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Session 3253

Professional Development and Collaborative Teaching in an Undergraduate Engineering Curriculum: A Case Study from the University of Virginia

Mark A. Shields, John P. O'Connell School of Engineering and Applied Science University of Virginia

Since early 1995 a small committee of University of Virginia engineering faculty and staff has worked to define professional development values and objectives and to determine how they can be fostered in an undergraduate engineering curriculum. The committee developed a framework document outlining the key attributes and experiences of professional development (PD); met with alumni, business, faculty, and other representatives to solicit their input to the document; and, starting in fall 1995, pursued teaching collaborations to implement aspects of the professional development vision outlined in the document.

Part I of this paper outlines the professional development framework and how it relates to ABET 2000. Part II shows how we attempted to achieve the objectives in first year courses of our School through an unusual collaborative teaching effort in fall 1996 to cultivate PD among first- year undergraduates. Part III gives a model for assessment of how well the collaboration was able to fulfill its PD objectives. The paper concludes by examining some broader lessons learned from UVa's model of professional development in undergraduate education.

I. Foundations and Benchmarks of Professional Development: The UVa Model A small committee of University of Virginia engineering faculty and staff began meeting and collaborating in early 1995 to define how an undergraduate engineering curriculum could foster the values and objectives of professional development (PD). The committee developed a framework document outlining the key attributes and experiences of PD; met with alumni, business, faculty, and other representatives to solicit their input to the document; and, starting in fall 1995, pursued teaching collaborations to implement aspects of the PD vision outlined in the document. The collaborations of 1995 are described in Pfaffenberger et al.1

The internal document, “Foundations and Benchmarks of Professional Development,” identified seven “attributes” and six “experiences” which represent the key dimensions of PD that our undergraduate engineering curriculum should cultivate. Although these attributes and experiences were formulated before any of the participants were aware of the ABET 2000 criteria, we believe that our expressions are quite compatible with ABET 2000. Table 1 lists both the 11 outcomes of Criteria 3 of ABET 20002 and the UVa PD attributes. The ABET criteria connected to the attributes are given. Comparison of the wordings shows that our PD framework is more comprehensive and possibly more ambitious.

It should also be recognized that we anticipated the demands of ABET 2000 for the formulation of objectives and for the educational process to achieve them. Our attributes were developed by

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Shields, M. A., & O'Connell, J. P. (1997, June), Professional Development And Collaborative Teaching In An Undergraduate Engineering Curriculum: A Case Study From The University Of Virginia Paper presented at 1997 Annual Conference, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 10.18260/1-2--6747