Design thinking, a methodology for human-centered problem solving, empowers its users to collaborate across disciplines and tackle the world’s biggest challenges. Students are asked to solve problems, but they must also learn to define the problems themselves by working closely with the people for whom they are designing. This focus on the human side of design is vital to create…
I was recently asked to write an open letter giving some advice to the class of graduating engineers this year. You can check out my whole letter here, but I'll share a snippet that got me thinking about what engineering education (mostly) isn't and what it could be: You'll need your creativity and imagination every bit as much as…
Tomorrow, October 16th 2013, at 8 pm EST, we'll join Jeff Shelton, aka 'Sheltoneer', a mechanical/industrial engineer with a passion for telling the lesser-known stories of the engineering profession and in improving engineering education, on the #BigBeacon twitter chat to hear why he believes that engineers would benefit from understanding or even adopting the skills and mindset of an…
Welcome to the Big Beacon twitter chat, where we explore ideas and community relevant to the transformation of engineering education every week. Look for hashtag #BigBeacon every Wednesday at 8 pm EST. This week Wednesday September 25th will be a discussion around Engineering Orientation, sometimes called Frosh Week, Freshers Week, or Welcome Week. For many engineering students, it's a…
Welcome back to the Big Beacon twitter chat, where we explore ideas and community relevant to the transformation of engineering education every week. Look for hashtag #BigBeacon every Wednesday at 8 pm EST. We have an exciting lineup of guest moderators and topics for the fall semester, starting off with our discussion with Sal Alajek, B.Eng., Portfolio Manager at Engineers…
Students, educators, engineers & #STEM professionals, and engineering & #STEM employers, join us for the last #BigBeacon twitter chat of the summer on Wednesday, 24 July 2013 at 8pm Eastern. The session will be a wide-ranging reflection on the state of engineering education and for those who participated in earlier sessions, it will be an To somewhat. This cheap antibiotics…
Please join us at 8 pm EST on Wednesday May 29th on twitter, hashtag #BigBeacon for our weekly twitter chat. This week's topic is Rigor in Engineering Education. "Look to the left, look to the right. One of you will not be here at the end of this year." Thus began the engineering education experience of many of today's practicing…
John Bennett recently blogged (here) about the now weekly #BigBeacon twitter chat, but we've gotten some inquiries about this, and many people don't know what a twitter chat is. This post gives a little tutorial on twitter and twitter chatting and invites students, educators, engineers, and engineering employers to join in on Wednesday evenings at 8pm Eastern using hashtag #BigBeacon.…