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Session 2438

ENGINEERING EDUCATION DIFFERENCIES AND SIMILARITIES AMONG NATIONS Renata Anna GORSKA Cracow University of Technology (Poland) Michigan Technological University (U.S.A.)

ABSTRACT

The curricular content of various graphics courses will undergo changes relative to new methods for the engineering design process in industry. New graphical communication media have had an inevitable impact on the design process and require students and engineers to work in a new environment of virtual reality, in a modeling space rather than on paper space. Does this mean that the old concepts and methods of teaching engineering graphics and descriptive geometry courses should be discarded? After having a half-year experience of teaching introductory engineering graphics at Michigan Technological University (MTU) and previous long-time teaching experience at Cracow University of Technology (CUT), the author’s intent is to have some input into the ongoing discussion in the field of engineering graphics education. This paper discusses basic similarities and differences in teaching engineering graphics concepts at the American and Polish universities. Some work from Polish students will also be presented.

INTRODUCTION

The 1997 Mid-Year Conference of the ASEE/EDGD focused on “This Year’s Model” of the engineering graphics curricula. Discussions of this type are particularly valid in the United States, where new ABET criteria are currently being implemented. The Polish Seminar on “Modern Education of Geometry and Engineering Graphics”, which takes place simultaneously with the ASEE annual conference, will provide a special forum for the discussion of the engineering graphics curriculum in Poland for the next century. Educators in the European countries are faced with the same problems as in America and the curricula of the respective courses must change continuously. Educators in the field must follow the general trends in changes in engineering design processes and update the curricula accordingly. Barr [3] states that “the field of engineering design graphics has been a cornerstone in engineering education for over a century.” Ault [2] makes a valuable analysis and comparison of various American graphics courses in terms of content, level and credit. The question is: What does graphics education look like in my home country, at my home university, and is there a significant difference between our countries?

Different surveys have been conducted to help evaluate the different types of graphics courses. We are aware of the fact that a diverse and wide body of knowledge has been covered with a general, common title, engineering graphics. A crucial question was asked by Ault during the Madison conference: Do students still need to understand the concepts of conventional graphics in addition to those needed for a new curriculum in geometric modeling? This basic question should certainly not be left unanswered.

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Gorska, R. A. (1998, June), Engineering Education Differencies And Similarities Among Nations Paper presented at 1998 Annual Conference, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/1-2--7086