Transformation of engineering education is taking place all over the world, and sometimes initiatives are particularly energetic far away from the usual suspects in North America. Big Beacon Radio host Dave Goldberg is joined by two engineering deans from Brazil, Irineu Gianesi from Insper in Sao Paulo, a small private startup co-located with an established business program, and Alessandro Moreira…
Many of the examples of successful higher education transformation take place at small campuses started from scratch or in relatively small extant departments, units, or campuses. One important exception to the rule is Purdue University's Polytechnic in which the former College of Technology has been working for three years to become explicitly student centered, competency based, and transdisciplinary as ways…
The same forces at work bringing change to engineering education and higher education, more generally, are at work at the primary and secondary levels the world over. In this episode, join host Dave Goldberg and guest commentator Mark Somerville (Olin College) for a wide-ranging and expansive conversation with Harvard's Tony Wagner concerning the imperatives for education in the 21st century.…
When conversations turn to reforming or transforming higher education, weighty tomes are written, groups of faculty & administrators assemble, and new plans are made and executed, often without consulting or involving a single student. In recent times, business has gotten better at listening to the "voice of the customer," and in higher ed the student is customer, product, process, and…
Technology has opened many doors to new kinds of educational media. Podcasts and live internet radio, such as Big Beacon Radio, are among these relatively new kinds of media, and in this episode, host Dave Goldberg interviews Jeff Shelton, producer and co-host of The Engineering Commons, a regular podcast on topics of interest to engineers and technologists, to explore some…
We live in a time of great bounty in the social sciences and neurosciences in which once mysteries of the mind are being revealed in greater detail in ways that can be acted upon in both practical and educational settings. In this episode, host Dave Goldberg interviews consultant, engineer, author, and educator Stuart G. Walesh about his new book "Introduction…
The idea that we get more of a behavior when it is externally rewarded or reinforced is built into many organizational processes and educational institutions and is often treated as axiomatic, but studies going back to the early 1970s have firmly called this into question. Today, businesses and schools are reassessing many of their routine practices in the light of…
Social labs bring together stakeholders with different, even opposing, points of view in a practical effort to promote systemic change. Show host Dave Goldberg, recently witnessed one session of a social lab called the Engineering Change Lab in Toronto, Ontario that brought together public officials, educators, engineering practitioners, and engineering professional organizations in an effort to bring about substantive change…
Increased specialization and expertise have been hallmarks of both higher education and commerce for many centuries. And this game plan worked sufficiently well until information technology facilitated low-cost integration across disciplines in new ways. The resulting misalignments and disruptions are felt in corporations as much as universities, and both struggle to find new leadership, new institutional structures, and new underlying…
Higher education continues to face many challenges. Protests have increased on campus. Costs continue to rise. Enrollments continue to decline, and substantive change continues to elude much of the academy. In this show, host Dave Goldberg is joined by Mark Somerville of Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering and Big Beacon Radio program assistant Emma Schoenfelner to look back over…