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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

A Whole New Engineer, David Goldberg, Mark Somerville Oct 2014

A Whole New Engineer, David Goldberg, Mark Somerville

Mark Somerville

A Revolution Is Coming. It Isn’t What You Think. This book tells the improbable stories of Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering and the iFoundry incubator at the University of Illinois. That either one survived is story enough, but what they found out together changes the course of education transformation forever: How trust is key to unleashing young, courageous engineers. How engineers need to move from a narrow technical education to one that actively engages six minds. How emotion and culture–not content, curriculum & pedagogy–are the crucial elements of change. How all stakeholders can collaborate to disrupt the status quo.status …


Olin College: Re-Visioning Undergraduate Engineering Education, Lynn Stein, Mark Somerville, Jessica Townsend, Vincent Manno Jun 2014

Olin College: Re-Visioning Undergraduate Engineering Education, Lynn Stein, Mark Somerville, Jessica Townsend, Vincent Manno

Mark Somerville

The Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering was created to address several perceived needs for engineering graduates of the future and to be an experimental laboratory for engineering education. As such, Olin College is not only dedicated to innovation within its boundaries but also to catalyzing change throughout the engineering enterprise. The curriculum aims to support life-long learning, teamwork, communication, and contextual understanding, along with rigorous quantitative and qualitative skills.


Work In Progress - A Provisional Competency Assessment System, Mark Somerville, Debbie Chachra, Jonathan Chambers, Ellen Cooney, Kristen Dorsey, John Geddes, Gill Pratt, Kathryn Rivard, Ann Schaffner, Lynn Stein, Jonathan Stolk, Stephen Westwood, Yevgeniya Zastavker Jul 2012

Work In Progress - A Provisional Competency Assessment System, Mark Somerville, Debbie Chachra, Jonathan Chambers, Ellen Cooney, Kristen Dorsey, John Geddes, Gill Pratt, Kathryn Rivard, Ann Schaffner, Lynn Stein, Jonathan Stolk, Stephen Westwood, Yevgeniya Zastavker

Mark Somerville

Over the last two years Olin College has been defining and implementing a provisional system to develop and assess student competency levels. The system particularly emphasizes the importance of creating a community of practice that includes not only faculty but also staff and students. In this paper we provide an overview of the design process, and comment on the results of our first year of implementing the system.


Drowning In Method, Thirsty For Values: A Call For Cultural Inquiry, Jonathan Stolk, Mark Somerville, Debbie Chachra Jul 2012

Drowning In Method, Thirsty For Values: A Call For Cultural Inquiry, Jonathan Stolk, Mark Somerville, Debbie Chachra

Mark Somerville

A decade or more has passed since publication of most calls for reform in engineering education. In the ensuing time, there has been significant work on the design, implementation, and transferability of appropriate methodsand techniques - accompanied by, in most cases, little discussion of the values and beliefs of the people involved. But many theories of change rely on a fundamental shift in human beliefs and values, and purport that institutionalization of methods is impossible without this shift. Given this, now may be a reasonable time to re-visit the questions: What are the values of people involved in engineering education, …


The Search For Design In Electrical Engineering Education, David Kerns, Sherra Kerns, Mark Somerville, Gill Pratt, Jill Crisman Jul 2012

The Search For Design In Electrical Engineering Education, David Kerns, Sherra Kerns, Mark Somerville, Gill Pratt, Jill Crisman

Mark Somerville

The importance of "design" in engineering education is well established and a cornerstone of most new engineering curricula as well as accreditation criteria Electrical and computer engineering (ECE) programs view many elements of design in ways similar to other engineering disciplines. However, in some respects other disciplines within engineering, such as Mechanical Engineering (ME), view design in broader terms, and perhaps gain value that electrical and computer engineering educators may miss. This paper describes how design is typically viewed in ECE programs, bow it's viewed in other engineering areas, particularly ME, and suggests some new possibilities for enhancing design education …