Exploring the Educational Frontiers

Summary form only given, as follows. In this interactive session, the participants and presenters will identify and analyze the frontiers, the new issues, that engineering educators should explore in the near future. We will assume the state of the art in engineering education, including concepts such as cooperative leaming, teamwork, communication skills, and authentic design, and move on from there. Three of the areas to be discussed are: 1) the intellectual development of students, 2) the culture of the classroom, and 3) interdisciplinary teaching and the changing discipline structure of engineering. For each of the areas, one speaker will give a short presentation summarizing what is currently known and then engage the audience in a discussion of its impact on the educational process, its fundamental research questions, and methods for investigating those questions. In the last 30 minutes, participants will brainstorm other frontiers and discuss how the engineering educational community can begin addressing them.