Page 51 - 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

34 EDUCATING THE ENGINEER OF 2020

Whitaker Foundation-funded development of biomedical engineering
programs, as well as efforts on individual campuses exploring the wide
range of experimentation enabled by ABET and its accreditation crite-
ria, must be captured, distilled, and disseminated as “lessons learned” to
the broader community. Where those efforts have had mostly local im-
pact, the challenge is to promulgate their successes to other locales and,
where appropriate, to coalesce their efforts on a national scale.
The Engineer of 2020 initiative does not assume that there is one
right way to transform the learning environment; we recognize that we
must understand and capitalize on the treasure that is the diversity of
American higher education. Through this initiative, by 2020, engineer-
ing programs across the country might be designed for specific areas of
distinction, perhaps serving the regional industrial community, perhaps
linking to institutional objectives to infuse a global dimension into the
undergraduate learning environment, perhaps focusing on a particular
thrust within engineering, and/or spotlighting the development of lead-
ers for the engineering profession. We recognize that support will be
needed at the local level for adapting the work of others; that campus
leaders must exercise leadership to shape an agenda for action that makes
sense for them, given their mission, circumstances, and vision of the
future. Success will require asking the right questions at each stage of
the process and continually revisiting those questions in the context of
the answers returned—creating, articulating, and driving a vision to
implementation.

TECHNOLOGIES FOR COLLABORATION
In addition to the experience of many active collaborations, an-
other significant advantage over past efforts is in the electronic tech-
nologies that enable sharing of ideas, materials, and other resources re-
lating to the transformation of individual courses or labs, departments,
programs, or institutions. It will be important to approach this sharing
of information systematically, integrating the identification, analysis,
and dissemination of appropriate data and best practices into each stage
of course, curriculum, and laboratory transformation.

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