Why Does It Matter? Explaining the Importance of Complementary Studies to First-Year Engineering Students

Donald, John; Lachapelle, Sofie; Sasso, Thomas; Augusto, Kyle; González-Morales, M. Glória

doi:10.24908/pceea.v0i0.6474

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…As well, instead of a standard social science or humanities course, students will take part in a new type of arts course that will orient them to the various fields in the social sciences and humanities, while linking them to engineering. In this way, when they do select subsequent arts electives, those choices will be informed and relevant and will provide a more meaningful experience [17].…”

Section: Better Preparing Studentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design of a Completely New First Year Engineering Program at the University of Saskatchewan

Frey

Maw

Bens

et al. 2018

PCEEA

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The rapidly evolving role of the engineering profession in society requires an engineering graduate with a more diverse and robust skill set than ever before. To answer this challenge, the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Engineering has embarked upon a complete redesign of its first year program. This project essentially started from a “blank slate” and posed the question, “If we could design any first year program that we wanted, what would we create?” The outcome of this endeavor is intended to be an extremely effective first year program that excites, engages and inspires students, and that holistically prepares them for the challenges to come in later years. In this paper, we review the broad learning objectives of our new first year, and the values that we applied to our decision making during its design.The overall project consists of three distinct phases: determination of required first year graduate attributes, development of program structure and delivery methods, and detailed course design. Phase I has been completed. It has left us with a detailed inventory of knowledge, skills, experiences, and attitudes, distributed across 23 content categories, that the College wants students to internalize by the end of their first year of study.We will outline the methods that we used to compile and refine this attribute inventory, including multiple approaches aimed at meaningful stakeholder engagement, surveys of existing first year programs across Canada, and an analysis of gaps and redundancies between the Saskatchewan high school curriculum and our existing first year program. We will also describe the 23 content categories used to organize the graduate attributes of the proposed first year program and how these categories are weighted in relative terms. We share some of our key learnings from Phase I of the project, including which consultation strategies worked most effectively, why we focused on first year graduate attributes and not content, and key elements that will be emphasized in our new program. We will also briefly describe the process by which we are starting to develop the program structure and delivery methods i.e. Phase II.

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Section: Better Preparing Studentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design of a Completely New First Year Engineering Program at the University of Saskatchewan

Frey

Maw

Bens

et al. 2018

PCEEA

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“…Ed) is critical to address multiple national priorities, including increasing the productivity, innovation, and competitiveness in Canada in multicultural, sustainable, and responsible ways and generating opportunities for diverse, underrepresented groups [9]. These transformations are expanding the competencies necessary for engineers today, requiring the development of innovative engineering curricula to assist engineering students in cultivating and making full productive use of their diverse technical and professional strengths [10][11][12][13][14][15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Graduate Specialization in Engineering Education

Cicek

Friesen

Mann

et al. 2021

PCEEA

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There has been substantial growth in the formal focus on the pedagogy of engineering in the last two decades. Formalized pathways in Engineering Education (Eng.Ed), including Master’s and Ph.D. degree programs and university departments, have been established in several prestigious universities globally, with many founded in the U.S.. Interest in Eng.Ed in Canada has also grown, but up until very recently there has only been one formal pathway for graduate research in this field. In Fall 2020, the Department of Biosystems Engineering at the University of Manitoba welcomed the first three doctoral students into the Graduate Specialization in Eng.Ed (GSEE). In this paper we discuss the motivations for, and objectives and benefits of the GSEE, and describe its development. We share challenges encountered, and opportunities envisioned, and theintentions and motivations of the three graduate students who chose this pathway. We reflect on the importance of Eng.Ed programs for the advancement of engineering education research and the development of the discipline in Canada. Descriptions of our efforts and challenges areintended to help the development of additional Eng.Ed specializations or graduate programs in Canada.

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“…18 It is difficult to even find a university that has an entire course on the human aspects of software engineering, with the exception of a couple of computer science departments. [19][20] Unfortunately, soft skills are far from being a part of mainstream software engineering education; a course devoted to this subject would be an ideal solution to remedy this situation. It is important to notice here that this is not only our opinion; when we met senior software engineers who were leading teams, they told us that there was a need for a soft skills set among software developers.…”

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confidence: 99%