Pedagogy versus reality: how past experiences can be an effective modeling tool to successfully deploy curricula changes

Summary form only as given. The National Science Foundation has sponsored a number of Engineering Education Coalitions to help develop innovative and progressive methods for delivering the undergraduate engineering curricula of the 21st Century. However, if past performance is any indication of future success, adoption of this common courseware by noncoalition institutions will be met with limited success, primarily because implementation issues are not thoughtfully considered. This paper details the various "stages" that most, if not all, academic institutions that wish to implement large-scale changes in their current curricula must successfully navigate. The implementation stages to be presented include: (1) historical innovation review; (2) course development and deployment in pilot form; (3) obtaining faculty buy-in; (4) considering the administrative details; and (5) managing the transition. The experiences and processes developed herein are based upon work that has been done at Texas A&M University, USA, which is a large public "top tier" research institution and a member of the "Foundation Coalition". The paper also describes how quality functional deployment methods can be used to identify and circumvent potential problem areas in the institutionalization process.