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Shane Hudson 18 March 2014 WRA 110 Prof. Ledbetter

Evolution of Engineering Education

Practice makes perfect, but learning new moves will also make you better. If you can find a reasonable mix of practice and learning fundamentals I believe that you can master anything. Engineering is a perfect example of that. It has been taught over multiple centuries and has been evolving rapidly since its development. Engineering isnt taught as fast as the technological advances happen. Even when there is new technology that is readily available, the old fundamentals are still taught by the older generation of engineers. Students need to be an expert of their discipline to lead in their field, but I believe modern engineering education is not providing enough lab time to have them do so. According to Washington University, working in the shop was the majority of engineering education in the late 19th century. But in the early 1900s, scientific theory and more classroom work tried to be implemented into the teachings of engineering. Most of the attempts for this push were disregarded until World War II. After the spark of the war, countries began to see the use of theoretical science in engineering through use of radar and atomic weapons so science was then incorporated into the education of engineers. With that incorporation, educators focused a bit too much on the science

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applications of engineering and seemed to lose focus on the practical and design aspect of engineering. Thankfully by the 1990s most educators decided that they needed a mix of practice and science.

Crawley (2007) states that every engineer should be able to conceive, design, implement, and operate complex engineering products, processes, and systems in a team based environment. This is also known as the CDIO approach of engineering education. As seen in the figure above, this advancement is taking over and creating an overall better understanding of material that will help utilize your skills in the engineering discipline. An engineer should be able to execute tasks to help create a product, process, or system with a team. Engineers need to master knowledge of fundamentals, lead in creation of new products and systems, and understand the effects of technological development on our society. I admire when Crawley (2007) also expresses that Conceptual understanding is the ability to apply knowledge across a variety of unencountered instances or

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circumstances. It is not memorization of facts and definitions, nor is it the simple application of a principle that contains the concept (p. 20). This statement reminds me that to succeed in your own discipline you need to be taught how to apply everything that you have learned, and not just understand material for hypothetical situations, but for real world problems that could potentially arise. Most engineering classrooms are still using a traditional approach of teaching through lecture, but there is an approach of having students gain knowledge through experimentation. If educators used more experiment techniques, I believe that students could be prepared for problems that could occur within their disciplinary field. Felder (2000) suggests 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 (p. 2). All of these aspects are also important in being a great leader in your discipline. With the use of teaching these skills in engineering education, professors could ensure that they mold their students into wise engineers with special abilities like teamwork and great communication to create great ethical products. Skills that should also be integrated inside an engineering majors courses should teach how to be aware of social situations with ethical choices. Engineers need to understand how creating or destroying something will affect a community in the long scheme. Without these core values being taught to these prospective engineering majors, they may create something that is harmful to a society. There are multiple things that can be done to improve engineering education so that engineers can lead in their discipline, but I believe the most important is the role of

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laboratories to improve overall understanding of key ideas. Feisel (2005) expresses that engineers use laboratories to have questions answered about nature and help with a design that can be developed. These laboratories also help to see if a specific design is able to fulfill what it was made to do. If not, the laboratory helps you determine where changes should be made on your design. One common goal in the laboratory is to relate theoretical situations into your real world experimentations. Educators want these labs to successfully make you use your entire problem solving formulas and equations to solve a real problem. Another goal of these laboratories is to motivate engineers to follow their own course of study. These labs will help an engineer develop a personal feel for a specific branch to further research and become an expert in. According to Michigan States requirement for a bachelor in chemical engineering, you only need to take four lab classes. It does not seem like these one credit lab classes will be able to prepare engineers for their future discipline. I believe that there should be approximately double the lab courses to successfully prepare a future engineer for their job. Overall, labs seem to be a very integral part to help assist engineers to fully educate and prepare themselves for their future discipline, but it seems like there is not enough labs required to get a degree in an engineering degree. With a focused intent to create more lab courses, educators could teach more about the use of software like simulators and programs to help with the engineering process. Feisel (2005) insisted that The digital computer has opened new possibilities in the laboratory, including simulation, automated data acquisition, and rapid analysis and presentation (p. 121). With the simulation created using computer laboratories students can create scenarios that are not easily viewed and use them to replace actual

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lab experiments that take up supplies and materials. These simulations give students the realism of an experiment to ready the students for the actual real life experiment so that no expensive raw goods are wasted when it comes time. All in all, engineering education has evolved over time in a fairly good manner, but recently there has not been the technological improvements made to it that were accessible to educators. I believe that there are additions to the education process that could make those who study within the field of engineering more adequate for their discipline. Additions like the perfect mix of practice and theoretical scientific reasoning in the classroom and utilizing the lab more often as it creates real world learning experiences. Until these additions are added to the engineering curriculum, I believe that engineering education is not performing at its highest potential, and students are not being fully prepared for being a leader within their discipline.

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Works Cited

Crawley, E., & Malmqvist, J. (2007). Rethinking engineering education. New York: Springer. FEISEL, L., & ROSA, A. (2005). The role of the laboratory in undergraduate engineering education. (Vol. 94). Felder, R., Woods, D., & Stice, J. (2000). The future of engineering education i. a vision for a new century. Michigan State University. (n.d.). Requirements for the bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering. Retrieved from https://www.reg.msu.edu/academicprograms/ProgramDetail.asp?Program=2305 Washington University. , & (n.d.). A brief history of engineering education in the u.s.. Retrieved from http://www.ee.washington.edu/research/dms/ee/PDF_files/CCLI_Gateway_History_EngEd.pdf