Abstract
Once again, reform of engineering education is in the air. In the United States, the National Academy of Engineering has published two reports, one specifying characteristics of the engineer of our times (National Academy of Engineering, 2004) and one calling for changes in the ways young engineers are educated (National Academy of Engineering, 2005). A report sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (Sheppard et al., 2008) calls for overhauling the design of engineering education, a national engineering leader has independently called for significant reform (Duderstadt, 2008), and the editor of this volume and his colleagues have called for the education of a more holistic engineer (Grasso and Martinelli 2007, Grasso et al., 2008).
Portions of this chapter are excerpted from an extended abstract, Goldberg, D. E. (2008a, b). What engineers don’t learn and why they don’t learn it: and how philosophy might be able to help. Abstracts of the 2008 Workshop on Philosophy and Engineering, 85–86. http://tinyurl.com/cma49h
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Bush, V. (1945). Science the endless frontier. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.
Chronicle of Higher Education (2008). Almanac Issue.
Dobrovolny, J. (1996). A history of the Department of General Engineering: 1868–1995. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Duderstadt, J. (2008). Engineering for a changing world (Technical Report). Millennium Project, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.
Fagan, B. M. (2003). Human prehistory and the first civilizations [video DVDs & lecture notes]. Chantilly, VA: Teaching Company.
Florida, R. (2002). The rise of the creative class. New York: Basic Books.
Friedman, T. (2005). The world is flat: A brief history of the 21st century. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Goldberg, D. E. (1996). Change in engineering education: One myth, two scenarios, and three foci. Journal of Engineering Education, 85(2), 107–116.
Goldberg, D. E. (2006). The entrepreneurial engineer. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Goldberg, D. E. (2007a). The creativity imperative & the technology professional of the future [ppt file]. http://tinyurl.com/59enwe
Goldberg, D. E. (2007b). Why philosophy? Why now? Engineering responds to the crisis of a creative era. Abstracts of the 2007 Workshop on Philosophy and Engineering, 35–36. http://tinyurl.com/dmtsa4
Goldberg, D. E. (2009a). Engineering rigor and its discontents: Philosophical reflection as curative to math-physics envy. Manuscript submitted for publication (SPT 2009). http://tinyurl.com/d88p8c
Goldberg, D. E. (2009b). What engineers don’t learn and why they don’t learn it: A cold war curriculum in a creative world & how to fix it [ppt file]. http://tinyurl.com/auojct
Goldberg, D., Cangellaris, A., Loui, M., Price, R., and Litchfield, B. (2008a), iFoundry: Curriculum reform without tears. Proceedings of the 2008 ASEE Annual Conference and Exhibition, AC-2008–1667. http://tinyurl.com/c4oaqu
Goldberg, D., Cangellaris, A., Loui, M., Price, R., and Litchfield, B. (2008b), Preparing for substantial change: The iFoundry initiative and collective learning. Proceedings of the 2008 ASEE IL/IN Section Conference. http://tinyurl.com/c4eoso
Grasso, D., Burkins, M. B., Helble, J, and Martinelli, D. (2008, August/September). Dispelling the myths of holistic engineering. PE Magazine, 27–28.
Grasso, D., and Martinelli, D. (2007, March 16). Holistic engineering. Chronicle of Higher Education, 53(28), B8.
Grayson, L. P. (1993). The making of an engineer: An illustrated history of engineering education in the United States and Canada. New York: Wiley.
Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering (2008). Senior Engineering Project Course Description. http://www.iese.uiuc.edu/ge494/course-description.html
Kasser, J. L. (2006). Philosophy of science [audio CDs & lecture notes]. Chantilly, VA: Teaching Company.
Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
National Academy of Engineering (2004). The engineer of 2020: Visions of engineering in the new century. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
National Academy of Engineering (2005). Educating the engineer of 2020: Adapting engineering education to the new century. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
Pink, D. (2005). A whole new mind: Moving from the information age to the conceptual age. New York: Riverhead Books.
Rosenberg, J. F. (1984). The practice of philosophy: A handbook for beginners (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner. New York: Basic Books.
Sheppard, S. D., Macatangay, K. Colby, A., and Sullivan, W. M. (2008). Educating engineers: Designing for the future of the field. New York: Jossey-Bass.
Solomon, R. C., and Higgins, K. M. (1996). A short history of philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press.
Spalter-Roth, R., N. Fortenberry, and Lovitts, B. (2007). The acceptance and diffusion of innovation: A cross-disciplinary approach to instructional and curricular change in engineering. Washington, DC: American Sociological Association.
Toulmin, S. E. (1958). The uses of argument. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Toulmin, S. E. (2001). Return to reason. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Vincenti, W. (1990). What engineers know and how they know it. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Zarefsky, D. (2001). Argumentation: The study of effective reasoning [video VHS & lecture notes]. Chantilly, VA: Teaching Company.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Goldberg, D.E. (2010). The Missing Basics and Other Philosophical Reflections for the Transformation of Engineering Education. In: Grasso, D., Burkins, M.B. (eds) Holistic Engineering Education. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1393-7_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1393-7_13
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-1392-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-1393-7
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)