The Past – What We Have Done.

Summary – What Do We Know?

Engineering EducationBackground BriefingXX Chilean Congress of Engineering Education

Organization of Presentation

Describe programs-purpose, $$, timeline

Report results from formal assessments and engineering education research papers

Show key findings according to

retention

education/curriculum

international

perceptions of engineering

CoalitionsPurpose: To address industry’s call for graduates who are better prepared for current engineering practice, and to attract more women and minorities to engineering careers.

Started in 1990, reform by teams of schools for 10 years at $2 to 3 million dollars per year. Together, these schools (4 yr and 2 yr) enrolled over thirty percent of the students who were studying engineering in the U.S. at that time.

Investment: $160 million total by the Directorate for Engineering

Assessment: SRI assessed the Coalition program after the first 5 years, finding:

Helped to meet ABET 2000 criteria,

Accomplished some unique successes in some universities,

Developed some course/text materials,

“Cannot be said to be the comprehensive and systemic new models for engineering reform anticipated”

“Limited evidence of actual adoption outside the participating institutions.” Issues of scalability and transferability remain.

Coalitions

Key Findings - -

Retention:

Coalitions schools saw 10-25% increases in the retention rate of first-year engineering students, with even greater increases for women and underrepresented minorities.

GPA’s increased and time to degree decreased.

No differences in graduate rates can be significantly attributed to gender.

Verbal SAT scores are negatively correlated with odds of graduating in engineering.

Education/Curriculum:

Success with integration of the freshman curriculum to connect course material (math, chem, physics, English, and intro to engineering) to engineering practice.

Learning communities, where students form strong academic and social relationships is also key.

Significant collaboration among faculty along with growth in their understanding of the scholarship of teaching was required.

ABET

Purpose:

Support dialogue about new ABET criteria (EC2000), and the training of evaluators to implement it. Are engineering graduates better prepared under the new ABET criteria?

Investment: $1 million by the Directorate for Engineering

Assessment: Penn State Center for the Study of Higher Education, in 2005, found:

Greater emphasis on and gains in student professional skills

More active learning

High levels of faculty support for continuous improvement

2004 graduates are better prepared than their 1994 counterparts

However, found mixed results on the degree to which scholarship of teaching was valued in the faculty reward structure

Key Findings

Education/Curriculum:

EC2000 related changes in curricula and pedagogies plus changes in faculty culture are positively reshaping students’ engineering experiences.

International:

Largest differences in student learning are in recent graduates’ better understanding of societal and global issues.

ABET

Purpose:

Encourage more Americans to pursue doctorates in engineering

In 1990, the Engineering Directorate started special supports to U.S. women and minorities in engineering doctoral studies. Twenty-four engineering schools received $1 million Graduate Engineering Education (GEE) traineeship awards until the program evolved into the Integrative Graduate Engineering Research and Training (IGERT) program.

Since 1992, the Engineering Directorate adds $ to the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF) program so that 80 additional women are awarded fellowships each year.

Since 1998, Engineering invests in the Graduate Teaching Fellowships in K-12 Education (GK-12) to support science, math and engineering graduate students who work with teachers in precollege schools. Investment: The Directorate for Engineering spent $24 million on GEE. Annual amounts from the Directorate for Engineering are $7 million for IGERTAnd $3.5 million each for GRF and GK-12. Annual NSF investments are $67 million for IGERT, $96 million for GRF, and $55 million for GK-12.

Graduate Fellowships and Traineeships

Assessment: Abt Associates Inc. assessed the GraduateEngineering Education (GEE) program in 2000, finding

Most schools had graduated few underrepresented students before

receiving the grant, but attained new student completion rates of

63 to 100%.

Personal action by faculty to recruit and mentor students was most important in student success.

The main impediment to student recruitment was the attractive and lucrative job market.

(The NSF-wide GK-12, and IGERT programs are assessed but do not analyze engineering students separately.)

Key Findings:

Retention: Faculty mentoring skills are key to student success

Graduate Fellowships and Traineeships

Purpose:

To increase the number of underrepresented minorities graduating with degrees in science, math and engineering.

Long term institutional change.

Investment: NSF wide investment of $2.5 m per institution for 10 years

Assessment: Systemic Research Inc. collected data across all of the projects

Key Findings: For UTEP which involved about 400 entering engineering students/year

Retention: GPA and graduation rates increased dramatically.

Time to degree decreased from 6.6 to 5.1 years

First year retention for engineering students increased to and is steady at 70%.

Education/Curriculum:

Also crucial is careful clustering of students in a suite of first year courses (math, English and intro to engineering) which are tailored specifically to their preparation level.

Model Institutions for Excellence

Purpose: To encourage U.S. citizens to pursue doctoral studies by engaging them in research as undergraduates

Investment: $37 million/year NSF-wide with $13 million/year by the Directorate for Engineering

Assessment: SRI evaluated the NSF-wide program in 2006, finding:

In general, there is significantly higher graduate school attendance, increased interest in research careers, and increased awareness of what grad school is like

Engineering specific results were not obtained.

Key Findings: International:

Engineering began to encourage international components to REU sites in the late 1990s

Incorporated in the program announcement and practice spread

to all directorates

Research Experiences for Undergraduates

Purpose: Supports the active involvement of K-12 teachers and community

college faculty in engineering research

Brings knowledge of engineering and technological innovation into precollege classrooms.

Investment: $8million/year across NSF with $4million/year in the Directorate for Engineering.

Assessment: SRI completed an assessment of RET in selected fields of engineering in 2006 and is now expanding it to all fields of engineering.

Key Findings:

Education/Curriculum: Teachers add engineering content and process to their precollege courses. 94% of teachers reported increased motivation

to find ways to improve student learning, and 89% of teachers reported increased confidence in teaching science and math. But all want more

follow up with engineering faculty.

Perception of Engineering: Teachers report dramatic increase in understanding of what engineering is. They are much better prepared

to counsel students to pursue engineering

Research Experiences for Teachers

Purpose:

Initiated in 1985, the Engineering Research Centers (ERCs) generate innovations in research and education impacting curricula at all levels from pre-college to life-long learning.

One ERC focuses its research on developing new teaching/learning educational technologies for bioengineering education (VaNTH).

Investment: $12 million/year for education portion of ERCs by the Directorate for Engineering, including $3 million for VaNTH.

Assessment: SRI assessed the ERC program in 2002.

Key Findings:

Education/Curriculum: Over the twenty year period, ERCs produced 144 new degree programs, 722 new multidisciplinary courses, 1261 modified courses and 187 texts. Employers reported that for 7 performance characteristics, supervisors find ERC graduates significantly better prepared for the practice of engineering than non-ERC trained engineers.

Perceptions of Engineering: ERCs engaged 523 teachers in RET programs and 6,678 students in engineering activities in 2005.

Engineering Research Centers

Purpose:

Started in 2000, supports departments to comprehensively reform their curriculum, by streamlining old material and offering more exposure to new technology and state of the art engineering tools.

Funded 18 implementation awards at $1 Million and 40 planning grants at $100,000 each.

Investment: $20 million by the Directorate for Engineering.

Assessment: Penn State Center for the Study of Higher Education studied the projects in their planning phases.

The most successful teams spent deliberate and regular time reflecting

on their work and discussing it in department level meetings.

Further evaluation will be undertaken on the implementation projects.

Key Findings:

Education/Curriculum: Although focused on a department, much of the curricular change involves integrating material and tools from other disciplines.

Department Level Reform

Centers for Teaching and Learning

Purpose: Advancing the scholarship of discovery regarding math, science and engineering undergraduate education through multidisciplinary research centers. Started in 2003.

Investment: $2 million/year for each of two centers. Co-funded by (1) the Directorate for Education and Human Resources, (2) the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences, and (3) the Directorate for Engineering.

Assessment: External peer review every three years

Key Findings:

The Wisconsin-led center addresses learning and teaching across the fields of science, mathematics and engineering, and how to prepare future

faculty.

The Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education (CAEE) at the University of Washington concentrates on engineering through cross institutional longitudinal research studies on learning to engineer focusing on the development of engineers from undergraduate education through entry into the engineering workforce, and targeted studies of core competencies and concepts central to engineering.

Centers for Teaching and Learning

Purpose: To increase our basic understanding of how students learn

engineering so that our undergraduate and graduate engineering

education can be transformed to meet the needs of the changing economy and society.

Started in 2005

Key topics are:

engineering education learning systems,

engaging engineers in diversity,

engineering assessment methodologies, and

engineering thinking and knowledge within social contexts

Investment: $12 million/year, including CAREER and standard awards.

Assessment: None yet

Engineering Education Research

Purpose:

Evolved from three earlier programs: Instrumentation and Laboratory Improvement, Course and Curriculum Improvement, Undergraduate Faculty Enhancement

Stimulate, disseminate, and institutionalize innovative developments in STEM education through the production of knowledge and the improvement of practice to obtain excellent STEM education in all students.

Five components (research, assessment, curriculum-pedagogy development, implementations, and faculty development) and three types of projects (exploratory, expansion, and

comprehensive)

Investment: $49 million (2001) to $36 million (2006) per year with about 30% for engineering.

Assessment: Several evaluation studies of predecessor programs. New evaluation underway

Course, Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement

Key Findings:

Education/Curriculum: Over 60% of the institutions offering STEM degrees received at least one Instrumentation and Laboratory Improvement award and over 2.6 million students benefited directly. In all STEM fields, nearly 500 Faculty Enhancement awards supporting over 750 workshops for over 14 thousand faculty members and 81% designed or redesigned one or more courses

Retention: Itasca Community College increased pre-engineering enrollment from 18 to 130 with 80 % transferring and completing BS in engineering. Fifteen institutions participate in the Engineering Projects In Community Service (EPICS) program with over 1500 students involved in 03-04 academic year.

Perceptions of Engineering: Tufts University’s program providing leadership on the use of LEGOS in K-12 has resulted in over 3 million children participating.

Course, Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement

Purpose:

Building on the Digital Library Initiative to create a larger more robust system that could serve all education levels and fields.

Three tracks: (1) Pathways projects to provide stewardship for the content and services needed by major communities of learners. (2) Services projects to develop services that support users, resource collection providers, and the Core Integration effort and that enhance the impact, efficiency, and value of the library. (3) Targeted Research projects to explore specific topics that have immediate applicability to collections, services, and other aspects of the development of the digital library.

Investment: $153 M total with approximately $13 M for engineering projects

Assessment: In planning stage.

Key Findings:

Perceptions of Engineering: A substantial and expanding collection for the K-12 community called “Teach Engineering”

Education/Curriculum: A large collaborative pathway award to coordinate the “engineering collection” of educational materials

National Digital Library

Purpose: Emphasizing two-year colleges, the Advanced Technological Education

program focuses on the education of technicians for the high-technology fields that drive our nation's economy.

Supports career pathways to two-year colleges from secondary schools and from two-year colleges to four-year institutions, including articulation between two-year and four-year programs.

Investment: $46million/year of EHR money, about 1/3 focuses on engineering technology.

Assessment: The Evaluation Center at Western Michigan University studied 171 of the “mature” projects.

Key Findings: Education/Curriculum: Nearly 2000 courses were improved. 65,000

students attended at least one of these courses and of these 47,400 were at associate degree granting institutions.

Perceptions of Engineering: One project is highlighted in the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative and he visited it as part of the public announcement of the initiative.

Advanced Technological Education

Purpose:

Started in 2003, the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Talent Expansion Program (STEP) seeks to increase

the number of US students receiving associate or baccalaureate degrees in established or emerging fields within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Investment: $26 million/year of Directorate for Education and Human Resources dollars, about 1/4 focuses on engineering.

Assessment: Data collection is underway with more in depth evaluation planned for when the projects are more mature.

Key Findings:

Retention:

The total increase in degrees expected from the grants is 1640 per year. This translates into about $700 of NSF $/student/year.

Science, Technology, Engineering and MathematicsTalent Expansion Program

• Undergraduate engineering students face a future in which they will need more than solid expertise in their discipline to succeed. They will be expected to work with people of many different backgrounds to identify and achieve goals. They need educational experiences that can help them broaden their skills.

                          Welcome!• Community service agencies face a future in which they must take

advantage of technology to improve, coordinate, account for, and deliver the services they provide.

• In response to this challenge, Purdue University has created EPICS: Engineering Projects In Community Service. Students work in multidisciplinary teams over a three year period to provide technical solutions for community service organizations.

Oregon State University• The program is RADICAL, in a very

good way.OSU is pioneering the trail and changing the way engineering education is done. We'll help you learn engineering concepts, help you have fun along the way, and you'll be "work-ready" when you graduate.

• What's so special about our programs? INNOVATION.They offer the Pacific Northwest's most innovative and flexible undergraduate degree. In Electrical and Computer Engineering students have an environment that fosters teamwork, hands-on projects, and creative learning experiences. The goal is to provide a "playground for learning" where you can be creative while getting a quality education.

• At Georgia Tech all students are encouraged to broaden their areas of expertise or acquire skills or information beyond their major degree. They are awarded certificates in these areas.

• For example, students interested in nanotechnology may obtain a certificate in nanotechnology and nanoscience. Those wishing to enhance their communication skills can take advantage of the Engineering Communications program. Or music or ???

“Talking About Leaving" shows that engineering “leavers” have the same GPAs but are turned away by poor teaching and most move to natural sciences.

Midfield Database shows that high verbal SAT is correlated with leaving engineering. Community college transfers complete degrees at a higher rate than those who start at 4 year colleges.

UTEP Model Institutions for Excellence, finds that solid math diagnostics and remediation plus clustering students in sets of classes with study groups cuts time to degree and increases

graduation rate.

Retention- What Do We Know?

Integrated curriculum which links to engineering practice enhances retention

Active learning, especially in teams, strengthens learning.

Socially relevant curriculum and service learning (e.g. EPICS, Engineers Without Borders ) especially attracts women and minorities.

All techniques which accelerate the student’s ability to identify with the profession of engineering and construct the meaning of the

subject, are positive.

Further faculty development is needed for national dissemination of innovative curriculum.

Education/Curriculum - What Do We Know?

ABET study shows progress in this area

International Institute of Education study indicates faculty attitudes are often negative toward study abroad for engineering students

Women students participate in international activities at a much higher rate than men indicating international opportunities may be a recruitment and retention vehicle for them

International- What Do We Know?

NAE study in 2002 “Raising Public Awareness of Engineering” shows that programs to improve the public awareness and public understanding of engineering “have had little or no measurable impact on public perceptions of engineering.”

Followed in 2005 by the NAE study “Developing Effective Messages for Improving Public

Understanding of Engineering” to encourage coordinated,

consistent, and effective communication by the engineering community.

Extraordinary Women Engineers (WGBH and engineering societies) will research messages which appeal to high school students, especially women. Early results show that social relevance is key.

Perception of Engineering - What Do We Know?

Large investments in reform in the 1990’s yielded local change and some national

impact.

We need deeper understanding of the engineering education system and how to change it.

We need robust research to build the scholarship

of discovery around engineering education.

Research and well constructed interventions are not sufficient, leadership is key to achieving progress.

Lessons Learned