Effective Teaching: Institutes for Engineering Teachers

Concern for effective teaching in engineering appeared almost simultaneously with the inception of engineering education in this country, some 135 years ago, as seen in statements made by the first head of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. To place in perspective current efforts toward the teaching and training of engineers and to stress the significance of such endeavors, aspects of the evolution of efforts to foster and enhance engineering teaching are described. Pedagogical training for engineering teachers was proposed by persons such as early presidents of the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education; but it was strong recommendations from that Society's four self-studies that appeared responsible for gradual development of formal programs. Under sponsorship of the American Society for Engineering Education (successor to the SPEE), the current "institutes on effective teaching" activities began with a series of two-week summer institutes, at Pennsylvania State University, during the summers of 1960-63. At the tennination of this series it was concluded that many more engineering teachers could participate through a number of regional institutes. Hence the ASEE promoted and developed a number of short-term institutes at various institutions throughout the country and, in 1967-68, inaugurated a system of Regional Institutes on Effective Teaching which are expected to become a regular and continuing part of engineering education and which should constitute evidence of the profession's historical concern for teachers "qualified for giving instruction...."