The key question is how to develop education. Both top-down and bottom-up approaches are necessary, and are most efficient in combination. Accreditation is as important as the overall policy framework and top-down approach. However, educational change must take place at the institutional level and will involve a shift in culture and an understanding of learning among academic staff. Change in engineering education is often slow, and strategies should be applied to foster more rapid progress. As culture plays an important role in the change process, a more experimental approach to teaching and learning is needed to create new innovative learning environments. At the institutional level, three curriculum strategies have been identified (Kolmos et al., 2016).
1. An ‘add-on strategy’ adds more active learning to existing courses. This is the most widespread strategy for moving towards student-centred learning, and is reflected in the extensive reporting on PBL and active learning experiments at course level in the literature (Chen et al., 2020). The initiative originates from the single lecture.
2. An ‘integration strategy’ merges existing courses with skills and competencies, such as project management
and collaboration. This is exemplified by the Conceive-Design-Implement-Operate (CDIO) community, which has developed a list of standards covering the system level, including quality assurance and academic staff development, the integration of skills and competencies into the curriculum and, at a minimum, the integration of real-life projects – mostly company projects – where students learn to conceive, design, implement and operate a project (Crawley, et al., 2014; Edström and Kolmos, 2014). This strategy will require an educational leader to motivate staff to carry out the experiments and to strategically create an overview of the curriculum.
3. A ‘re-building strategy’ concerns re-structuring at the systemic level through the establishment of a new institution or programme. The re-building strategy emphasizes the societal context, allowing for all types of active learning, including more open-ended projects. Progression through an entire programme involves an emphasis on both technical knowledge and competencies, and professional or employability competencies. Such a change will also require institutional and educational leadership and there is a need for scholarly teachers who can think outside of traditional boundaries and facilitate transformation processes.
The development of educational leadership is essential to create and sustain the needed educational changes, combined with staff training to apply more student-centred and innovative teaching and learning methods (Graham, 2017; Graham, 2018a).
There is also a need to establish both top-down and bottom-up strategies along with the development of a promotion system that acknowledges educational experiences.
It is possible to find inspiration in a recent study on leading engineering universities that are practising new types of student-centred models (Graham, 2018b). Olin College of Engineering, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Stanford University, Aalborg University and TU Delft are perceived as current leaders in engineering education, but there are also a number of emerging leaders, such as the Singapore University of Technology and Design, University College London, the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and Iron Range Engineering in Virginia, US. Most of these institutions implement a coherent student-centred learning model that also includes external practical work in the form of internships, company projects or consultancies for companies.
Conclusion
There is a global need to transform engineering education curricula and learning approaches to meet the challenges of the SDGs. Although many institutions are already on track for a
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more comprehensive engineering education recommendations can still be made for further changes. Many new institutions and programmes can serve as good examples for future engineering education, and prominent older institutions have also started to shift from a more traditional curriculum towards coherent student-centred models, paving the way for establishing change worldwide. Experiences in the transition of curriculum processes can inspire others to form their own strategies and activities for curriculum development, which can in turn be a source of inspiration for institutions and governments.
Recommendations
1. Improving and strengthening STEM education in school.
This is the foundation of higher engineering education and lifelong learning. For all education establishments, from schools to universities, engineering departments and professional training bodies, there is also a need to integrate the topic of ‘sustainability’ into the curriculum in order to
‘ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development’ (SDG 4.7).
2. Interdisciplinarity, sustainable development and employability in engineering curricula. Governments should increase the focus on interdisciplinary curricula, sustainable development and professional competencies, combining them with funding models that support these needs. National accreditation criteria should be formulated and accompanied by incentives and rewards for institutions meeting these requirements.
3. Investment in engineering studies. Governments should promote and support engineering education studies to develop pedagogy, teaching and learning at a systemic level. Studies should focus on interdisciplinary and complex problem-solving using student-centred, problem-based learning and online learning.
4. Institutional change embracing complexity. Governments should reward institutions developing new systemic student-centred and blended learning models. These include
engineering institutions working to change the curriculum and learning approaches through the creation of comprehensive blended educational models developed in cooperation with industry and other societal actors. Such models make use of real-world complex problems and projects including with reference to sustainable development. Action could also be taken to reward and disseminate examples of best practice at the national and international level.
5. Educational leadership for educational change.
Governments should invest in, develop and recognize educational leadership to facilitate and sustain the needed systemic changes in engineering education.
Creating a reward and recognition system that supports, nurtures and recognizes educational impact and educational leadership is an important element in the development of engineering education.
6. Academics as agents for change. Institutions should develop strategies for programme change and allocate resources for mandatory academic development together with other incentives such as award/reward teaching schemes for academic staff, community-building, sabbaticals and annual grants for educational innovation.
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