Ep. 20 - Think Like an Entrepreneur, Act Like a CEO We live in a time of increasing job uncertainty and instability, and navigating a path through such changing times is made even more difficult because practices and habits of success are themselves unsettled. Against this backdrop, Coach Beverly E. Jones has written a new book, "Think Like an Entrepreneur, Act…
Ep. 7 -An Interview with MOOC Pioneer Barb Oakley Since the early days of the university in the 11th century, professors have lectured increasingly large numbers of passive and often bored students. With the advent of educational technology (EdTech) and massive open online courses (MOOCs), the possibility for scaling both the benefits and difficulties of higher education has been received…
Ep. 6 -Lessons from 'A Whole New Engineer' for the Transformation of Higher Education When educators think about transforming higher education they almost immediately start with modifications in content, curriculum, and pedagogy, but a recent book suggests that this approach is fundamentally flawed. Join the writing team of A Whole New Engineer: The Coming Revolution in Engineering Education, Mark Somerville…
Ep. 3 - John Kotter: Leading Change in Higher Education Organizations are facing unprecedented calls for change, higher education included, yet leading change in established organizations is a daunting task. One of the keenest architects and practitioners of effective change leadership processes and practices is John Kotter, Harvard Business School professor emertitus and Chairman of Kotter International. In this episode,…
Over the last few decades, much time and energy has gone toward reform efforts in engineering education. This work has yielded a great deal of insight into the relative effectiveness of different teaching approaches, and has led to calls for the adoption of experimentally validated pedagogies in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). What the work hasn’t addressed as much, though, is one key fundamental question: What are the underlying values in engineering education?
We need to address values because they are critical for enabling real change in engineering education. After all, if you try to make a change in pedagogy or content without addressing the underlying value system, you are likely to fail, as value systems are the social equivalent of immune systems. Additionally, the values we hold greatly affect the experience students have, and, accordingly, who they become.
Following are four core values — or pillars for reform — we need to address when discussing engineering education.
I just spent a beautiful day with hundreds of amazing Junior Enterprise students at the 2012 Junior Enterprise World Congress (JEWC2012) in Paraty, Brazil south of Rio de Janeiro. I was privileged to be able to give two talks at the conference, and you can see the powerpoint deck of the shorter of the two presentations, Three Steps Junior Enterprise &…