engineering education

1. Innovations in Engineering Education
Why ? When ? How ?
Ivan ŠIMAN, MSc. PhD.
Ivan.Siman@fs.cvut.cz

2. • Extensive knowledge in a specialized technical discipline
• Creative and innovative ability
• Entrepreneurial insight
• Ability to communicate
• Ability to work as members of heterogeneous teams
• General knowledge and experience
• Engagement in lifelong education
Skills required from 21. century engineers

3. .
Key issues in innovation of
engineering education

4. .
• University teachers should customize the content of
their lectures and training courses according to
requirements of the market, but from whom are
they to obtain information on what the market
really requires ?
• How can they be sure that changes in the content of
their lectures and training courses are really
beneficial ?

5. Why must engineering education be innovated
immediately ?
•Because at present it is
already delayed

6. Accelarators of the process
• Requirements from employers
• Expectancy from students
• Concepts of teachers
• The changing world

7. What the teachers can change themselves
• Initiate more active education
• Teamwork
• Enforce consistently the system
design build test
• Deal with conceptional issues

8. How to induce teachers to innovate
• Necessity of changes must be accelerated
from outside the universities
• A coherent approach and plan drawn up
• University management engaged (e.g. in
adaptation of lecturing spaces)
(Royal Academy of Engineering, UK) :
It is really an unusual event when the faculty meets for the purpose of
discussion on forms of education

9. .
Presently identified issues in the
transformation of engineering
education

10. .
• Students currently consider engineering education
to be boring and the profession does not appeal to
those interested in social responsibility
• Engineering courses are considered to be difficult,
consequently many students choose to avoid them
• Current engineering eucation programmes are
heavily weighted toward presentation and learning
of specialized technical details
• Engineering curricula are often overloaded as a
result of technical explosion
• High failure rates are common
cont.

11. .
• Content focused on skills required for the practice of
professional engineering is commonly minimum
• Employer surveys indicate that they are dissatisfied
with the capabilities demonstrated by graduates
• Relations between employers and universities are
not strong
• Engineering education programmes have changed
little over the last 40 years and have been slow to
utilize IT resources to facilitate student learning

12. Motto
• Engineering practice requires
multidisciplinary knowledge and the
abilities to evaluate, to be creative to
learn what is relevant as necessary, and
then to be able to apply this knowledge
responsibly and efficiently in a specific
project

13. How to proceed
• Project based learning is a proven approach to
enhance engineering education. It enables students
to act in teams as engineers-in-training throughout
their programme
• Projects can provide the driver for students to
participate in inquiry-based learning
• Facilitated student learning should be the focus –
not staff lecturing
• Offer entire programmes to web-based learning,
free of charge (in the USA e.g.MIT or Stanford)

14. .
What transformations are
obviously necessary

15. .
• Use of project-based learning as the core of
the engineering curriculum in eacj semester
• Staff to act as learning facilitators – no
lectures
• Focus on the development and assessment of
basic graduate attributes
• Promotion of engineering as an essential,
exciting, rewarding and responsible
profession
cont.

16. .
• Improving relations between universities and
employers
• Introduction of work experience courses for
all students
• Establishment of clear goals for every
student
• At research universities elevate education to
the same level as research

17. .
What is preventing
implementation ?

18. .
• A number of universities have their primary
focus on research and not education.
• Teachers are to a great extent conservative –
they resist changes from established
practices
• Engineering capability is measured by
examination results
• University managments have not recognized
the need for transformation or considers it to
be to difficult
• University space is designed for lecturing

19. .
What can accrediting authorities
do ?

20. .
• Promote to the government the importance
of funding a trial project to develop,
demonstrate and implement a strategy for
collaborative EE transformation
• Promote, encourage and facilitate the
necessary transformational change in
universities
• Encourage the growth of EE programmes
• Encourage employers to work with
universities on implementation of changes
cont.

21. .
• Actively promote the understanding and
recognition of the engineering profession in
the society
• Encourage the provision of more general
engineering education in years 1 and 2,
followed by 2 years focusing on a special
discipline

22. General advantages of the proposed steps of
engineering education transformation
• The inevitable impact of IT upon universities is
utilized in the most effective way
• The cost of engineering education is reduced
• Collaboration and international exchange of
students is facilitated
• New engineering programmes can more easily
utilize the transformed programmes
• University-employer interactions can benefit
both parties and the graduates
• Both the esteem and understanding of the
engineering profession can be enhanced

23. Sources
 Most notions in this presentation were
reproduced from contributions presented
at the CAETS/HAE symposium in Budapest
(Hungary) on June 27, 2013
 Any comments on this topic made during
this presentation represent solely my
point of view.

24. .
Thank you for your kind attention