The central focus for the Gateway Coalition is the development of
students as emerging professionals.
This broad statement emphasizes ideas that have been subordinate to the
delivery of technical content and the corresponding increase of student
technical knowledge and technical problem solving capability. This affirms
the importance of leadership, teaming, organization, historical, social and
political contexts, as well as business, science and technical pedagogy.
One aspect frequently missed is the need to provide the knowledge base and
the capability for career-long learning. Making the development of students
more important will change both how and what students learn.
The retention of students from matriculation as engineering students
to graduation is receiving increasing attention.
While yesterday's measure of program quality may have been the selectivity
of a program as noted by the fraction of those who matriculated who did not
graduate as engineers, today's measures are for what fraction of the students
who matriculate in engineering are retained to graduation.
The new paradigm of Continuous Quality Improvement for manufacturing and
service emphasize the importance of succeeding the first time and avoiding
re-work wherever possible.
Very poor retention rates for the under represented minorities and, to a
lesser extent, for women underscore the need to improve the retention of
students to graduation.
Changing how we teach uses approaches that are appropriate for learning
the content, skills, and competencies the student needs.
The lecture method has become the de facto standard approach for teaching
undergraduate engineering students, with laboratory instruction a much
smaller part of the educational program. Changing the way we teach will
require the development or adaptation from other areas of whatever alternate
approaches may be appropriate. Faculty will also need to learn to use these
approaches.
To achieve our objectives, these should be conducted within the context of
the entire educational experience.
The structure of a curriculum can impact both what is taught and how
it is taught and is a major descriptor of the educational program.
Several aspects of the way the curriculum is structured have received
attention recently. These include:
- the total system organization and relationship of pedagogical content
(not merely layering and sequencing of courses but an integrated continuum)
to look at the educational program as a total system;
- the kind of engineering courses included in the freshman and sophomore
years;
- the fraction of the program that is elective, as opposed to that required
by specific courses and the manner in which the choice of electives is
restricted;
- the size of the curriculum, in terms of the number of semester or quarter
hours.
Changing what is taught changes the curriculum to realize more readily the
pedagogical goals within the broader context of the coalition's goals. This can
include revisions or replacement of current courses as well as replacement of
significant blocks of courses with another group of courses requiring a similar
fraction of the curriculum. The new group of courses may have an emphasis
differing from that of the courses replaced. However, meeting the broad goals
set for the education program is the focus and it is expected the revised
curriculum will do this better than what was in place previously. These changes
may occur at the lower division, the upper division, or both and may even involve
moving topics presently covered at one level to another level.
Facilitating the implementation and institutionalization of innovation in
engineering education is a potential role for the coalition.
One aspect of this that has been relatively neglected is importing
educational innovation developed elsewhere to a new environment; we need
more attention for this.
The coalition can serve as a facilitator for innovation not supported
directly by Gateway funds. Coalition funds can serve to initiate an effort
to be funded from other sources or the coalition can serve to enhance a
proposal for a new project.
Developing relationships among Gateway institutions
that:
- establish common objectives;
- establish communication and collaboration among faculty;
- use the coalition as a vehicle for enhancing innovation
in engineering education at each institution.