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Chem. Engr. Education, 34(1), 16–25 (2000).

THE FUTURE OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION

I. A VISION FOR A NEW CENTURY

Armando Rugarcia,

Iberoamericana University–Puebla (Mexico)

Richard M. Felder,

North Carolina State University

Donald R. Woods,

McMaster University

James E. Stice,

University of Texas–Austin

INTRODUCTION

When we walk into an arbitrarily chosen engineering classroom in 2000, what do we see? Too

often the same thing we would have seen in 1970, or 1940. The professor stands at the front of the room,

copying a derivation from his notes onto the board and repeating aloud what he writes. The students sit

passively, copying from the board, reading, working on homework from another class, or daydreaming.

Once in a while the professor asks a question: the student in the front row who feels compelled to answer

almost every question may respond, and the others simply avoid eye contact with the professor until the

awkward moment passes. At the end of the class students are assigned several problems that require them

to do something similar to what the professor just did or simply to solve the derived formula for some

variable from given values of other variables. The next class is the same, and so is the next one, and the one

after that.

There are some differences from 30 years ago, of course. The homework assignments require the

use of calculators instead of slide rules, or possibly computers used as large calculators. The math is more

sophisticated and graphical solution methods are not as likely to come up. The board is green or white or

maybe an overhead projector is used. Nevertheless, little evidence of anything that has appeared in articles

and conferences on engineering education in the past half-century can be found in most of our classrooms

and textbooks.

In recent years, however, there have been signs of change.

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Engineering professors have

increasingly begun to read the education literature and to attend ASEE conferences and teaching workshops,

and some have attempted to adopt new approaches in their teaching. A number of factors are responsible

for this increased interest in effective teaching in engineering schools. Growing numbers of parents,

taxpayers and legislators have read graphic descriptions of the de-emphasis of undergraduate education at

major universities

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and have begun to raise embarrassing questions with university administrators.

Corporations and employers have frequently and publicly complained about the lack of professional

awareness and low levels of communication and teamwork skills in engineering graduates

3–6

and about the

failure of universities to use sound management principles in their operations.

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These rumblings have been heard by the U.S. Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology

(ABET), which now proposes to hold engineering schools accountable for the knowledge, skills and

professional values engineering students acquire (or fail to acquire) in the course of their education.

Starting in 2001, Engineering Criteria 2000 will be implemented as the standard for accreditation.

Thereafter, all U.S. engineering departments will have to demonstrate that besides having a firm grasp of

science, mathematics and engineering fundamentals, their graduates possess communication,

multidisciplinary teamwork, and lifelong learning skills and awareness of social and ethical considerations

associated with the engineering profession.

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These driving forces and personal convictions about the importance of education in the academic

mission have led increasing numbers of university administrators and professors to question the viability of

the way engineering has traditionally been taught. Many, however, are unsure of what the alternatives are to

the traditional methods, and even those who know about alternatives fear that transforming the way they

teach will require a full-time commitment that will leave them with insufficient time to pursue their

research.

Our goal in this paper and in the four that follow it is to offer some tools to engineering professors

who wish to become better teachers and to university administrators who wish to improve the quality of

teaching at their institutions. This paper attempts to define in some detail the challenges currently facing

engineering education. The second article will survey teaching methods that have repeatedly been shown to

improve learning; the third will elaborate on methods that help students develop critical skills; the fourth

will examine effective ways to prepare the professoriate to learn and implement the new methods; and the

fifth will propose methods of assessing and evaluating teaching effectiveness and possible modifications in

the university incentive and reward structure that will enable the desired changes to occur on a systemic

level.

THE TECHNOLOGICAL PERSONALITY OF THE 21

st

CENTURY

A system of education is closely woven into the fabric of the society within which it

operates. Before examining new ways to train engineers, we might do well to anticipate some

characteristics of the society within which the engineers we are training will function. We are writing

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