Empowering Professional Teaching in Engineering - John Heywood Synthesis Lectures on Engineering

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or herself to seeking truth and awareness of his/her own ideology;

      c. in the role of an administrator, the engineering educator is guided by principles of fairness, justice, and compromise;

      d. in the role of a patron, constituent, or client the engineering educator provides actionable feedback to improve education and helps support others professional development; and

      While most times these rules are harmonious, in some cases the engineering educator will face ethical dilemmas that arise from overlaps of these roles. Resolving such conflict requires both adherence to law and moral judgment, tempered with respect for colleagues and students, and the recognition that vulnerable populations may often lack a voice. The engineering educator acknowledges the tensions inherent in supporting individual learners and an educational system with limited resources while undertaking unbiased evaluation of learning.

      4. serve educational needs through:

      a. supporting the needs of learners and upholding the rights of all individuals to an education with particular care for the vulnerable and disadvantaged;

      b. recognizing the impact of credentials and the limitations inherent to measuring learning, and striving to improve how learning is assessed;

      c. recognizing that learning occurs within a community and valuing the diverse expertise and contributions of their colleagues and the supports offered by the wider educational institution in which they function; and

      d. building professional liaisons with others across the education system, and those who employ engineering graduates.

      5. uphold standards of professionalism in any role they play within the education system;

      6. balance their role as an educator with their role as an engineer by accurately interpreting state-of-the-art engineering theory and practice for learners, and drawing upon the science of learning to effectively promote and support student development;

      7. act in ways that develop and hold the trust and confidence of others so as to support their role as teacher and mentor;

      8. seek to advance, apply, and integrate the state of the art in both education and engineering theory and practice and dedicate themselves to life-long professional development; and

      9. recognize a responsibility to participate in activities that contribute to access to education, and seek changes to situations that are contrary to the best interests of learners.

      This text is written for beginning engineering educators and engineering educators who have decided to give teaching the same value that they give to research, and to show how the exploration of techniques that have been used in the school system can help the development of skill in self-accountability, enable choices to be made about curriculum and instructional design, and thereby, to create education. Since we expect students to take responsibility for their learning, they in turn have the right to ask us to take responsibility for teaching excellence.

      Australia. Most universities including the research universities insist that new staff complete at least a basic course on university teaching that includes peer evaluation of their teaching. Some encourage their staff to complete a graduate certificate of higher education. Most universities offer such a qualification and it is “free” to their staff. At The University of Technology Sydney new teaching academics are supposed to be given a reduced workload in their first year of employment to allow them to do the Grad Cert.

      Sweden. University teachers are now required to have pedagogic training. At Uppsala University there is a course specifically designed for engineering educators. The general requirement at Uppsala reads “a prerequisite of an applicant’s educational competence as satisfactory are completed, relevant, pedagogy of higher education courses with a workload comprising a minimum ten full-time weeks, or equivalent knowledge. In special circumstances dispensation can be granted to allow the candidate to complete the required ten weeks of education during the first two years of employment. For appointments to professorships the pedagogical education must include a course in research supervision.”

      United Kingdom. Initially intended to be compulsory but is now voluntary and overseen by the Higher Education Academy (formerly ILT) which offers Fellowships at four levels. It has established a UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF). Some universities offer post graduate certificates in higher education that are accredited by HEA. Many universities require new staff to pursue post graduate certificates in teaching and learning—usually two years part-time. Some universities require departments to have a proportion of qualified teachers. The new legislation may lead to this becoming a requirement.

      United States. Many universities in the United States have training programmes. These range from a few days like the NETI’s (National Effective Teaching Institute) offered through the American Society for Engineering Education to more traditional structures of the kind offered at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where I was privileged to participate in a 2/3 credit course for graduate students on teaching Engineering and Science (See Courter Sandra and J. Heywood (2002). The perceptions of science and engineering graduate students to the educational theories relevant to skill development in curriculum leadership. ASEE/IEEE Proceedings Frontiers in Education Conference, F4A-1 to 5).