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Micro-project: A Curricular Reform in Maharashtra State, India

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Conference

2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Tampa, Florida

Publication Date

June 15, 2019

Start Date

June 15, 2019

End Date

June 19, 2019

Conference Session

ERM Technical Session 14: Thinking about the Engineering Curriculum

Tagged Division

Educational Research and Methods

Page Count

17

DOI

10.18260/1-2--33104

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/33104

Download Count

18781

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Paper Authors

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Joshua Earnest National Institute of Technical Teachers' Training and Research (NITTTR), Bhopal, India

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Dr.Joshua Earnest is Professor of Electrical Engineering at the National Institute of Technical Teachers Training and Research (NITTTR), Bhopal. He is having 34 years experience in engineering education related areas, teaching, training and research. Additionally, he has an industrial experience of about 6 years. He has also been instrumental in ushering in several reforms in technical education systems at institutional, state and national levels such as curricular reforms related to engineering education in the Indian states of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Goa. He has authored a book on ‘Competency-Based Curriculum Development’, published 2 modules in engineering education related areas along with other colleagues of NITTTR Bhopal. He has also published several international papers related to engineering education over the past several years. He has also authored 2 popular books on wind power technology - one focused for the industry and the other for the university system. He was the first professor in India to offer online training programs for inservice engineering teachers in the areas wind power and renewable energy since 2005.

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shashi kant Gupta National Institute of Technical Teachers' Training and Research, Bhopal, India

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Dr Shashi Kant Gupta is BE and M.Tech, in Electrical Engineering from NIT Bhopal (MANIT), India and Ph.D. in Education from Newcastle University UK. he worked as Power Transformer Designer at BHEL Bhopal for 10 years. For last 25 years he is working in the area of students;assessment and evaluation and curriculum development at NITTTR Bhopal. He has introduced many reforms in technical education system in the state of Gujarat and Maharashtra. At present he is in-charge of National Resource Centre for Students' Assessment and Evaluation.

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Susan Sunny Mathew National Institute of Technical Teachers' Training and Research, Bhopal, India

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Susan S. Mathew, is an Associate Professor. Presently she is also the Associate Dean (Academics and Research) and Head, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering. In NITTTR, for the last 29 years, she has been involved in outcome-based curriculum design, teaching postgraduate students, content updating and laboratory management programmes, induction training of new teachers, research in areas of technical education, projects concerned with the development of instructional material for polytechnics, engineering colleges as well as industries, etc. Prior to NITTTR, she was working as a lecturer in MANIT, Bhopal and SGSITS, Indore and was involved in teaching undergraduate & postgraduate students.

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Sthuthi Rachel Joshua Ramrao Adik Institute of Technology

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Sthuthi Rachel is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electronics Engineering in Ramrao Adik Institute of Technology, Nerul, Navi-Mumbai, affiliated to the Mumbai University, India. She has a total of 6 years teaching experience in undergraduate electronics engineering programs and continues to guide different types of electronics engineering projects. She is also associated with research groups and projects in areas pertaining to new and renewable engineering technologies in the area of Electronics Engineering as well as engineering education. She has published papers, both in the area of engineering as well as related to engineering education systems.

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Abstract

Micro–Project: A Curricular Reform in Maharashtra State, India

Key words: Micro–project, Competency-focused Outcome-Based Curriculum (OBC), course outcomes (COs), skills, assessment, portfolio.

This ‘evidence-based practice' paper relates to an innovation in engineering education programs in the Western region of India. It endeavors to discuss the concept, design, implementation and evaluation of the micro–project, the one of its kind innovation introduced for the first time in the Indian engineering education system. The curricula of Indian education systems in general, and Indian engineering education system in particular, have often been criticized for the lack of provision of sufficient practical work and experiential learning which is much required to prepare the students for the world-of-work. They often do not get opportunities to work in real life or near-to-real life situations, apart from their final year major projects. To minimize this deficiency, the authors evolved a ‘Competency–Focused Outcome–Based Curriculum’ model for engineering education programs. This new curriculum model is implemented for the first time in 17 different engineering diploma programs, which is being offered simultaneously in over 452 polytechnic colleges geographically spread out across the whole state of Maharashtra in the Western part of India, where more than 75,000 students are assessed every semester. Apart from other innovations introduced in this curriculum model, the most significant one i.e. ‘micro–project’, is being discussed in this paper. This micro–project is embedded in each course of all the 17 engineering diploma programs. As there are about 30 courses in a normal three-year program, every student gets opportunities to work in about 30 different groups for undertaking 30 different micro–projects depending upon the elective courses being chosen by him or her. With continuous feedback from the teachers, every student has to generate a micro–project report (apart from the model/product) at end of each course which serves as an indirect tool to assess the attainment of the course outcomes and competency of the respective course. As the students progress through the different courses of the respective engineering programs, they get ample opportunities to integrate different types of skills-sets very much required by the industry, thereby enhancing their employability levels.

Earnest, J., & Gupta, S. K., & Mathew, S. S., & Joshua, S. R. (2019, June), Micro-project: A Curricular Reform in Maharashtra State, India Paper presented at 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Tampa, Florida. 10.18260/1-2--33104

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