From the Ground Up: Remaking Engineering Education for the 21st Century
Richard K. Miller, Ph.D. President Emeritus and Professor
Needham, Massachusetts Jerome C. Hunsaker Visiting Professor
Visiting Professor Annual Conference 2020 Royal Academy of Engineering Virtual Conference November 25, 2020 F.W. Olin Foundation Timeline • 1997 – Charter • 1999 – First employee • 2000 – Founding Faculty, begin campus construction • 2001 – Olin Partner Year Franklin W. Olin • 2002 – first courses taught • 2006 – first commencement “There is a lot of unhappiness about the way engineering is taught today…” Lawrence W. Milas, President, F.W. Olin Foundation, Founding Chairman, Olin College Board of Trustees L.W. Milas Joseph Bordogna NSF John Prados Engineering Education ABET Coalitions Program Criteria 2000 “Olin College is intended to be different, not for the mere sake of being different, but in order to become an important and constant contributor to the advancement of engineering education in America and throughout the world,…” Founding Precepts, Olin College
Olin College is intended to become an education laboratory. The Role of Olin College
Higher Education
Olin College
No Tenure, No Academic Departments, $100k Merit Scholarships, Everything has an Expiration Date Lessons Learned from Experimentation Olin Partner Year
• Students are much more capable of independent learning than we think
• Engineering is NOT a body of knowledge—it is a PROCESS
• Working in teams can create a “momentum of learning”
• Focusing on problems that matter, learning in context, and collaborating in teams can build both competence and mindset Features of the Olin Model Today
• 50% women • Candidates Weekends • 25-35 Design-Build Projects + Start/Run Business • SCOPE – 2 semester Corporate Capstone ($55k/team) • EXPO – stand and deliver every semester • Passionate Pursuits • Design Thinking + Intrinsic Motivation • Integrated Learning in Context “An engineer is a person who envisions what has never been and does whatever it takes to make it happen—to make a better world”
Olin College produces “Engineering Stem Cells!”
Olin College
Fig. 3 The 10 Institutions Most Frequently Identified as the “Current Leaders” in Engineering Education Some Global Observations The Future of Higher Education Yeats: Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire! TIME KNOWLEDGE MAKER INNOVATION ECONOMY ECONOMY ECONOMY imitate content perfect ideas
Sage on Stage Guide on Side Peers and Mentors?
Rows of seats Small groups Intrinsic motivation, with Blackboard with Maker Projects Design Thinking?
What you Know What you can Do What you Conceive Why education must change
Impact of Technology and an Existential Threat!! Why education must change
• Global, Complex, Multidisciplinary Challenges • Security, Sustainability, Health, Enhancing Life • Unintended Consequences, systems thinking • Coupled Scientific-Social-Economic-Political-Religious • Need New Kind of Education for 21st Century Our traditional approach to higher education may be actually preventing us from producing innovators! Definitions Creativity – the process of generating original ideas and insights
Inventiveness - the process of generating original ideas and insights that have value
Innovation - the process or generating original ideas and insights that have value and then implementing them in ways that change the way people live
Profound Innovation – an innovation so profound that no one can remember life before it was introduced Broader View of Innovation
Feasibility Viability
Engineering Business and and Science Economics
INNOVATION
Desirability
Psychology, Arts, Humanities, etc. No amount of emphasis on narrow specialized courses will produce the innovators we need! 21st century Innovators require more than specialized knowledge!
Attitude:
More often than not, your attitude* determines your altitude in life
*not your aptitude
“Motivation almost always beats raw talent,” Norm Augustine, 2016 Importance of Mindset! Attitudes, Behaviors, and Motivations:
• Collaborative Mindset Educate to Innovate • Entrepreneurial Mindset • Interdisciplinary Mindset • Global Mindset • Ethical Mindset Capacity, Capability, Competitiveness
Employability Skills
Innovation Excellence Lessons from the COVID Experience
• Learning is not a place but an activity • Remote learning can be very effective: engagement is the key • But—remote learning poorly addresses social and emotional objectives (Belonging, Teamwork, Angela Duckworth) • Making and building online present significant challenges • Access to reliable quality online resources amplifies inequality
But it’s not just about online learning
• The need for Critical Thinking (popularity of conspiracy theories!) • The importance of Truth (“well, a lot of people agree with me…”) • Disregard for Science and Scientific Process (trust in vaccines?) • Unprecedented public disapproval of all of higher education(!) “Making universities and engineering schools exciting, creative, adventurous, rigorous, demanding, and empowering milieus is more important than specifying curricular details,”
Dr. Charles Vest, former President of MIT and of the US National Academy of Engineering.
Example: UOCD –using engineering to build identity, agency, and purpose
- Human-centered design - Begins with people, ends with people - Design thinking process - Empathy and intrinsic motivation - Agency and initiative as a natural act - Purpose as a result of changing lives