Comparison of Hiring and Promotion Criteria Linked to Teaching, Educational Development and Professional Engineering Skills

International audienceWithin the higher education system, criteria for promotion based on research quality and contribution are well established and widely accepted. For teaching, on the other hand, such criteria have generally not been developed and implemented to the same degree. This poses a challenge for the implementation of the Conceive-Design-Implement-Operate (CDIO) standards 9 and 10, which deal with the enhancement of faculty CDIO skills and faculty teaching skills. To be able to implement these standards successfully, universities need to have in place effective ways of evaluating teaching contribution and professional engineering experience. To support the implementation of CDIO standards 9 and 10, excellence in teaching and progressive educational development based on engineering experience must be acknowledged and rewarded. This paper compares hiring and promotion policies and criteria for the evaluation of teaching contribution and educational development in four selected universities in Europe and North America. Conclusions are drawn with regard to the CDIO standards 9 and 10 and perspectives for future development of such criteria discussed

COMPARISON OF HIRING AND PROMOTION CRITERIA LINKED TO TEACHING, EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERING SKILLS

ABSTRACT Within the higher education system, criteria for promotion based on research quality and contribution are well established and widely accepted. For teaching, on the other hand, such criteria have generally not been developed and implemented to the same degree. This poses a challenge for the implementation of the Conceive-Design-Implement-Operate (CDIO) standards 9 and 10, which deal with the enhancement of faculty CDIO skills and faculty teaching skills. To be able to implement these standards successfully, universities need to have in place effective ways of evaluating teaching contribution and professional engineering experience. To support the implementation of CDIO standards 9 and 10, excellence in teaching and progressive educational development based on engineering experience must be acknowledged and rewarded. This paper compares hiring and promotion policies and criteria for the evaluation of teaching contribution and educational development in four selected universities in Europe and North America. Conclusions are drawn with regard to the CDIO standards 9 and 10 and perspectives for future development of such criteria discussed

Basic need frustration in motivational redesign of engineering courses

Engineering Education aims at realizing students’ satisfaction and intrinsic motivation. However, students’ frustration is never fully banned. In this article, I argue that one of the reasons for the limited focus on frustration in Engineering Education is the limited focus on frustration in classical motivational theory itself. I focus on Self-Determination Theory and distinguish between the early work focussing on satisfaction and the recent work considering frustration as a distinct active threat. I will complement this theoretical approach with an empirical analysis of data from a large ethics of technology course in 2016 and 2020 at Eindhoven University of Technology. Two research questions are asked: “(RQ1) Do basic needs satisfactions and frustrations in the USE basic course confirm the asymmetrical pattern described in recent literature?”; and “(RQ2) Do basic needs frustrations add to the variance of motivation types?” I performed principal axis factoring with an oblique rotation to answer RQ1 and stepwise regression analyses to answer RQ2. I conclude that basic need frustration can be measured as a clearly different concept compared to satisfaction and that splitting these two concepts is helpful for Engineering Education when studying motivation. I discuss two main avenues for Engineering Education: motivational theories should take need profiles and need trajectories into account in course design; and motivational research should inquire how individuals can learn to cope adaptively with need-frustrating experiences

Students’ perceptions of multicultural group work in international engineering classroom

The rapid internationalization of engineering leads universities to change their education in ways that meet diverse students’ learning needs. The ambition behind the internationalization policy at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) is that the multicultural experiences will improve the quality of educational experiences for all students. In a small-scale interview study, we explored how domestic and international students perceived the challenges and gains in their multicultural student group work experiences in master programs at TU/e. In addition, the factors that influence multicultural group work were explored based on students’ experiences. Key challenges that were identified are different communication styles and language issues, whereas key gains are mainly related to complementary knowledge and skills for domestic and international group members. In the group process, factors in which they were similar were found, for example both domestic and international students preferred to work with someone they already know. Difference in students’ perceptions of group work behaviors, such as division of task and disagreement solution were found between domestic and international interviewees. The factor of culture seems to play a role in interpreting the above differences. Based on the results, we concluded that the vision of an international classroom has not yet been achieved. The results suggest that inclusion at the university still needs to be taken a step further, and this paper provides a basis for discussion on how to move the vision forward

Maximising the performance of multi-diverse design teams

In our Integrated Product Design master at the Delft faculty of Industrial Design Engineering we see a growing diversity in our student population. Besides a growing number of different nationalities there are also significant differences in prior education, competences, and socioemotional aspects. Within the Advanced Embodiment Design (AED) course, students work in teams on a client-based design project for one full semester. In 2018-2019, 22 student-teams started out their endeavour, coached by eight coaches. Within the course an important learning objective we want to offer students is the opportunity to experience and perform in a successful team, acknowledge all students' input, and experience a successful result. During the process of embodiment design, the project teams come across several hurdles which challenges team performance and their project progress, and thereby influences the project results. To maximise the performance of student design-teams we have conducted two studies researching the challenges these teams come across over the course of the semester. One study was based on the coaches' experiences during the project (Flipsen &amp; Persaud, 2016), and the other one on the students' individual reflections on the project (Flipsen, Persaud &amp; Magyari, 2021). The challenges our students come across are analysed and relate to becoming a team, doing the project right, and finalising the project successfully. The results of both studies are used to develop a framework supporting coaches in maximising the performance of multi-diverse design teams. The framework is built around the Theory U (Scharmer 2016), a model describing how teams work with each other, following the right path to success (presencing) or off-tracking by muddling through, or by absencing. To track the different team's performances, we use a project-group tracking-system existing of seven Key Performance Indicators combined with a coach journal. The combination of KPI's help the team of coaches to pinpoint lower performing teams and intervene when needed. In this paper we will present the framework, consisting of (i) preparatory activities to initiate trust, teambuilding, and a successful student cooperation, (ii) a system to track the student-teams' health and performance and pinpoint troublesome groups, and (iii) responsive activities related to the hurdles teams might come across and how to reverse them. To assist the individual coach, we have developed several responsive activities the coach can use to intervene, slowing down the process of dysfunctionality and revert the process towards highly performing teams. The activities are tested in the two cohorts following our initial studies in 2018-2019.</p

Project based learning and reflection in a manufacturing environment

In engineering education, many initiatives aim to close the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical/industrial application. The course depicted here focuses on the injection moulding of an elementary plastic product, and aims to address the full development cycle, ranging from product idea, via 3D modelling, simulation of injection moulding processes, mould design, process planning and milling of the mould, to the actual injection moulding. In this, continuously reflecting on the initial ideas, new acquired knowledge and information, provided limitations and intermediate steps by the students themselves drive the iterations in the overall cycle. The course has a specific focus on acquiring needed information, the students are assumed not to just study and apply existing (design) rules for injection moulding; they rather are challenged to deduce the design & manufacturing rules that bear relevance and give guidance for their development cycle. In this, basic knowledge is provided to the learners in short lectures, videos, and tutorials, albeit they are simultaneously challenged to obtain, digest, and apply additional knowledge on the various topics if and when needed. Over the past five years, over 100 injection moulds and products were created, for an equal number of student groups. This demonstrates that second year students (in this case Industrial Design Engineering students) can successfully associate with such a complex development process. Evaluation among the students indicates a high level of understanding and motivation linked to the creation of their own actual product. By means of the approach chosen, the course not only aligns the intended learning outcomes, the learning activities, and assessment tasks. It simultaneously triggers the learners to build expertise and experience at different levels of aggregation, in a self-propelled manner, with full ownership of the project

Coaching practices in challenge-based learning: Characteristics in students' projects

Coaching students in CBL settings requires specific approaches. Although CBL has similar characteristics as Design-based learning (DBL), the educational concept and approach applied in the engineering programs at the Eindhoven University of Technology for over the past twenty years, CBL evolves from the DBL concept to emphasize the importance of addressing the sustainable development goals in education. Despite the fact that DBL coaching characteristics have been investigated, it becomes interesting to research these practices in CBL settings. The aim of this research study was to investigate coaching practices and explore differences among experienced coaches versus novice coaches, and the influence of the project set-up (e.g. group versus individual projects). The study was conducted in the department of Industrial Design, where students work on open- ended and hands-on challenges in groups or individually in the squad, an educational organizational form, where education and research come together. Project coaches and teacher coaches support the students to gain and apply knowledge and in the supervision of self-directed learning. The research method consisted of observations of coaching sessions (N=9), and semi-structured individual interviews with coaches (N=13 coaches) of various levels of experiences. Semistructured interviews with individual (N=14) and groups of students (N=3) took place. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis and categories within the framework of coaching in Design-based Learning by Gómez Puente (2013) and the theoretical framework of Cognitive Apprenticeship by Collins (1991). Results indicate that the 3 most frequently used coaching practices are a) asking open-ended questions; b) providing feedback on progress in technical design and design process; c) encouraging students to explore alternatives for problem solving using different perspectives. The results are in line with teaching the discipline as design process are embedded in uncertain and creative undertakings in which students are motivated to think big in proposing solutions. Novice coaches focused more on technical design while more experienced coaches encouraged students to reflect on their learning process and to become more self-regulated learners

Integration of learning and research in a multi-perspective learning factory

Many technical universities and polytechnics have manufacturing environments or learning factories to teach students about production and assembly processes. The University of Twente currently establishes a new workshop, including a specific learning factory. In this learning factory, design choices are made in such a way that the organisation, appearance and comportment of the learning factory can be harmonised with the learning intent, the learning path and the levels of experience and expertise of the learners or trainees involved. The learning factory serves different levels of learning simultaneously. To this end, a recursive master-apprentice model is ingrained in its design. This approach aids in implicitly blurring the distinction between 'learning' and 'research'. Although all participants have their own interests and goals, they strengthen each other's learning and research. The learning factory caters for addressing multiple perspectives simultaneously, ranging from e.g., a production process and quality monitoring, via logistics and real-time location systems to workplace ergonomics. This is only possible if a flexible and versatile architecture underpins the learning factory, based on serious gaming and digital twinning. In the learning factory, research initiatives thrive on the activities of learners; concurrently, learners benefit from the research initiatives and underlying systems - interfaced by e.g., serious games and digital twinning. The learning factory is under development, in which the paradigms of the learning factory are applied: it is infused by students and researchers working on prototype projects/solutions; this allows them to study the topics involved, while anticipating the structure and working of the learning factory in a way that vouches for the envisaged openness, flexibility, and manageable indeterminacy