of curriculum innovation are currently transforming engineering
education, and address aspects of the authenticity problem: problem-and project-based
learning (PBL); group work, including self and peer assessment; and work integrated
learning. While problems and capstone design and/or research projects have been used in
engineering degrees for a long time, the innovation in PBL has been its systematic adoption
at all program levels. For engineering, PBL in this form was pioneered at Aalborg University,
and has been taken up elsewhere as a model for change [7]. Even in otherwise largely
traditionally structured curricula, most Australian universities are using PBL in the first-year of
their engineering programs to introduce students to engineering thinking, project work and
teamwork and societal issues through the Engineers Without Borders Challenge (EWB) [8].
This has student groups address a development issue for a disadvantaged community in
Australia or the region, with the EWB organization itself providing extensive resource
materials. EWB, and the more technically intensive project framework of Formula SAE [9],
are good examples of sharing good quality material and having student competition drive
educational improvement, and emulate many aspects of professional engineering practice
Whilst students invariably enjoy such group projects, assessment of their collective and
individual learning has been a challenging problem for faculty. However, research projects
on group formation and self-and peer-assessment have led to sound guidance and
supportive tools that, most critically, can increase students’ self knowledge and capacity to
reflect on their learning [10]. The value of work integrated learning in its many forms, such
as internships, industry-derived projects and site visits, traditionally part of many engineering
programs, is also being revisited. This is not without operational difficulties, as modern
workplaces are less able to accommodate increasingly large cohorts of students. However,
innovative technology, such as the immersive learning environment developed by Cameron
and colleagues [11] is effectively bringing engineering plant and decision-making into the
classroom, allowing students to understand the complexity of full-scale engineering design.
A rich combination of project work and exposure to engineering practice throughout the
curriculum provide excellent vehicles for students to develop their thinking and identity as
‘student engineers’ or ‘engineers in training’ [12]. Some universities, and accreditation
systems, are encouraging students to keep a reflective journal in which they can chart their
personal development against target graduate attributes.
Worldwide, engineering degrees are perceived to be difficult, requiring many abstract
concepts to be mastered before gaining confidence in their fluent application. Academics are
usually individuals who had less difficulty with theoretical understanding than their peers, so
‘teaching as they were taught’ misses the needs of many students. New evidence based
theories in education, including ‘threshold concept learning [13] are being adopted to improve
learning. One key aspect of this theory is to present alternative approaches, and include
relevant laboratory work, and software modeling simulation. Academics are being
encouraged to provide students with guides to the ever-increasing internet-accessible range
of relevant material, rather than create their own. Laboratory experiments remain important
to demonstrate theoretical concepts and high quality internet-accessible laboratory
experiments [14] are now available that allow students to do the required experiment when
they want to, rather than on schedules that are often constrained by the equipment. There is
evidence, too, that using well-designed MOOCs (massive open on-line course) material in
campus-based course units can enrich individual students’ learning, since they can pace
themselves through the material and gain feedback through formative quizzes. These new
educational approaches and tools are transforming and professionalizing the teaching
dimension of the engineering academic role.
Innovation and intervention is needed to reach prospective engineering students while they
are at school. Australia, USA, UK and other countries have shortages of engineers, and
inadequate supply of school leavers motivated and qualified to study engineering. While
school education rightly concentrates on mathematics and science as the pre-requisite
subjects for engineering study, there are enormous opportunities for school science and
mathematics to be enriched with examples from engineering. This happens through
outreach programs that engage school students and support their teachers, initiated by
engineering faculties and other organizations. One such example is the STELR (Science
and Technology Education Leveraging Relevance) program [15] run by the Australian
Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. This is a hands-on, inquiry-based, in-
curriculum program designed for Year 9 or Year 10 students, on the theme of global warming
and renewable energy. The program provides resources and teacher support for directed
and student-designed practical investigations.
In conclusion, we believe that globally, engineering education and educators recognize the
need for innovation. The educational and professional challenges faced are largely common
between nations, and there are many national and international organizations and
collaborations engaged on their solution. We have highlighted themes and examples of
recent innovations, and we urge the global educational community to continue to share and
adopt best practice as rapidly as their resources and systems permit.

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