Asee peer logo

An International Exploration of Electrical and Computer Engineering Education Practices

Download Paper |

Conference

2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Seattle, Washington

Publication Date

June 14, 2015

Start Date

June 14, 2015

End Date

June 17, 2015

ISBN

978-0-692-50180-1

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

Electrical and Computer Engineering Curriculum Design and Evaluation

Tagged Division

Electrical and Computer

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

12

Page Numbers

26.198.1 - 26.198.12

DOI

10.18260/p.23537

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/23537

Download Count

495

Request a correction

Paper Authors

biography

Susan M Lord University of San Diego

visit author page

Susan M. Lord received a B.S. from Cornell University and the M.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford University. She is currently Professor and Chair of Electrical Engineering at the University of San Diego. Her teaching and research interests include electronics, optoelectronics, materials science, first year engineering courses, feminist and liberative pedagogies, engineering student persistence, and student autonomy. Her research has been sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Dr. Lord is a fellow of the ASEE and IEEE and is active in the engineering education community including serving as General Co-Chair of the 2006 Frontiers in Education (FIE) Conference, on the FIE Steering Committee, and as President of the IEEE Education Society for 2009-2010. She is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Education. She and her coauthors were awarded the 2011 Wickenden Award for the best paper in the Journal of Engineering Education and the 2011 Best Paper Award for the IEEE Transactions on Education. In Spring 2012, Dr. Lord spent a sabbatical at Southeast University in Nanjing, China teaching and doing research.

visit author page

biography

Matthew W. Ohland Purdue University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0003-4052-1452

visit author page

Matthew W. Ohland is Professor of Engineering Education at Purdue University. He has degrees from Swarthmore College, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the University of Florida. His research on the longitudinal study of engineering students, team assignment, peer evaluation, and active and collaborative teaching methods has been supported by over $14.5 million from the National Science Foundation and the Sloan Foundation and his team received Best Paper awards from the Journal of Engineering Education in 2008 and 2011 and from the IEEE Transactions on Education in 2011. Dr. Ohland is Chair of the IEEE Curriculum and Pedagogy Committee and an ABET Program Evaluator for ASEE. He was the 2002–2006 President of Tau Beta Pi and is a Fellow of the ASEE and IEEE.

visit author page

biography

Jeffrey E. Froyd Texas A&M University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-4426-2681

visit author page

Dr. Jeffrey E. Froyd is a TEES Research Professor in the Office of Engineering Academic and Student Affairs at Texas A&M University, College Station. He received the B.S. degree in mathematics from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. He was an Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. At Rose-Hulman, he co-created the Integrated, First-Year Curriculum in Science, Engineering and Mathematics, which was recognized in 1997 with a Hesburgh Award Certificate of Excellence. He served as Project Director a National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Education Coalition in which six institutions systematically renewed, assessed, and institutionalized innovative undergraduate engineering curricula. He has authored over 70 papers and offered over 30 workshops on faculty development, curricular change processes, curriculum redesign, and assessment. He has served as a program co-chair for three Frontiers in Education Conferences and the general chair for the 2009 conference. Prof. Froyd is a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), an ABET Program Evaluator, the Editor-in-Chief for the IEEE Transactions on Education, a Senior Associate Editor for the Journal of Engineering Education, and an Associate Editor for the International Journal of STEM Education.

visit author page

biography

Euan Lindsay Charles Sturt University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0003-3266-164X

visit author page

Professor Euan Lindsay is a Mechatronic engineer, a discipline that integrates computers, electronics and physical hardware. Prof Lindsay’s PhD investigated whether remote and simulated access alternatives to the traditional in-person laboratory experience could provide the same learning outcomes for students.

Prof Lindsay’s work in Remote and Virtual laboratory classes has shown that there are significant differences not only in students’ learning outcomes but also in their perceptions of these outcomes, when they are exposed to the different access modes. These differences have powerful implications for the design of remote and virtual laboratory classes in the future, and also provide an opportunity to match alternative access modes to the intended learning outcomes that they enhance.

Prof Lindsay is the Foundation Professor of Engineering at Charles Sturt University. His research interests include engineering education, telecontrol (particularly internet-based telecontrol), artificial neural networks, and rehabilitative technologies for people with sensing impairments.

Prof Lindsay was the 2010 President of the Australasian Association for Engineering Education. He is a Fellow of Engineers Australia, and a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy. Prof Lindsay was the recipient of a 2007 Carrick Award for Australian University Teaching. In 2005 he was named as one of the 30 Most Inspirational Young Engineers in Australia.

visit author page

Download Paper |

Abstract

An International Exploration of Electrical and Computer Engineering Education PracticesTechnological, economic, and social pressures are reshaping higher education, but there islittle consensus on what the future will be. IEEE created a Curricula and PedagogyCommittee (CPC) and charged it with forecasting the future of engineering education ingeneral and specifically to make recommendations regarding the roles that IEEE will play inpreparing for and crafting that future. To gather more information about how members of theengineering education community think about the current state and future directions ofelectrical and computer engineering (ECE) education, the CPC conducted a global survey.Surveys were deployed in July-August 2014 to IEEE members and others who (1) teachundergraduate students, (2) administer a degree program (i.e., Department Chairs), (3) serveas a top-level administrator over all engineering degree programs (i.e., Deans), and (4) workprofessionally in engineering. Survey items address areas including instructional strategies,instructional technologies, assessment strategies, curricula, evaluation of teaching, andpreparation of graduates. With over 2100 respondents, the CPC believes these survey resultscan inform conversations about the future of ECE education. For this paper, the CPC willfocus on responses from the 827 academic respondents. For example, when asked aboutteaching and assessing problem solving, moral/ethical reasoning, and design, respondentswere most likely to teach problem solving and design. Lecture was the most popular teachingpractice employed for these topics. Ethics/moral reasoning was unlikely to be assessed at all.Locally developed tests and instruments were used most often for assessing problem solvingand design (68.8% and 43.7%, respectively), but the most common approach to assessingmoral/ethical reasoning was not to assess it. These and other results about teaching andassessment will be discussed. Results about evaluating teaching quality will also bepresented. In addition, the CPC will consider responses from the 909 industry andgovernment practitioners about preparation of entry-level engineers and satisfaction with thelevel of technical competency to practice for recent graduates and entry level engineers.Respondents from all initiatives will be considered regarding initiatives to ensure that entry-level engineers are prepared and facilitate collaborative activities between academia andindustry. Results will illuminate strengths and opportunities to improve ECE graduates aswell as potential directions to enact these improvements.

Lord, S. M., & Ohland, M. W., & Froyd, J. E., & Lindsay, E. (2015, June), An International Exploration of Electrical and Computer Engineering Education Practices Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.23537

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2015 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015