Models and Modeling in Engineering Education: Designing Experiences for All Students Review

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(More customer reviews)Among new ideas emerging from the recent resurgence of interest in research on engineering education, model eliciting activities have caught my interest. Why? Comments from employers and my fellow academics reveal a common belief that many engineering graduates lack confidence in their knowledge of engineering, science and mathematics fundamentals. What are the fundamentals? Most of us would assert that the fundamentals are concepts that underpin all engineering disciplines. Students are expected to learn these in the first year or two of their studies but many manage to pass their exams without, seemingly, having grasped these fundamental concepts.
Any research that aims to significantly improve student learning of science, mathematics and engineering fundamentals is therefore of great interest to educators. Most research is reported in journal and conference papers where the really interesting detail has to be edited out to satisfy page limits. Therefore, it is a rare treat to see a research project exposed in sufficient detail by a large group of people so that we can see it in a number of different perspectives.
Clearly the results did not align with early expectations: the project started with the hope of improving gender disparities in engineering courses. The results seemed to indicate similar responses by female students as have been seen in other engineering education contexts. Like many other research projects on gender issues in engineering, these results add weight to the idea that our current ways of thinking about gender issues have missed the point. Despite the best efforts of many talented researchers, we seem to be making little progress. However, some of the best ideas in human evolution have come out of frustration when many attempts to make changes have resulted in failure.
The book raises more questions than answers: such is the nature of good research. The authors claim that model eliciting activities would facilitate student learning for two reasons: students work in groups, and students build models based on open-ended problem statements rather than learning theory and then solving practice problems by themselves, the traditional approach for teaching engineering fundamentals. Does this facilitate student learning? The question remains to be answered definitively, especially in later years of the programme. How do the students performances in higher years of the course reflect this kind of learning in the first year?
This is a valuable book because it presents so much of what was done at a level of detail sufficient for others to build on this research. Definitely recommended for graduate students and researchers in engineering education.

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Few research-based resources make engagement in engineering education reform and research practical for current and future educators.Yet, engineering educators are under immense pressure to address a wide variety of educational goals that extend well beyond the traditional student learning of engineering science and design. The now familiar ABET Criterion 3 a though k has placed the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of every engineering faculty member to ensure that our graduates have abilities in the areas of problem solving in complex engineering settings, teaming and communication and understandings in the areas of ethics, global and societal impact, and contemporary issues.Engineering educators must also concern themselves with recruitment and retention of a diverse student population.Creating learning experiences and environments that encourage and support the success of all students is a priority for engineering education reform. This book is primarily being written for current and future engineering educators and researchers.The focus is on the design, development, implementation, and study of a special category of open-ended problems - the model-eliciting activity.These are realistic problems with engineering content and contexts designed to tap the strengths of all students while providing hooks to address simultaneously other educational goals.As problem solving is at the heart of engineering education and practice, it is a theme of wide appeal to engineering educators.The aims of this book are to (1) provide engineering faculty with practical tools for creating, implementing, and assessing the use of open-ended problems that meet a variety of educational goals, (2) facilitate future collaborations between engineering and education, (3) forward engineering education as a scholarly discipline by providing a resource with which to inform and teach future educators and researchers. The book describes how incorporating mathematical modeling activities and projects, that are designed to reflect authentic engineering experience, into engineering classes has the potential to enhance and tap the diverse strengths of students who come from a variety of backgrounds. Based on the experience of a cadre of engineering and education professors who were at Purdue University during a major curriculum reform effort, this book provides a case study of the Purdue experience, which in part launched the historical beginning of the Department of Engineering Education, the first program in the United States. The reader will be provided with critical activities and tools designed during the project, and the book will be written in a way to help the reader adapt the work to their own situations.