Defining the Emerging Pedagogy in the Field of Global Engineering

University Of Colorado At Boulder, Boulder CO

Investigators

Abstract

The end of poverty is the first goal listed in the United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals. After fifty years of applying conventional engineering approaches to international development, poverty impacts two-thirds of the world’s inhabitants in rural areas and low/middle income urban communities. Global Engineering, also known as Development Engineering, is an emerging field that addresses the global drivers and technological, environmental, and socio-economic barriers that perpetuate poverty. Although major academic institutions in the United States have started offering courses and degree programs in Global Engineering, the body of knowledge and pedagogy for this field has yet to be formalized. The goal of this workshop is to strengthen collaboration between Global Engineering related programs in the US and develop a consensus around Global Engineering learning objectives, educational programming, and supporting educational activities. To achieve these goals, the workshop will bring together and integrate diverse perspectives from educators, practitioners and policy/decision makers from academia, government, industry, and international development agencies. The successful completion of this project will benefit society through the development of new pedagogy and curricula to standardize the educational approach to Global Engineering, providing structure and rigor to student learning experiences. Further benefits to society will be achieved through student education and training including the recruitment and mentoring of students to support the implementation of the workshop activities. The role of engineers in contributing to global poverty reduction to achieve the UN sustainable development goals is evolving. Typically, the engineer’s role in addressing these challenges has been confined to technology design and development at the community-, regional- or national-scale. Global Engineering is an emerging field, with university programs coalescing around shared principles and more holistic approaches to global poverty reduction that incorporate protection for human and ecological health. However, the supporting curricula and pedagogy for this field have not been formalized. The goal of this workshop is to bring together leading researchers, educators, and practitioners to build upon existing efforts within individual university programs and establish a consensus around the pedagogy for Global Engineering education. To achieve this goal, investigators will organize a three-day workshop with two plenary lectures, lightning presentations, and breakout sessions. The plenary lectures will focus on three core questions: 1) What is Global Engineering? 2) What is the role of the global engineer in contributing to global poverty reduction and progress toward the UN sustainable development goals? 3) How do academic institutions prepare students to be practitioners in an emerging field? Discussions will be structured around the following topics: 1) Creating a body of knowledge for the field of Global Engineering, 2) Educating the next generation of global engineers, and 3) Building a community of practice for continuous learning and improvement. The successful completion of this project will benefit the broad field of engineering and society through the development and validation of new curricula, pedagogy, and teaching strategies to educate the next generation of global engineers. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.