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.
Keith W. Buffinton is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and former Dean of the College of Engineering at Bucknell University. He received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Tufts and his M.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford. Following his graduate studies, he worked as a post-doctoral researcher in the Institute for Mechanics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland. From 2001 through 2004 he served as co-director of Bucknell's Institute for Leadership in Technology and Management and from 2003 through 2007 as Associate Dean of the College of Engineering. In 2003 he received Bucknell’s Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching.
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.
VINCENT P. MANNO is Provost Emeritus and Professor of Engineering Emeritus at
the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering. He received a BS from Columbia
University and MS and Sc.D. from M.I.T. His field of expertise is thermal-fluid
dynamics with appl
Joseph J. Helble is Professor of Engineering, and Dean of the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College, a position he has held since 2005. Prior to Dartmouth, Dr. Helble was the AAAS Revelle Fellow, spending a year on staff in the U.S. Senate wit
Susan Lord is Professor and Chair of Integrated Engineering at the University of San Diego. She received a BS from Cornell University in Materials Science and Electrical Engineering (EE) and MS and PhD in EE from Stanford University. Her research focuses on the study and promotion of equity in engineering including student pathways and inclusive teaching. She has won best paper awards from the Journal of Engineering Education, IEEE Transactions on Education, and Education Sciences. Dr. Lord is a Fellow of the IEEE and ASEE and received the 2018 IEEE Undergraduate Teaching Award. She is a coauthor of The Borderlands of Education: Latinas in Engineering. She is a co-Director of the National Effective Teaching Institute (NETI).
Ann F. McKenna is a Professor in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering and Director of The Polytechnic School at Arizona State University. Prior to joining ASU she served as a program director at the National Science Foundation in the Division of Undergraduate Education, and was on the faculty in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Segal Design Institute at Northwestern University. Dr. McKenna received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Drexel University and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4052-1452
Purdue University, West Lafayette (College of Engineering)
[biography]
Matthew W. Ohland is Professor of Engineering Education at Purdue University. He has degrees from Swarthmore College, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the University of Florida. His research includes the longitudinal study of engineering students, team assignment, peer evaluation, and active and collaborative teaching methods and his team received Best Paper awards from the Journal of Engineering Education in 2008 and 2011 and from the IEEE Transactions on Education in 2011 and 2015. Dr. Ohland is an ABET Program Evaluator for ASEE and was the 2002–2006 President of Tau Beta Pi. He is a Fellow of the ASEE and IEEE.
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