Abstract
With increasing globalization and twenty-first-century trends such as the personalization and commoditization of technology, individuals are required to refresh and adapt their competencies continuously and keep their knowledge current. The changing environment and the diverse learning needs of individuals require a change in the existing paradigm of engineering education. What is needed is a more flexible, learner-centric paradigm that, among other things, instills in individuals the habit of being self-directed lifelong learners. The proposed approach to addressing the changing needs of engineering education is based on mass customization. In this chapter, the development of this approach over the last decade is traced. Other foundational principles in this approach include focusing on competency-based learning rather than one-size-fits-all content delivery, shifting the role of the instructors to orchestrators of learning, shifting the role of students to active learners, shifting the focus from the lower cognitive levels of learning to the upper levels, creating learning communities, embedding flexibility in courses, leveraging diversity, making students aware of the learning process, scaffolding, and enabling students to make decisions where all information may not be available. In this chapter, an overview of the implementation of this approach in graduate-level engineering design courses is presented for courses offered in three different settings, (a) mass customization of content within a single course, (b) mass collaboration of students in distributed settings, and (c) jointly offered cross-institutional courses with distance learning students. The implementation details include technical themes for the different courses, the course architecture (activities and their interdependencies), the assignments, learning modules, team formation, end-of-semester deliverables, and self-assessment.
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
Ahmed, S., Xiao, M., Panchal, J. H., Allen, J. K., & Mistree, F. (2012). Managing dilemmas embodied in 21st century engineering. Paper presented at the ASME International Design Conference on Design Education, Chicago, Illinois, Paper number: DETC2012-71168.
Allan, M., & Chisholm, C. (2008). Achieving engineering competencies in the global information society through the integration of on-campus and workplace environments. Industry and Higher Education Journal, 22(3), 1–8.
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman.
Bertus, C., Khosrojerdi, A., Panchal, J. H., Allen, J. K., & Mistree, F. (2012). Identifying dilemmas embodied in 21st century engineering. Paper presented at the ASME International Conference on Design Education, Chicago, Paper Number DETC2012-71163.
Bloom, B. S. (1956). Taxonomy of education objectives, handbook I: The cognitive domain. New York: David McKay.
Bransford, J., Brown, A., & Cocking, R. (1999). How people learn: Brain, mind experience and school. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Christensen, C. M., & Raynor, M. E. (2003). The innovator’s solution: Creating and sustaining successful growth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Couture, T. D., Cory, K., Kreycik, C., & Williams, E. (2010). A policymaker’s guide to feed-in-tariff policy design. Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Downey, G. L., Lucena, J. C., Moskal, B. M., Parkhurst, R., Bigley, T., Hayes, C., et al. (2006). The globally competent engineer: Working effectively with people who define problems differently. Journal of Engineering Education, 95, 107–122.
Earnest, J., & Hills, S. (2005). ABET engineering technology criteria and competency based engineering education. Paper presented at the 35th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (pp. 7–12), Indianapolis, Indiana.
Ericsson, K. A. (2006). The influence of experience and deliberate practice on the development of superior expert performance. In K. A. Ericsson, N. Charness, P. Feltovich, & R. R. Hoffman (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance (pp. 685–706). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Ericsson, K. A., Charness, N., Feltovich, P., & Hoffman, R. R. (Eds.). (2009). The Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Feltovich, P. J., Prietula, M. J., & Ericsson, K. A. (2006). Studies of expertise from psychological perspectives. In K. A. Ericsson, N. Charness, P. Feltovich, & R. R. Hoffman (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fisher, E., Biviji, M., & Nair, I. (2011). New perspectives on teaching innovation to engineers an exploration of mental models of innovation experts. Paper presented at the 118th ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Vancouver, BC, Paper Number 2011–2354.
Friedman, T. L. (2005, 4/3/2005). It’s a flat world after all. The New York Times.
Friedman, T. L. (2006). The World is Flat [Updated and Expanded]: A brief history of the twenty-first century. New York: Farrrar, Straus and Giroux.
Friedman, T. L. (2008). Hot, flat and crowded: Why we need a green revolution—And how it can renew America. New York: Gale Cengage.
Gibbs, G. (1981). Teaching students to learn: A student-centered approach. Milton Keynes: The Open University Press.
Halperin, D. (1994). Changing college classrooms. San Francisco, CA: Jossy-Bass Publishers.
Harkins, A., & Moravec, J. (2008). Building a Leapfrog University: Employing the Liberal Skills and Supporting Technologies for Undergraduate Education, University of Minnesota’s Community Wiki, July 2008, from http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2002/2002159.pdf
Hawthorne, B., Sha, Z., Panchal, J. H., & Mistree, F. (2012). Developing competencies for the 21st century engineer. Paper presented at the ASME International Conference on Design Education, Chicago, Illinois, Paper Number DETC2012-71153.
Mistree, F., Panchal, J. H., & Schaefer, D. (2012). Mass-customization: From personalized products to personalized engineering education. In A. Crosnik & Y. Xiong (Eds.), Supply chain management (pp. 149–173). Rijeka, Croatia: INTECH.
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.
National Postsecondary Education Cooperative. (2002). Defining and Assessing Learning: Exploring Competency-Based Initiatives, Report of the National Postsecondary Education Cooperative Working Group on Competency-Based Initiatives in Postsecondary Education, 2002, from http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2002/2002159.pdf
Pine, J. I. (1992). Mass customization: The new frontier in business competition. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Radcliffe, D. F. (2005). Innovation as a meta graduate attribute for engineers. International Journal of Engineering Education, 21(2), 194–199.
Rippel, M., Schaefer, D., Mistree, F., & Panchal, J. H. (2009). Fostering collaborative learning and mass customization of education in a graduate engineering design course. International Journal of Engineering Education, 25(4), 729–744.
Rugarcia, A., Felder, R., Woods, D., & Stice, J. (2000). The future of engineering education: A vision for a new century. Chemical Engineering Education, 34(1), 16–25.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Motivation. Contemporary Education Psychology, 25, 54–67.
Schaefer, D., Panchal, J. H., Thames, J. L., Haroon, S., & Mistree, F. (2012). Innovative design education in a global distance learning setting. International Journal of Engineering Education, 28(2), 381–396.
Senge, P. M. (1990). The fifth discipline. New York: Doubleday.
Siddique, Z., Panchal, J. H., Schaefer, D., Allen, J. K., & Mistree, F. (2012). Competencies for innovating in the 21st century. Paper presented at the ASME International Conference on Design Education, Chicago, Paper Number DETC2012-71170.
Warnick, G. M. (2011). Global competence: Its importance for engineers working in a global environment. Paper presented at the 118th Annual Conference and Exposition, Vancouver, British Columbia, Paper Number 2011-350.
Williams, C., & Mistree, F. (2006). Empowering students to learn how to learn: Mass customization of a graduate engineering design course. International Journal of Engineering Education, 22(6), 1269–1280.
Wulf, W. A., & Fisher, G. M. C. (2002). A makeover for engineering education. Science and Technology, 18(3), 35.
Zimmerman, B. J. (2006). Development and adaption of expertise: The role of self-regulatory processes and beliefs. In K. A. Ericsson, N. Charness, P. Feltovich, & R. R. Hoffman (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Acknowledgements
Janet K. Allen and Farrokh Mistree are a husband and wife team that have developed and team taught several courses together since 1976. Their work is foundational to what is presented in this chapter. The work presented in this chapter is rooted in ME6102 Designing Open Engineering Systems first offered at Georgia Tech in the Winter Quarter of 1993 by Farrokh Mistree. Both Jitesh Panchal and Zahed Siddique were graduate students who took this course and have contributed to its evolution as colleagues in academia. Dirk Schaefer and Jitesh Panchal team taught this course with Farrokh Mistree at Georgia Tech. In 2009, when Farrokh Mistree moved to the University of Oklahoma, the course morphed to AME 5740 Designing for Open Innovation. Jitesh Panchal and Sammy Haroon have been involved in the offering of both ME6102 and AME5740. Sammy’s most notable contribution is the notion of managing dilemmas which now is a foundational construct of both ME6102 and AME5740.
Over the years engineers at several companies have been involved, for example, Procter & Gamble, HP, and MSC Software. Clearly, we have learned from our students. We thank them all.
Farrokh Mistree gratefully acknowledges funding from the L.A. Comp Chair of Engineering and Janet K. Allen gratefully acknowledges funding from the John and Mary Moore Chair of Engineering at the University of Oklahoma.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Mistree, F., Panchal, J.H., Schaefer, D., Allen, J.K., Haroon, S., Siddique, Z. (2014). Personalized Engineering Education for the Twenty-First Century. In: Gosper, M., Ifenthaler, D. (eds) Curriculum Models for the 21st Century. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7366-4_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7366-4_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-7365-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-7366-4
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawEducation (R0)