The Future of Engineering Education: How to teach well and still get promoted Professor Peter Goodhew FREng Limerick: June 2015

The Future of Engineering Education: How to teach well and still get promoted

Professor Peter Goodhew FREng

Limerick: June 2015

Some backgroundEngineering education is rather important to our societies (and their economies):

• There are more Engineers than doctors or teachers or accountants or lawyers;• A graduate will probably work for 50-60 years• Most engineering programmes were established many years ago• Over the past 100 years there has been a great deal of research into learning

What are engineering graduates for?How might they best be educated?How might we do this?

Today’s policy questions

The set text

Teachingengineering.liv.ac.uk

... and you can add comments!

Textbook 2015

The chapters

1. The purpose and context of engineering education2. Some educational background3. The current state of teaching4. Curriculum content5. Teaching, learning and assessment6. Some commonly-raised issues7. How to change8. The way forward

A good questionJargon

We give lecturesToo much, but you know best

Many, many waysPracticalities

Staff are the problem, & QANeeds leadership

Published in 1971

“I use lectures to catch up on sleep, or to update my Facebook page”

The answer is “very little”

What does the future hold?

Working lifetime of 50-60 yearsMore developments than we can imagineMultiple careersImmense global challengesDeath and taxes1

1: Christopher Bullock, 1716, followed by many others!

Can teachers of engineering do better?

What?

Yes, for example:

Active learningFlipped classroomTeam workingDesign, build, testConcept questionsMOOCs

Active engineering students

A concept question

You are sitting in a boat in a small pond. You have a six-pack of beer. You throw it into the water and it sinks to the bottom.

Does the level of the water in the pond:1. Rise?2. Fall?3. Stay the same?

Some issues for debate

• What attitudes and attributes make an engineer?

• What is the proper balance between knowledge and understanding?

• What is the appropriate balance between fundamental eternal truths and authentic, motivating experiences?

• To what extent can necessary (fundamental or trivial) background be delivered “just-in-time”?

Some issues for debate

• What makes an engineer?• Knowledge vs understanding?• Fundamental vs authentic?• Pre-teach or “just-in-time”?

These are things YOU have to decide!

... but I can (and will) offer a few thoughts

What makes an engineer? Engineering Habits of Mind (EHOM)

2014

Knowledge vs understanding

Do you currently assess knowledge or understanding?

Is it possible to test understanding in the absence of knowledge?

Knowledge is easily available (e.g. MOOCs), but critical thinking usually has to be encouraged (face to face).

Fundamental vs authentic

Authentic (real-world) experiences are transient but exciting.

Fundamental understanding leads to long-term wisdom and transferable skills but can be challenging (students may say boring).

Pre-teach or JIT?

Just-in-time learning is driven by need, but is hard to manage.

Pre-teaching (in anticipation of future need) is conventional and easy to organise but fails to motivate many students.

So: Blended learning

Don’t think of simply blending teaching and learning styles – lectures, on-line, projects, PBL.

Consider blending:• Engineering HOM with personal development • Knowledge acquisition with understanding• Authentic experiences with eternal truths• Student-driven JIT with staff-driven anticipatory teaching

How?

Can we persuade engineering teachers to change?

Graham, The Ingredients of Successful Change (RAEng / MIT)

Externally-driven needA coherent approach and planInternal leadership(A modified learning environment)

Some practical issues for you to address

Ask your programme team ten questions:1. How do you decide and then assess the learning outcomes

promised in the programme specification?2. Where do you assess understanding?3. Where and how do you assess creativity?4. Why is the pass mark x% (if x<100)?5. Why do you allow a choice of questions?6. Do you scale marks? If so, why?7. How do you assess individual contributions to team work?8. How do you eliminate the influence of the supervisor when

assessing project work?9. Have you detected plagiarism? What do you do about it?10.And of course: Have you read Peter Goodhew’s book?

Another concept question

A ladder is upright against a vertical wall. Both the wall and the floor are perfectly slippery (no friction between ladder and floor or wall). You pull the bottom of the ladder away from the wall slightly and it starts to slip down. At some angle it loses contact with the wall. What does this angle depend on?

1. The mass of the ladder2. The length of the ladder3. g (gravity)4. None of these5. All of these

Some barriers to improvement

Research

Arrogance

Externally-imposed quality procedures

Students and staff from different educational cultures

Few metrics and slow evidence for excellent teaching

Some suggestions on getting promoted

Network (CDIO, professional bodies, HEA if you must)

Publish (this is what you would do for research!), but

with an education specialist. And/or write a book.

Join with externally-imposed quality procedures

Volunteer for Faculty & University committees

Go to conferences, and speak

Collect evidence for excellent teaching

Over to you

... for questions, comments and debate!

What will you remember from this presentation?

1. The titles of the RAEng reports?2. The bridge shown in slide 4?3. The name of the new teaching space at Liverpool?4. The question about the boat and the beer?5. My smiling face?

“I learn more from being asked questions, and having to respond”

“It is rare for Engineering faculty to come together to talk about education”

The Active Learning Lab at The University of Liverpool

The UK needs another engineering-focused university, creating engineers with a human face.

Some assertions and suggestions

The proposed University of Hereford (nmite/org/uk) should be encouraged. It has already made me think.

The vast majority of graduate engineers do not themselves use mathematics in their job.


The vast majority of undergraduate programmes should not require mathematics on entry.

For the past 50 years we have been spectacularly unsuccessful in attracting women into engineering.


Some engineering departments should recruit equal numbers of men and women.

Engineering makes people’s lives better.


Sell engineering as a (an?) humanitarian vocation.

Most people remember very few of the lectures they have attended.


Lectures should be given sparingly, and only to inspire.

Only 4% of engineering graduates go on to do a PhD.


Abolish the PhD except as a mid-life vanity product.

Very little teaching is genuinely “research-led”.


Replace the mantra “research-led” by “practitioner-informed”.

Relevance is ephemeral. Fundamentals are eternal.


Ensure that there is a sensible balance between the “relevant”, which is exciting, and the “fundamental”, which will last a lifetime (and several careers).

To replace engineering academics takes between 0.5 and 2% of our “output” of graduates.


Stop teaching as if we just want to clone ourselves.

Arithmetic (not maths):

Lower bound from SSR 20; academic life 40; 4 year programme = 1 in 200

Upper bound from SSR 10; academic life 20; 4 year programme = 1 in 50

Students should be prepared to define problems as well as work on their solutions1.


PBL is not enough.2

1. Liberal Studies in Engineering: Workshop NSF/MIT

2. “A pound’s not enough” Julie Christie in Darling

Knowledge is easily available everywhere; Understanding is both more important and requires nurture.


We should assess only understanding.

[Knowledge will have to be deployed to demonstrate understanding, so there is no need to test it separately.]

Education is not transfer of knowledge: It is a process which might result in changed attitudes.


Make content irrelevant, or at least secondary.

There will continue to be more Chinese engineers than British.


Give some modules in Mandarin.

Accreditation never saved a life.


Either ignore accreditation or lead it in the right direction. Never let it lead you.

Another concept question

You observe that the bar of soap which you use in the shower every day gives less and less lather [Schaum] as the weeks pass. Devise 3 hypotheses for this behaviour.

What might the future hold?

Modest advances in engineeringMOOCs?Unknown technology and social behaviourGlobal challenges

Documents

The Future of Engineering Education: How to teach well and still get promoted Professor Peter Goodhew FREng Limerick: June 2015