Developing an Integrated, Flexible, Adaptable and Viable Curriculum in Electrical and Computer Engineering

Morgan State University, Baltimore MD

Investigators

Abstract

The planning grant is to develop an integrated, viable, flexible, and adaptable curriculum that prepares students for the engineering needs of the 21st century and beyond. This is accomplished by using best practices in learning theory; exposing all electrical engineering majors to emerging technical areas; expanding the technical problems to those in engineering practice and urban areas; and integrating industry-standard computational tools throughout the curriculum. A holistic approach is taken to establish the desired curriculum. The University's overarching goal is to improve the pedagogy and evaluation in undergraduate engineering programs, through collaborations among engineering, education and mathematics faculty, and resulting in an improvement in the quality of student learning improving the quality student learning of learning. The project consists of five major components: 1) curriculum; 2) pedagogy; 3) assessment; 4) use of technology; and 5) faculty development and training The pedagogical and performance assessment frameworks are an integral part of the curriculum reform, however, curriculum as used in this context is content specific. The one-year effort can be divided into three phases: Phase I-Curriculum Specification; Phase II-Pedagogy Specification; and Phase III-Performance Assessment Planning. At the end of year, the following products will yield: 1) the curriculum; 2) some first year performance tasks/projects; 3) sample projects demonstrating progressively moving toward systems level thinking; 4) faculty training materials; Dimensions of Learning (DOL) mapping across courses; 5) procedure for course planning; and 6) summary of the performance. Advances in learning how to integrate and develop a model curriculum and incorporating the instructional Dimensions of Learning (DOL) framework in such a curriculum will occur. This project advances discovery and understanding while promoting teaching and leaning through the powerful Dimensions of Learning pedagogy, which acquires and integrate knowledge, extends and refine knowledge, uses knowledge meaningfully, and enables students to think critically, think creatively, and regulate behavior. Creative thinking generates new ways of viewing a situation that are outside the boundaries of standard conventions, which is true to advancing discovery. The collaboration between the disciplines of mathematics, science and engineering will open up to non-engineering faculty, like education faculty, the potential use of technology for teaching in their courses.