Course Description: This course explores contemporary research in engineering education and cognitive issues in engineering curricular development, teaching, and assessment. This course is motivated by several current reforms: (1) National efforts to better train and educate engineers for the engineering workplace in the 21st Century: to better prepare engineers to face multidisciplinary problems and product design in competitive industries and improve their skills in teamwork and communication. (2) Efforts to improve how engineers build robust understanding, design, and problem solving skills and how to improve the integration and application of their knowledge of math, science, physics and chemistry, to complex engineering problems and analyses. (3) Advances in instructional technology motivate the need to understand the role and impact of instructional technology on engineering instruction. (4) Diversity Issues of Ethnicity and Gender in the engineering program. This course includes both qualitative and quantitative research methods in engineering education, coverage of key research findings, and a course project. One recurring theme throughout the course will be the duality between learning and design: design-based research, design as a pedagogy for integrative learning and the role of cognition and the learning sciences in the practice of engineering design.

Expectations:This graduate course has two units of lecture, plus 1-2 units of studio time. This will be a very active and participatory class, so we expect that each student will prepare and participate in all of the classes and serve as a rapporteur (discussion leader) in at least one of them. As part of the lecture component, all students will be asked to comment on what they got out of each reading in the comment section of the Engineering Pathway digital library. Although not required, I expect each student to sign up for 1-2 hours of the studio component (to make a total of 3-4 units for the course) in order to apply the theory covered in class to a term project.

Course Description:All course readings will be available in digital form. We will make use of the course website on bSpace to post readings and assignments. All of the readings will be catalogued in the Engineering Pathway digital library. This will enable you to make the required comments on the catalog page and link through to get to the resource for reading. You will need to set up an account and register in the Engineering Pathway if you have not already done so (registration can be found in the upper right menu).

Copyright © 2010 Alice Agogino: All Rights Reserved.