Navigating the Landscape of Higher Engineering Education

Some times call for a change, some require consolidation. The question is: in which time do you live? Staring into the future doesn’t help, focusing too much on the past neither. It requires ‘reading the past to predict the future’. For that an open mind is needed, a critical assessing of the current and the past. For more than a decade, Ir. Aldert Kamp has done so. While in charge of the educational programmes of TU Delft’s Aerospace Engineers, he constantly scanned the world for clues on how to educate young engineers. Aldert consistently made a plea for outward looking: “open the windows and look around in the world; let the world flow in”. And so he did, travelling around, visiting the leading conferences and being a well-respected key note speaker, recognized by the great institutions like MIT. Aldert Kamp organised think tanks, free spirits to discuss the future of engineering education. He talked to the major industries trying to understand in what direction they were moving and what that meant for the education of the next generation (aeronautical) engineers. His ideas took shape more and more into the direction of real change. The current times are times of fast change, of greater uncertainty. Consolidation is no longer an option. Sure, engineers need engineering skills. But that will not suffice. Additional skills are needed and they cannot all be put in the heads and minds of each individual student. That made Aldert Kamp come up with various roles for different engineers. Roles that have one thing in common: they are connected to other roles and areas. Working in splendid isolation and then passing on the work to the next engineer is out. Team work, with multiple disciplines in each team, socially responsible engineering, entrepreneurial thinking, innovator roles, system thinkers and sustainability: those are the new ways of the world. In this book, Aldert has put together all the ideas, knowledge that he gained over the years. Read it! Even if you are not convinced that we are living in rapidly changing times. The timing of the book, now that the world is in turmoil due the corona virus couldn’t be better. Changing times, that’s what we are facing. And we have to find answers to cope with this. In this book you will find food for thought and inspiration from one of the current thought leaders in engineering education.Education Managemen

Delft Aerospace engineering integrated curriculum

The complex multidisciplinary problems and challenges in our society require deep problem solvers in science, management and engineering who are also capable of interacting with and understanding specialists from a wide range of disciplines and functional areas. Industry refers to these people as T-shaped professionals. The T-shaped professional model has been the reference for the bachelor and master curricula in Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of Technology. The bachelor provides the broad academic background in the domain of aerospace engineering. The life cycle of the engineering process and contextual storylines of famous persons in aviation, aeronautics or space form the cement and thread for the themes of the bachelor curriculum. The bachelor develops the academic intellectual skills and attitudes to analyse, apply, synthesize, and design, and prepares for the master. The master programme aims to develop the basic competences acquired in the bachelor to a higher level in terms of knowledge, critical reflection, making judgements and working independently. While “engineering and design” is the central theme of the bachelor, “research” is the theme of the master. This curricular framework gives the bachelor and master an own profile and identity. They use state-of-the-art content that is interwoven with thematic design projects and trainings for personal and system building skills, using international standard text books, up-to-date teaching methods, excellent facilities, with a focus on the aircraft and spacecraft throughout the programmes. Excellence programmes are available for the top 5 percent students in both bachelor and master. In these honours classes self-regulated students define their personal learning objectives and levels to be attained. Their key concept is that of open-ended learning and autonomy. In the bachelor the excellence programme substitutes design projects in the regular curriculum by one ambitious and compelling project with a high societal relevance and visibility. In the master it is a halfyear add-on programme about taking the lead in the creation and operation of new products, systems or processes, and developing awareness and understanding of the importance and strategic impact of research and technological developments on society.Support Aerospace EngineeringAerospace Engineerin

The trail of six design projects in the Delft bachelor Aerospace Engineering

Tomorrow’s engineers are required to have a good balance between deep working knowledge of engineering sciences and engineering skills. In the Bachelor Aerospace Engineering at TU Delft, students are educated to master these competences so that they are ready to engineer when they graduate. The bachelor curriculum has three mainstreams of about equal study load: Aerospace Design, Aerospace Engineering & Technology, and Basic Engineering Sciences. The Aerospace Design stream is built up semester after semester of a design project and an accompanying design course. The main objectives of the design projects are related to contextual learning, to being a mental organiser for the students, to learning by doing together, and to learning and practicing academic and engineering skills. Over the years of study the design projects increase in complexity and openness, from knowing to application, synthesis and evaluation, from tangible to abstract, from mono- to multidisciplinary, from mostly individual to team work. All projects exploit the factors that promote intrinsic motivation (challenge, curiosity, control, fantasy, competition, cooperation, and recognition). To assure that the intrinsic motivation factors and the semester themes are well addressed, each design project is characterised by a storyline, professional role, client, real-life problem, engineering process, and certain attainment levels of engineering skills. The projects make use of 45 well-equipped student project spaces in a dedicated building and laboratories like wind tunnels, a structures and materials laboratory, a study collection of aircraft and spacecraft parts and subsystems, and a flight simulator. The organisation of the six design projects for 300-440 students per project challenges the resources of the academic staff and the logistics of the project and lab spaces.Support Aerospace EngineeringAerospace Engineerin

Educating engineering practice in six design projects in a row

Tomorrow’s engineers are required to have a good balance between deep working knowledge of engineering sciences and engineering skills. In the Bachelor in Aerospace Engineering at TU Delft, students are educated to master these competences so that they are ready to engineer when they graduate. The bachelor curriculum has three mainstreams of about equal study load: Aerospace Design, Aerospace Engineering & Technology, and Basic Engineering Sciences. The Aerospace Design stream is built up semester after semester of a design project and an accompanying design course. The main objectives of the design projects are related to contextual learning, learning by doing together, and learning and practicing academic and engineering skills, and being a mental organiser for the students. Over the years of study the design projects increase in complexity and openness, from knowing to application and synthesis, from tangible to abstract, from monoto multidisciplinary, and from mostly individual to team work. All projects exploit the factors that promote intrinsic motivation (challenge, curiosity, control, fantasy, competition, cooperation, and recognition). To assure that the intrinsic motivation factors and the semester themes are well addressed, each design project is characterised by a storyline, professional role, client, real-life problem, engineering process, and certain attainment levels of engineering skills. The projects make use of student project spaces in a dedicated building for collaborative learning, and laboratories like wind tunnels, a structures and materials laboratory, a study collection of aircraft and spacecraft parts and subsystems, and a flight simulator.Support Aerospace EngineeringAerospace Engineerin

The integrated curriculum; attracting, exciting and educating students to become highly qualified aerospace engineers

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Engineering Education in the Rapidly Changing World: Rethinking the Mission and Vision on Engineering Education at TU Delft

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Science and Technology Education for 21st Century Europe: discussion paper

European societies change due to the impact of new technologies and developments in the economy and in society at large. The digital transformation changes every part of engineering, science and technology in a yet unknown intensive way. Soon everybody will have access to practically infinite data, practically infinite processing power, at practically infinite speeds. Universities play an important role, preparing students for a labour market that is undeniably moving towards the use of emerging technologies. There can be no doubt that these institutions are not keeping up with these rapid technological, societal and economic changes. In the 21st century, 20th century solutions and thinking are not going to get the job done.Education Managemen

Six Aerospace design projects to learn how to engineer

Tomorrow’s engineers are required to have a good balance of deep working knowledge of engineering sciences and engineering skills. In the Bachelor in Aerospace Engineering at TU Delft, students are educated to master these competences so that they are ready to engineer when they graduate. The mainstream Aerospace Design is built up semester after semester of a design project and an accompanying design course. The main objectives of the design projects are related to contextual learning, learning by doing together, and learning and practicing academic and engineering skills, and being a mental organiser for the students. Over the years of study the design projects increase in complexity and openness, from knowing to application and synthesis, from tangible to abstract, from mono- to multidisciplinary, and from mostly individual to team work. All projects exploit the factors that promote intrinsic motivation (challenge, curiosity, control, fantasy, competition, cooperation, and recognition). To assure that the intrinsic motivation factors and the semester themes are well addressed, each design project is characterised by a storyline, professional role, client, real-life problem, engineering process, and certain attainment levels of engineering skills.Support Aerospace EngineeringAerospace Engineerin

Engineering Education in the Rapidly Changing World: Rethinking the Vision for Higher engineering Education

When drafting the first issue of this document it sometimes felt like I was manoeuvring a small canoe through a highly viscous fluid of conservatism and complacency, with everybody bogged down by today’s thinking, preparing next Tuesday’s nine o’clock lecture, aiming for the best learning experience by optimising teaching and assessment. The issues of the day are about the “how next week”, not about the “what next year”, let alone the “why in the next decade”. After publicising I was happy to discover that I had been somewhat mistaken in my impression. Many people in universities, industries and research institutes across the globe informed me they are with me in my canoe, or want to be. That they want to rethink higher engineering education and help initiate change to enhance the effectivity of engineering study programmes and professional training. Like me, they are concerned about as well as challenged by the technological revolution that will rock the foundations of engineering education in the coming decades. The first edition inspired many conversations about “The Future Engineer” at my home university and many partner universities and institutes abroad. The “Free Spirits” Think Tank of the 4TU.Centre of Engineering Education in the Netherlands, which investigates the rise of new engineering profiles in the coming 10 to 15 years and develops matching scenarios for campus education in 2030, has taken my vision as a source of inspiration. The numerous meetings and workshops I attended between engineering academics, industries and engineering consultancies in the Netherlands and abroad, and the conferences and panels of the global CDIO Initiative and the World Engineering Education Forum (WEEF) in Florence (2015) all discussed the subject of the engineer and industry of the future. They addressed the impact of the changing global economy, the fast pace of change, the Foreword to the Second Revised Edition limited shelf life of specialist knowledge, the university’s role in innovation, the need for an interdisciplinary mind-set, the global interconnectedness, the rise of machine intelligence and the use of open standards. These are all aspects that shape the rapidly changing world in which we live and in which we educate tomorrow’s engineers, who might be a different breed than the ones we have been educating over the past 50 years. These factors set the scene for the “why” and “what” of our future education.Education ManagementAerospace Engineerin

Making curricular change: Case report of a radical reconstruction proces

Educational change is technically relatively simple but socially complex. Making effective change in engineering curricula is problematic and often fails by too high ambitions, too short development time frames, inconsistent design and a lack of a systems approach, but also by poor leadership, lack of ownership and low faculty engagement. Literature tells that typically only 30% of the original objectives of an intended curriculum change are achieved in the as-built programme. In the period 2006-2010 TU Delft Faculty of Aerospace Engineering has reestablished the profile of the bachelor and made a radical reconstruction by recalibrating the content and introducing a state-of-the-art active teaching approach. The innovative bachelor educates tomorrow’s engineers in the context of conception, design, implementation and operation of aircraft and spacecraft systems and processes. The paper gives an inside look in the reconstruction process. It shows that curriculum change is engineering and not science; it is politics and not always rational. The paper starts with an update of the educational vision that resulted in the prime objectives of change. It follows the systems approach with the student as the user and co-producer of the education always in mind. It addresses the design and development plan of the reconstruction, its organisation and leadership, and the role of upper management. They change over time and depend on the phase of development.Support Aerospace EngineeringAerospace Engineerin