Tag Archives: engineering education

Webcast: Engineering Education in the 21st Century

National Academy of Engineering President, William A. Wulf, discusses the future of engineering education. Very good quick overview (skip to 1m 45s point for start of the speech) – see links below for additional resources. From the speech:

“the practices of engineering has changed enormously in the last 20 years and engineering education has changed hardly at all.”
“It is a disgrace: about half the students who start in engineering do not finish in engineering… we are not weeding out the poor students we are turning off half the students with the way that we teach”
“engineering schools generally have not provided courses for the general liberal arts students but they must.”

view the rest of the talk

Electrifying a New Generation of Engineers

Ybarra’s K-12 education efforts began informally in 1993 while he was a newly arrived professor at Duke, toting lasers and other captivating bits of engineering equipment to local schools to drum up excitement for science and engineering and an array of programs grew from there.
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Based on his growing awareness of the value of hands-on learning, Ybarra was longing for a way to help get more hands-on learning into the classroom. A few years later, in 1999, he was able to secure his first significant grant in the area. With support from the National Science Foundation Ybarra formalized his interactions with local schools by establishing a fellowship program that would put Duke engineering students in the classrooms to vastly expand the number of schools impacted.
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To date, Ybarra’s programs have impacted more than 150,000 kids, and with so many programs now in place and spreading, that number increases by about 50,000 students per year. But personal stories, rather than numbers, are what Ybarra finds most gratifying. “When students contact me years later to tell me that the experiences they had in my programs inspired them to pursue a career in engineering or one of the sciences, it gives me a very deep sense of satisfaction.”

Engineer Your Life

Engineer Your Life is an outreach initiative committed to sharing with college-bound young women the opportunities available to them in the world of engineering. Unfortunately they chose to use flash content and the website fails to follow simple usability guidelines (basic stuff like human readable urls, links that work without javascript…) but there is decent content. The use of flash and failing to pay attention to usability are highly correlated in my experience. The site profiles 12 engineers including Judy Lee:

Judy’s enthusiasm paid off. A few months later, the IKEA engineer asked her to design a children’s play mat. Judy was thrilled and soon found herself in IKEA headquarters in Sweden, where she worked with a team of engineers and product developers. It was at this moment that she realized her ideal job was one that truly offered a balance between creativity and problem solving.

Designing for IKEA
Judy began her new project by thinking about the way kids play. “I realized that kids today play indoors a lot. Maybe because the world seems a little more dangerous and parents are more protective. So I knew that this mat had to incorporate some kind of physical play element.” Rather than a static mat, Judy designed one resembling a giant lazy Susan that kids could spin around on. “Once I had the concept, the mechanical engineer in me took over. I needed something simple. Simplicity is awesome. My mat is basically two injection-molded pieces of plastic that spin on a set of interior wheels.”

Judy will never forget the experience of seeing her mat in an IKEA store. “It was incredible,” she recalls, “and it was such important validation for me that my ideas matter, they’re good, and they’re marketable.”

Dream Job at IDEO
Today, Judy has found her dream job in Palo Alto, California, at a company called IDEO, one of the country’s most innovative design firms. IDEO hires engineers, designers, psychologists, and businesspeople who work in teams to develop cutting-edge products (they created Apple Computer’s first mouse, for example). Judy designs children’s toys, pet products, and packaging for over-the-counter drugs and food. “I feel pretty lucky to have such a creative and interesting job. I’m surrounded by brilliant people. It doesn’t really seem like work. It’s just plain fun!”

$12.5 Million NSF For Educating High School Engineering Teachers

$12.5 Million National Science Foundation Grant

The University of Texas at Austin’s Cockrell School of Engineering, College of Natural Sciences and College of Education have been awarded $12.5 million by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to prepare educators to teach engineering to Texas high-school students.

The UTeachEngineering program targets future and current teachers, providing multiple avenues to prepare them to teach high school engineering. University faculty will use half of the five-year grant funding for course development, lab development and salaries. The other half of the grant will provide stipends, scholarships and fellowships to students and teachers working toward engineering teaching certification.

Current teachers will benefit from two curricula developed through the grant: a six-week Engineering Summer Institute for Teachers and a UTeach Master of Arts in Science and Engineering Education, which takes place over three summers. The curriculum for prospective teachers will target undergraduate students in engineering and the natural sciences, and lead to a bachelor’s degree in a scientific or engineering field as well as dual teaching certification in science and engineering. Addressing the need for trained engineering teachers is especially crucial in Texas because of a new law that requires high school graduates starting in 2011 to complete four years of science. One year can be a course in engineering.

Illinois and Olin Aim to Transform Engineering Education

It appears Illinois is preparing to attempt to apply some of the idea piloted at Olin on a larger scale. It will be very interesting to see what happens. Illinois Partners with Olin College to Transform Engineering Education

“Illinois is to be commended for embarking on a serious initiative to demonstrate scalable innovation at a large land-grant school,” Miller stated. “Olin has pioneered many innovations in its multi-disciplinary, project-based engineering curriculum, but we still don’t know how widely applicable these reforms are. Through this partnership, Olin and Illinois will be able to explore how to diffuse innovation more broadly throughout the engineering education community. The partnership is a true collaboration, offering Illinois access to Olin’s unique educational Petri dish, and offering faculty and students at Olin special access to Illinois’ quality researchers and facilities, recognized as among the best in the world.”

As part of this effort Illinois seems to be using a new something (I am not sure what it should be called): iFoundry. Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education, is an interdepartmental curriculum incubator in the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois designed to pilot principled change while respecting faculty governance.

Alumni Return to Redesign High School Engineering Classes

Prince George’s County High School Alumni Return to Redesign Classes

Cressman joined nine fellow graduates of the elite science and technology magnet program every day for six weeks to create top-flight engineering courses for high school students. The class at the Greenbelt, Maryland, school will teach the latest in computer programming and drafting with software used by college professors and professional engineers. And since engineering teachers can be hard to find, the curriculum is designed to be taught by a non-expert.
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All freshman in the science and technology magnet program are already required to take two introductory engineering classes, but the curricula for those classes were originally designed in 1976. “There has been some revamping through the years, but we knew we needed a major overhaul. Things have changed so much,” explains Jane Hemelt, coordinator of the science and technology program, which serves about 900 of the school’s 2,700 students. The problem was that there wasn’t an easy way to get the expertise to fix it.

Hemelt talked about the problem with Rocco Mennella, a mathematics professor at Prince George’s Community College and Catholic University who teaches science and math at Roosevelt. For several years, Mennella had been recruiting Roosevelt graduates as tutors for his summer precalculus class, and he told Hemelt that his recruits—who were science, math, and engineering majors—might serve double duty by redesigning the engineering curriculum.

Mennella’s college recruits came from Caltech, MIT, Brown, Johns Hopkins, Georgia Tech, and the University of Maryland, where they have been exposed to some of the best science and engineering teachers in the country. In addition, Cressman contacted about 80 engineering professors at universities and colleges around the country to find out what they would like their incoming students to know; almost 50 responded.
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For example, all agreed that the classes should focus on the practical aspects of engineering, including computer-aided design and computer programming, while exposing the high school students to electrical, civil, and mechanical engineering. But the curriculum designers also wanted their younger peers to have fun while learning, so they put in many hours on computers creating lessons that would challenge students to redesign the Taj Mahal, build an SUV, or guide a robot.
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Eleanor Roosevelt High School will test some of the modules as part of other classes this fall, which will reach 30 students or more, and the team hopes to roll out the other classes full time in coming years. The Prince George’s school district’s other two science magnet schools, Oxon Hill and Charles Flowers, also plan to use the curriculum. But Mennella and Hemelt hope it will spread even wider, including to schools that don’t specialize in science and math. Those schools might just use parts of the curriculum, or spread a semester-long class out over a year. “Who knows, this could become a model for the state and maybe a model for the country,” Hemelt says.

I am looking into how people can see the curricula, and any other material that may be available.

Loan Forgiveness Program for Engineering Students

Update (2011): sadly politicians decided though they can give billions in welfare to investment banks and billions in tax breaks to those giving politicians lots of cash they didn’t want to help out engineering students. I actually wouldn’t have a big problem with this decision (to not fund this program) if it was symptomatic of frugal actions by those we entrust with leading our government. Given how frivolously they reward those that give them lots of cash for their campaigns (or pay as soon as they and their staff take jobs with organizations they gave huge benefits to) I think not funding this very small cost is foolish. This is the type of program I think smart countries will adopt (the types of policies the SUA adopted in the 1960’s and lately countries like Singapore, Korea, China have been adopting to encourage science and engineering leadership for the next generation).

Engineering students would receive up to $10,000 in student loan forgiveness under legislation just passed by Congress that the president is expected to sign. The Higher Education Reauthorization and College Opportunity Act of 2008 creates a new program to provide financial incentives for professions in areas of national need including engineering.

Engineering students would qualify for up to $10,000 in credit against their outstanding student loan obligation following graduation and entry into the engineering, technology, applied sciences, or mathematics (and other areas too) workforce. The program authorizes up to $2,000 per year of schooling.

The legislation also includes the Robert C. Byrd American Competitiveness program (an adjustment to the existing program):

a Mathematics and Science Honors Scholarship program for students who are earning baccalaureate or advanced degrees in science, mathematics, or engineering and who agree to serve for five consecutive years in a field relevant to such degree; (2) a Mathematics and Science Incentive program under which the Secretary assumes the obligation to pay the interest due on FFELs and DLs by individuals who agree to serve for five consecutive years as highly qualified teachers of science, technology, engineering or mathematics within high need LEAs, or as mathematics, science, or engineering professionals

Germany Looking to Kindergarten for Engineering Future

German groups seek next crop of engineers in the kindergarten

Germany’s shortage of engineers has become so acute that some of its leading companies are turning to kindergartens to guarantee future supplies.

Groups such as Siemens and Bosch are among hundreds of companies giving materials and money to kindergartens to try to interest children as young as three in technology and science.

Many European countries from Switzerland to Spain suffer shortages of graduates. But the problem is especially acute in Germany, renowned as a land of engineering. German companies have 95,000 vacancies for engineers and only about 40,000 are trained, according to the engineers’ association.

“It is a new development in that we have seen we need to start very early with children. Starting at school is not good enough – we need to help them to understand as early as possible how things work,” said Maria Schumm-Tschauder, head of Siemens’ Generation21 education programme.
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Siemens has provided about 3,000 “discovery boxes” filled with science experiments for three- to six-year-olds to kindergartens throughout Germany, at a cost to the company of â‚¬500 (Â£395) a box. It also trains kindergarten teachers on how to use them as well as providing similar boxes around the world to pre-schools from China and South Africa to Ireland and Colombia.

S&P 500 CEOs are Engineering Graduates

2007 Data from Spencer Stuart on S&P 500 CEO (they deleted the link so the link was removed – yet another website proves to be unreliable without basic web usability principles being followed) shows once again more have undergraduate degrees in engineering than any other field.

Field	% of CEOs
	2007	2006	2005
Engineering	21	23	20
Economics	15	13	11
Business Administration	13	12	15
Accounting	8	8	7
Liberal Arts	6	8	9
No degree or no data	3	3

The report does not show the fields for the rest of the CEO’s. 40% of S&P CEOs have MBAs. 27% have other advanced degrees. The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Princeton and Harvard tied for the most CEO’s with undergraduate degrees from their universities at 12. University of Texas has 10 and Stanford has 9.

Data for previous years is also from Spencer Stuart: 2006 S&P 500 CEO Education Study – Top degree for S&P 500 CEOs? Engineering (2005 study)

$100 Million for Ohio University Engineering Education

Ohio University gets record setting gift

This gift brings the Russes’ total giving to at least $100.7 million. Prior to this gift, the couple had contributed more than $8.9 million to Ohio University, the majority of which is held in endowments that support engineering.

The Russes’ generosity has made them the largest donors in the university’s history. Another engineering family — C. Paul and Beth K. Stocker — are next on the list with contributions totaling $31.9 million. The proceeds will support engineering education and research at Ohio University.
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The Russes believe in putting support where it would have significant impact. In addition to supporting Russ College students, faculty and facilities, they established the Russ Prize to recognize how engineering improves the human condition. One of the top three engineering prizes in the world, the Russ Prize is awarded bi-annually in conjunction with the National Academy of Engineering.
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The planning will take cues from the college’s strategic research areas: avionics; biomedical engineering, energy and the environment; and smart civil infrastructure. Planners expect that, in addition to supporting research, funds from the estate will support scholarships and leadership incentives for engineering students.