Or<\/p>\n
Whenever you have a hard problem to solve, check first whether someone has already solved it<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Not wanting to reinvent the wheel (and hoping to benefit from the hard work of others) we decided to take a look at\u00a0the processes used by other Materials departments to introduce project-based learning into their programs. Feeling\u00a0bright eyed and bushy tailed after vacation (recommendation: If you missed last month’s total eclipse of the sun, absolutely\u00a0\u00a0go and see the next one) we started analyzing the data generously collected by my colleague Markus Niederberger<\/a> over the\u00a0summer.<\/p>\n I recommend this exercise to anyone feeling a bit disenchanted with higher education: The worldwide level of effort,\u00a0enthusiasm and rigor that is being invested in developing stimulating programs to best facilitate student learning dispels any\u00a0skepticism regarding the commitment of University Professors to teaching. Perhaps not surprisingly there is tremendous\u00a0creativity too, with a wide range of approaches and implementations designed to accommodate different student backgrounds\u00a0and to meet different educational goals.<\/p>\n Perhaps the most dramatic is the approach of University of Twente, which has adopted an entirely modular curriculum\u00a0structure they call the Twente Educational Model<\/a>, or TOM (because “Educational” starts with an “O” in Dutch).\u00a0Each module includes a variety of teaching and learning formats, technical subjects and assessment modes, has a project about a real-world problem at its core and follows a student-driven learning approach in which students reflect on where they need faculty input in order to meet the learning objectives. It sounds absolutely fabulous (there are some nice “personal interest” stories here<\/a>)\u00a0and in my next life I will definitely choose this program for my own studies. (At least as long as there’s some plate tectonic activity\u00a0in the meantime to arrange for some better mountains nearby). It’s on a bit of a grander scale than we can take on in our\u00a0current curriculum revision — to be effective I think it needs an entire institutional change — but maybe our DMATL efforts\u00a0can provide a step in this direction for the ETH.<\/p>\n Most helpful for us is the experience of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo<\/a>, which adopted a similar approach to that which is\u00a0emerging in our own discussions, and did a tremendous public service by thoroughly documenting it.\u00a0(See for example R. N. Savage, K. C. Chen and L. Vanasupa, Integrating project-based learning throughout the undergraduate engineering curriculum<\/em>, Journal of STEM Education\u00a08<\/strong>, 1 (2007) and\u00a0K. C. Chen et al., Creating a project-based curriculum in materials engineering<\/em>, Journal of Materials Education 31<\/strong>, 37 (2009).)\u00a0At Cal Poly an increasing fraction of credits is spent on projects in each academic year, starting with a small-scale community service project (for example the design and implementation of a solar water system for a local elementary school) in the first year and culminating with an industry-sponsored design project before graduation.\u00a0 The projects are balanced with\u00a0traditional lecture & laboratory learning activities and assessments. Their list of ongoing challenges — designing\u00a0suitable projects, assessment techniques, team teaching, resisting overstuffing the curriculum and so on — is a bit daunting\u00a0but their conclusion that these are outweighed by the benefits is reassuring.<\/p>\n And there are many other approaches too — ranging from the largely extracurriculuar Center for Engineering Innovation and Design<\/a> at Yale University\u00a0for example, to an almost entirely project-based syllabus at Olin College of Engineering<\/a>. Our challenge now is to figure\u00a0out which combination of approaches will work best in the ETH context. How best to help young people who have grown up\u00a0in the unique Swiss social, cultural and economic environment to become the best possible citizens for Z\u00fcrich, Switzerland,\u00a0Europe and the world…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Or Whenever you have a hard problem to solve, check first whether someone has already solved it. Not wanting to reinvent the wheel (and hoping to benefit from the hard work of others) we decided to take a look … Continue reading