The Arrows in Our Backs: Lessons Learned Trying to Change the Engineering Curriculum

Published research has provided a robust set of documented tools and techniques for transforming individual engineering courses in ways that use evidence-based instructional practices. Many engineering faculty are already aware of these practices and would like to use them. However, they still face significant implementation barriers. The E ² R2P effort addresses the question: How can successes in engineering education research translate into widespread instructional practice?

This poster session will describe hard-won lessons the E ² R2P team has learned as it begins its third year attempting such curricular change.

Lesson 1: “Wonder workshops” and visible course redesigns don’t produce curricular change.

Lesson 2: Focus on the larger engineering education system, rather than its isolated parts.

Lesson 3: Insurmountable time barriers prevent faculty from adopting RBIS.

Lesson 4: Universities, industry, and other stakeholders working in isolation can't do much more to help engineering faculty address these problems.

Lesson 5: Changing the curriculum requires a larger community of shared concern and practice.

Lesson 6: Bring in partners and expertise in cross-boundary, multidisciplinary way.

Lesson 7: Work together to address a shared concern: Decreasing ramp up time to competent workplace performance.

Lesson 8: Make the effort to grow the contact network to address this opportunity.

Lesson 9: Use a common engineering model to create a venue for collaborative problem identification and root cause analysis.

Lesson 10: Talk about what fresh out engineers are doing on the job, along with its monetary and nonmonetary consequences.

Lesson 11: Collaborate on interpreting the problem identification and root cause analysis data.

Lesson 12: Work together to specify corrective actions that remove barriers to RBIS adoption.