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Time and again various expert panels/ committees have recommended that in engineering education we must bring in changes to prepare our future engineers to meet modern day challenges. They are: |
* Strengthen understanding of Fundamentals
* Teach more about “actual job work” for Engineering Design and Operations, including Quality Management
* * Cover more subject matter in the frontier areas of Engineering
* Provide training in Oral and Written Communication and Team Work Skills
* Provide training in Critical and Creative Thinking Skills and Problem Solving Methods
* Produce graduates who are conversant with Engineering Ethics and who can make connection between technology and society
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The above is an impressive wish list which will be difficult to accomplish.
If, for example, courses continue to be confined to single subject (Heat Transfer in one course; Thermodynamics in Environment Engineering, Technical Writing in another etc.); it will take six or seven years to produce engineers who have desired proficiency in the fundamentals and are conversant with methods of modern Engineering Practice; who are culturally literate, and skilled in communication. If students are assigned only well defined problems, they will never gain the skills needed to tackle and solve challenging multidisciplinary problems that call for critical judgment and creativity. Finally, even if nothing new is added to the existing curriculum, it will take more than five-six years unless more efficient and effective ways to cover the subjects can be found.
Therefore, the solution is to find better teaching methods.
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The new method to be finalized has to be chosen to meet the following criteria: |
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They are relevant to engineering education
They can be implemented within the context of the ordinary engineering classrooms
Most engineering professors should feel reasonably comfortable with them after a little practice
They are consistent with modern theories of learning and have been tried and found effective by many educators
Instructional objectives may involve skills that cover a broad spectrum of complexity and difficulty
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The taxonomy of educational objectives [developed by B.S. Bloom and D.R. Krathwohl], taxonomy of educational objectives, Handbook I; Cognitive Domain*] defines a hierarchy of six levels: |
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Knowledge – repeating memorized information
Comprehension – paraphrasing text, explaining concepts in jargon – free terms
Application - Applying course material to solve straightforward problems
Analysis – Solving complex problem, developing process models and simulation, trouble shooting equipment and system problems
Synthesis – Designing experiments, devises, processes and products
Evaluation – Choosing from among alternative and justifying the choice, optimizing processes, making judgements about the environmental impact of engineering decisions, resolving ethical dilemmas
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Levels one to three are commonly known as lower level skills and level four to six are higher level skills. Most undergraduate engineering courses today focus on level three skills.
An analysis of one to four year engineering program showed that 2345 out of 2952 problems assigned (79%) were level three or lower .On the other hand probable demands on the engineering graduates in the coming decades will involve skills at levels four to six.
We at DIMAT have evolved a new way of teaching to fulfill the above six objectives by incorporating the four main steps in our teaching methodology |
1. Formulate and publish clear instructional objectives
2. Establish relevance of course material and teach inductively
3. Balance concrete and abstract information in every course
4. Promote active learning in the class room
5. Use cooperative learning
6. Give challenging but fair test
7. Convey the essence of concern about the student’s learning |
We are confident that our engineering students, when they graduate and enter their respective organisations, will be better equipped to face the Industry, National and Global challenges. |
Levels one to three are commonly known as lower level skills and level four to six are higher level skills. Most undergraduate engineering courses today focus on level three skills.
|
An analysis of one to four year engineering program showed that 2345 out of 2952 problems assigned (79%) were level three or lower .On the other hand probable demands on the engineering graduates in the coming decades will involve skills at levels four to six.
We at DIMAT have evolved a new way of teaching to fulfill the above six objectives by incorporating the four main steps in our teaching methodology |
1. Formulate and publish clear instructional objectives
2. Establish relevance of course material and teach inductively
3. Balance concrete and abstract information in every course
4. Promote active learning in the class room
5. Use cooperative learning
6. Give challenging but fair test
7. Convey the essence of concern about the student’s learning |
We are confident that our engineering students, when they graduate and enter their respective organisations, will be better equipped to face the Industry, National and Global challenges. |
I invite you all to explore the future prospects of your wards through meaningful learning with conscience . |
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