Page 103 - Educating the Engineer of 2020: Adapting Engineering Education to the New Century

Educating the Engineer of 2020: Adapting Engineering Education to the New Century
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11338.html

86 EDUCATING THE ENGINEER OF 2020

OVERVIEW
There has been a great deal of interest in a review of the EEC Pro-
gram that would tell what was done, what worked, and what did not
work. The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) requested a con-
cise overview of the program to support its Engineer of 2020 Project,
which will define how engineering in the twenty-first century will be
refashioned. To assist NAE, we consider results from the EEC Program
through four different “lenses”:

• Content. Through this lens we describe new topics that might
be included in engineering curricula.
• Expectations. We chose the word “expectations” instead of out-
comes, objectives, goals, student outcomes, learning objectives,
assessments, or evaluations, all of which might have precon-
ceived meanings that could interfere with an objective descrip-
tion of expectations for engineering graduates. Issues associated
with expectations include assessment and evaluation, because it
must be determined if stated expectations have been met. In
this respect, the expectation lens is similar to the testing lens for
engineering design; testing requires not only specifications, but
also methods of determining whether a product sample satis-
fies specifications. Other issues associated with expectations in-
clude retention of students and increased participation of
underrepresented groups. Improvements in both areas were
goals of the EEC Program.
• Methodology. The word “methodology” is used because read-
ers might have preconceived ideas about the meaning of other
words (e.g., pedagogy, teaching, classroom practice, and class-
room approaches) that might interfere with an understanding
of how expectations might be realized and/or improved. Issues
associated with the methodology lens include pedagogy, lec-
tures versus more active student engagement, and instructional
technology.
• Systemic reform. This is the most complex lens, and the most
fundamental, because significant investments were made in
hopes that reforms initiated in a particular EEC would have
major positive effects well beyond the schools directly involved
in that coalition.

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