Search

Higher education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines has been in a turbulent period for several decades. Pressures for reform include declining STEM student enrollments, high attrition rates from STEM curricula, and the rise of powerful alternative teaching strategies shown by cognitive science and educational research to promote learning and curricular retention better than traditional teaching methods do. In addition, research has shown that online and face‐to‐face courses on average produce comparable learning outcomes, and hybrid courses that combine the best features of both are more effective than either face‐to‐face or online courses by themselves. Motivated by these and other pressures, many faculty members have adopted the new teaching methods, and distance education had become widespread well before the 2020 coronavirus pandemic forced most educators at all levels to teach online. As might be expected, however, many faculty members and administrators have resisted change, arguing that the traditional approach has always worked well and needs no major revision. Before the pandemic, most STEM courses were still being taught using the traditional methods, and many course instructors are eager to return to them. These different responses to calls for education reform have led to heated debates among university instructors and administrators regarding how STEM curricula and courses should be designed, delivered, and assessed, and the role technology should play in all three functions. This essay outlines two competing paradigms on each of these issues—the traditional paradigm, which has long dominated STEM education, and the emerging paradigm, which has become increasingly common in the last 30 years but is still not predominant at most universities and colleges. The essay concludes with speculation about the eventual outcome of the competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on the concerns over the rigorous research movement on engineering education. He argues that theoreticians haves used a hierarchical model to sort inquiry about teaching and learning into different level. He claims that claims that applied research will not lead to impactful educational reform, instead it will take more fundamental scholarship. He suggests having a firm foundation in research and experience.

BACKGROUND Economic globalization, rapid advances in technology and cognitive science, and a worldwide movement toward outcomes-based program accreditation increasingly require changes in the traditional model of engineering education design and delivery. As yet, no validated framework exists for designing instructional development programs that would equip engineering educators to make those changes. Existing programs consequently vary considerably in scope and effectiveness across countries and institutions. PURPOSE This article reviews the content and structures of instructional development programs around the world and to formulate a robust framework for designing and delivering effective programs for engineering educators. SCOPE/METHOD Literature on the design, implementation, and evaluation of instructional development programs is reviewed and summarized. Five criteria drawn from Raymond Wlodkowski's theory of adult learner motivation (expertise of instructors, relevance of content, choice in application, praxis [action plus reflection], and groupwork) are proposed as a framework for designing engineering instructional development programs, and the framework is applied to formulate recommendations for making programs effective. Research questions that should be explored to validate the framework are suggested. CONCLUSION Wlodkowski's five-factor theory of adult learner motivation provides a good framework for the design of engineering instructional development programs. The criteria are compatible with the cognitive science-based How People Learn instructional model and also with recommendations of faculty development authorities. Making engineering instructional development effective at an institution will require applying the criteria to program design and delivery and creating an institutional expectation of faculty participation in the programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND The National Effective Teaching Institute (NETI) is a three-day teaching workshop that has been given annually since 1991 in conjunction with the Annual ASEE Conference. Its goals are to improve the participants' teaching effectiveness, promote their engagement in scholarly teaching and educational scholarship, and motivate them to engage in instructional development on their campuses. To evaluate the impact of the NETI on its participants, a Web-based survey was administered to alumni of NETI offerings from 1993 to 2006. PURPOSE (HYPOTHESIS) The study was designed to test the hypothesis that the NETI met its stated goals, and to the extent that it did, to identify factors in the workshop's structure and delivery that might have contributed to its success. DESIGN/METHOD An online survey collected information regarding the participants' awareness and use of selected teaching strategies, their students' and their own ratings of their teaching, and their engagement in scholarly teaching, educational research, and giving their own teaching workshops and seminars. The validity of the survey structure is supplied by several published studies that compared sell-assessments of teaching with internal evaluations by trained observers. RESULTS The NETI has motivated many of its participants to adopt or increase their use of proven teaching strategies known to correlate with improved student learning; made them more student-centered, scholarly, and reflective in their teaching practice; and induced many of them to engage in instructional development and educational scholarship. CONCLUSIONS The NETI has satisfactorily met its goals. When integrated in the light of a theory of adult motivation, the results support the effectiveness of discipline specific faculty development for engineering educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I Academicians have been arguing for decades about whether or not faculty research supports undergraduate instruction. Those who say it does—a group that includes most administrators and faculty members—cite many ways in which research can enrich teaching, while those on the other side cite numerous studies that have consistently failed to show a measurable linkage between the two activities. This article proposes that the two sides are debating different propositions: whether research can support teaching in principle and whether it has been shown to do so in practice. The article reviews the literature on the current state of the research- teaching nexus and then examines three specific strategies for integrating teaching and scholarship: bringing research into the classroom, involving undergraduates in research projects, and broadening the definition of scholarship beyond frontier disciplinary research. Finally, ways are suggested to better realize the potential synergies between faculty research and undergraduate education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study was conducted on the Felder-Soloman Index of Learning Styles© (ILS) to assess reliability, factor structure, and construct validity as well to determine whether changing its dichotomous response scale to a five-option response scale would improve reliability and validity. Data collected in this study had internal consistency reliability ranging from 0.55 to 0.77 across the four learning style scales of the ILS. Factor analysis revealed that multiple factors were present within three of the learning style scales, which correspond to known aspects of the scale definitions. The factor analysis and direct feedback from students on whether they felt their scores accurately represented their learning preferences provide evidence of construct validity for the ILS. Changing the response scale improved reliability, but it did not change the factor structure substantially nor did it affect the strength of the evidence for construct validity based on student feedback. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional engineering instruction is deductive, beginning with theories and progressing to the applications of those theories. Alternative teaching approaches are more inductive. Topics are introduced by presenting specific observations, case studies or problems, and theories are taught or the students are helped to discover them only after the need to know them has been established. This study reviews several of the most commonly used inductive teaching methods, including inquiry learning, problem-based learning, project-based learning, case-based teaching, discovery learning, and just-in-time teaching. The paper defines each method, highlights commonalities and specific differences, and reviews research on the effectiveness of the methods. While the strength of the evidence varies from one method to another, inductive methods are consistently found to be at least equal to, and in general more effective than, traditional deductive methods for achieving a broad range of learning outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students have different levels of motivation, different attitudes about teaching and learning, and different responses to specific classroom environments and instructional practices. The more thoroughly instructors understand the differences, the better chance they have of meeting the diverse learning needs of all of their students. Three categories of diversity that have been shown to have important implications for teaching and learning are differences in students' learning styles (characteristic ways of taking in and processing information), approaches to learning (surface, deep, and strategic), and intellectual development levels (attitudes about the nature of knowledge and how it should be acquired and evaluated). This article reviews models that have been developed for each of these categories, outlines their pedagogical implications, and suggests areas for further study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explains the mission statement of the periodical "Journal of Engineering Education,". Discussion of the importance of the journal's research angle in engineering education; Evolution of the special issue; Presentation of a challenge for readers.

As college students experience the challenges of their classes and extracurricular activities, most undergo a developmental progression in which they gradually relinquish their belief in the certainty of knowledge and the omniscience of authorities and take increasing responsibility for their own learning. At a high developmental level (which few reach before graduation), they recognize that all knowledge is contextual, gather and interpret evidence to support their judgments from a wide range of sources, and willingly reconsider those judgments in the light of new evidence. This paper reviews several models of intellectual development, discusses their applicability to science and engineering education, and defines the difficulties that confront instructors seeking to promote the development of their students. A companion paper formulates an instructional model for promoting development that addresses those difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As college students experience the challenges of their classes and extracurricular activities, they undergo a developmental progression in which they gradually relinquish their belief in the certainty of knowledge and the omniscience of authorities and take increasing responsibility for their own learning. At the highest developmental level normally seen in college students (which few attain before graduation), they display attitudes and thinking patterns resembling those of expert scientists and engineers, including habitually and skillfully gathering and analyzing evidence to support their judgments. This paper proposes an instructional model designed to provide a suitable balance of challenge and support to advance students to that level. The model components are (1) variety and choice of learning tasks; (2) explicit communication and explanation of expectations; (3) modeling, practice, and constructive feedback on high-level tasks; (4) a student-centered instructional environment; and (5) respect for students at all levels of development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the new ABET accreditation system was first introduced to American engineering education in the middle 1990s as Engineering Criteria 2000, most discussion in the literature has focused on how to assess Outcomes 3a-3k and relatively little has concerned how to equip students with the skills and attitudes specified in those outcomes. This paper seeks to fill this gap. Its goals are to (1) overview the accreditation process and clarify the confusing array of terms associated with it (objectives, outcomes, outcome indicators, etc.); (2) provide guidance on the formulation of course learning objectives and assessment methods that address Outcomes 3a-3k; (3) identify and describe instructional techniques that should effectively prepare students to achieve those outcomes by the time they graduate; and (4) propose a strategy for integrating program-level and course-level activities when designing an instructional program to meet the requirements of the ABET engineering criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of its program assessment activities, the Southeastern University and College Coalition for Engineering Education (SUCCEED) conducted a faculty survey of teaching practices, involvement in faculty development programs, and perceptions of the importance of teaching in the faculty reward system. The survey was first administered late in 1997 and a modified version was administered late in 1999. This paper summarizes results from the 1999 survey that address the two questions: (1) to what extent do engineering faculty write instructional objectives and use active and team-based learning?; and (2) how effective are faculty development programs at changing professors' teaching practices? The results indicate that well over half of the 1999 respondents were using the stated teaching methods, with most attributing their use of the methods to their participation in teaching workshops and seminars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many recent studies demonstrate that cooperative learning provides a variety of educational advantages over more traditional instructional models, both in general and specifically in engineering education. Little is known, however, about the interactional dynamics among students in engineering work groups. To explore these dynamics and their implications for engineering education, we analyzed work sessions of student groups in a sophomore-level chemical engineering course at North Carolina State University. Using conversation analysis as a methodology for understanding how students taught and learned from one another, we found that group members generally engaged in two types of teaching-learning interactions. In the first type, transfer-of-knowledge (TK) sequences, they took on distinct teacher and pupil roles, and in the second, collaborative sequences (CS), they worked together with no clear role differentiation. The interactional problems that occurred during the work sessions were associated primarily with TK sequences, and had to do with students who either habitually assumed the pupil's role (constant pupils) or habitually discouraged others' contributions (blockers). Our findings suggest that professors can facilitate student group interactions by introducing students to the two modes of teaching interaction so group members can effectively manage exchanges of knowledge, and also by helping students distribute tasks in a way that minimizes role imbalances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An "autorating" (peer rating) system designed to account for individual performance in team projects was used in two sophomore-level chemical engineering courses in which the students did their homework in cooperative learning teams. Team members confidentially rated how well they and each of their teammates fulfilled their responsibilities, the ratings were converted to individual weighting factors, and individual project grades were computed as the product of the team project grade and the weighting factor. Correlations were computed between ratings and grades, self-ratings and ratings from teammates, and ratings received and given by men and women and by ethnic minorities and non-minorities. Incidences of "hitchhikers" (students whose performance was considered less than satisfactory by their teammates), "tutors" (students who received top ratings from all of their teammates), dysfunctional teams, and teams agreeing on a common rating were also determined. The results suggest that the autorating system works exceptionally well as a rule, and the benefits it provides more than compensate for the relatively infrequent problems that may occur in its use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defines several dimensions of learning style thought to be particularly relevant to foreign and second language education. Ways in which learning styles are favored by the teaching styles of most language instructors; Suggested steps to address the educational needs of all students in foreign language classes.

The article discusses the preparation of those who will educate the engineers of the 21st century. Changes in the practice of engineering require changes in engineering education. Educators will have the opportunity to specialize in one of several roles including educational researcher and interdisciplinary educator.