Innovating Engineering Curriculum Design Toward Future: A Pilot Case Study of the School of Future Technology (SFT) in China

Abstract

The burgeoning advancement of technologies has been calling higher educational system to actively respond to the rapid changes in recent years. Regarding engineering education, how to prepare students for continuously emerging technologies and global challenges towards future remains largely unexplored.Accordingly, China launched the New Engineering Education (NEE) initiative since 2017 to transform Chinese engineering education in terms of re-structuring programs and re-designing curricula to be more interdisciplinary and future-oriented. Following closely, the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China (MOE) has been further refining the layout of NEE via established a batch of School of Future Technology (SFT) within 12 research-intensive universities. Since the construction of SFTs is now in the second year of student enrollment, the setting for this study is aligning with the development of SFT, therefore, we adopt a pilot case study approach in context of Beihang University (BUAA), to identify recent approaches best practices in re-designing engineering education curricula towards future. In this paper we present the design of "STEP by STEP" curricular structure with course threads (the first "STEP") and project threads (the second "STEP") jointly preparing students with the remixing competence towards the ever-changing technology trends (the helix effect identified via "by"). This curricular structure brings university and the industry closer and engage students in as both learners and contributors via the progressive projects and mentor groups.