Trends in Engineering Education

Obstacles to promoting developments in engineering education in continental Europe are a consequence of two primary factors: A dearth of communication platforms for initiatives in engineering education in schools and tertiary institutions and a lack of motivation to act due to the restrictive structure of higher education and the relative absence of dedicated financing for engineering education research and development. The paper focuses on developments in pre-college and higher engineering education to motivate and encourage learning in engineering. The examples presented are: (1) Internet based real time data providing an exciting motivation for learning basic science and technology in schools (2) Mass customization of learning in a group environment-an initiative to introduce individualised learning in group settings. Students are motivated by setting their own goals at the beginning of a design course and trace their achievement of these goals as the course progresses through reflection, learning essays and group interaction. (3) An example of engineering education research is the development of a Pedagogic Decision matrix enabling engineering course instructors to focus and decide whether to include project based, collaborative or problem based learning in their courses. The matrix is based on a platform available for engineering design which is adapted to a decision facility for planning a course with active learning components. An initiative coming from a high profile university to present resources for pre- college and tertiary engineering education is Engineering Pathway being developed at the University of California, Berkeley. It is a portal to high-quality teaching and learning resources in applied science and math, engineering, computer science/information technology and engineering technology, for use by Pre-university as well as university educators and students. The examples presented show that there is an increasing level of activity to promote and - - provide hands-on information for engineering education development. The information is disseminated in conferences, meetings and publications and provides a ready resource for promoting engineering education world wide. Some thoughts on activities to remedy shortcomings in engineering education development will be presented.