IS IT TIME FOR A NEW PEDAGOGY FOR ENGINEERING EDUCATION?

George A. Hazelrigg

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Conference: ASEE Southeast Section Conference
Location: Arlington, Virginia
Publication Date: March 12, 2023
Start Date: March 12, 2023
End Date: March 14, 2023
Conference Session: Curriculum Development 2
Tagged Topic: Professional Engineering Education Papers
Page Count: 11
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--45023
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/45023
Download Count: 50

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George A. Hazelrigg Mechanical Engineering Department, George Mason University

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George Hazelrigg obtained a BS and MS in mechanical engineering from Newark College of Engineering (now New Jersey Institute of Technology, NJIT), and MA, MSE, and PhD degrees in aerospace engineering from Princeton University. He worked for 6 years in the aerospace industry at Curtiss-Wright, General Dynamics and the Jet Propulsion Lab, and taught engineering at NJIT, Princeton University, UC San Diego, Polytechnic University, Ajou University in Korea and École de Technologie Supérieure in Montreal. In the early 1970s, he helped to form a consulting company where he worked for seven years. In 1982, he joined the National Science Foundation and, over the next 35 years, ran seven research programs in four different divisions, served as Deputy Division Director and Acting Division Director for the Division of Electrical, Communications and Systems Engineering (ECSE) and the Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI), and oversaw annual research budgets of up to $210 million. In January, 1996, he did a stint as Station Science Leader of the U.S. South Pole Station. For relaxation, he spends his weekends soaring over the Shenandoah Valley, and he is a certified flight instructor in gliders (CFI-G) with over 2,000 total flying hours. He is currently a research faculty member in the ME department of George Mason University doing research on a theory of systems engineering.

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Abstract

IS IT TIME FOR A NEW PEDAGOGY FOR ENGINEERING EDUCATION?

George Hazelrigg Mechanical Engineering Department George Mason University

From the introduction of formal engineering education in the United States through the 1940s, engineering was taught largely in an apprenticeship mode. But, beginning around 1950 and led by MIT, engineering was increasingly taught as an applied science. A major transition took place during the 1960s as engineering faculty moved from an MS-level education backed by several years of industrial experience to a PhD-level education with little or no industrial experience. The focus moved away from design to physics and mathematics, and engineers became known as problem solvers. By the 1990s, design education had all but disappeared from the engineering curriculum. But this led to an outcry from industry that graduating engineers failed to obtain the knowledge and skills demanded of industry. This led ABET to acknowledge that design is a decision-making process, and they required that a design component be a component of all engineering curricula. Today, however, we still refer to engineers as problem solvers, and present design education largely via a capstone design project. The emphasis of the disciplinary courses remains on applied science, whereas design requires decision making, and that is something that we are not teaching. I assert that this is a key failing of current engineering education.

Decisions require three things, alternatives from which to choose, predictions of outcomes for the available alternatives, and preferences over outcomes. Further, all real decisions are made under uncertainty and risk, demanding that engineers have some familiarity of probability theory. Yet, our largely deterministic educational system rarely includes the theory of prediction and virtually excludes discussion of preference theory. Or graduates leave with very little formal training in decision making.

The problem here is that decision makers typically earn 50-200 percent more than problem solvers. So, our failure to educate our students in decision making is robbing them of their earning potential and likewise impacting us and our potential earnings. Worse yet, it leaves students both bored in their studies of science in the abstract and at a loss as to how they might apply their new knowledge. I believe that decision making could be integrated into the engineering science courses in a way that excites the students, increases retention and gives them a much deeper understanding of design, while not being overly onerous.

Citation
Format

Hazelrigg, G. A. (2023, March), IS IT TIME FOR A NEW PEDAGOGY FOR ENGINEERING EDUCATION? Paper presented at ASEE Southeast Section Conference, Arlington, Virginia. 10.18260/1-2--45023

TY - CPAPER
AB - IS IT TIME FOR A NEW PEDAGOGY FOR ENGINEERING EDUCATION?

George Hazelrigg
Mechanical Engineering Department
George Mason University

From the introduction of formal engineering education in the United States through the 1940s, engineering was taught largely in an apprenticeship mode. But, beginning around 1950 and led by MIT, engineering was increasingly taught as an applied science. A major transition took place during the 1960s as engineering faculty moved from an MS-level education backed by several years of industrial experience to a PhD-level education with little or no industrial experience. The focus moved away from design to physics and mathematics, and engineers became known as problem solvers. By the 1990s, design education had all but disappeared from the engineering curriculum. But this led to an outcry from industry that graduating engineers failed to obtain the knowledge and skills demanded of industry. This led ABET to acknowledge that design is a decision-making process, and they required that a design component be a component of all engineering curricula. Today, however, we still refer to engineers as problem solvers, and present design education largely via a capstone design project. The emphasis of the disciplinary courses remains on applied science, whereas design requires decision making, and that is something that we are not teaching. I assert that this is a key failing of current engineering education.

Decisions require three things, alternatives from which to choose, predictions of outcomes for the available alternatives, and preferences over outcomes. Further, all real decisions are made under uncertainty and risk, demanding that engineers have some familiarity of probability theory. Yet, our largely deterministic educational system rarely includes the theory of prediction and virtually excludes discussion of preference theory. Or graduates leave with very little formal training in decision making.

The problem here is that decision makers typically earn 50-200 percent more than problem solvers. So, our failure to educate our students in decision making is robbing them of their earning potential and likewise impacting us and our potential earnings. Worse yet, it leaves students both bored in their studies of science in the abstract and at a loss as to how they might apply their new knowledge. I believe that decision making could be integrated into the engineering science courses in a way that excites the students, increases retention and gives them a much deeper understanding of design, while not being overly onerous.

AU - George A. Hazelrigg
CY - Arlington, Virginia
DA - 2023/03/12
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - IS IT TIME FOR A NEW PEDAGOGY FOR ENGINEERING EDUCATION?
UR - https://peer.asee.org/45023
DO - 10.18260/1-2--45023
ER -