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Reality brings excitement to engineering education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1998

LARRY LEIFER  and
SHERI SHEPPARD
LARRY LEIFER
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-4026, U.S.A.
SHERI SHEPPARD
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-4026, U.S.A.
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Abstract

The intellectual content and social activity of engineering product development are a constant source of surprise, excitement, and challenge for engineers. When our students experience product-based-learning (PBL), they experience this excitement (Brereton et al., 1995). They also have fun and perform beyond the limits required for simple grades. We, their teachers, experience these things too. Why, then, are so few students and faculty getting the PBL message? How, then, can we put the excitement back in engineering education? In part, we think this is because of three persistent mistakes in engineering education:

1. We focus on individual students.

2. We focus on engineering analysis versus communication between engineers.

3. We fail to integrate thinking skills in engineering science and engineering practice.

Type
POSITION PAPER
Information
AI EDAM , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , January 1998 , pp. 83 - 86
Copyright
© 1998 Cambridge University Press

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