98-12888 Peterson Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology - Regional Faculty Workshops The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Inc. (ABET) will conduct a series of regional, hands-on, engineering faculty workshops to facilitate educational innovation and adoption of new educational paradigms by giving faculty the confidence to try large-scale curricular innovations with the knowledge that well-designed program experimentation will not risk loss of ABET accreditation. The Action Agenda describes the need for a new engineering education paradigm whereby students will acquire characteristics, in addition to technical skills, such as communication skills, ability to work on teams, and an understanding of the impact of engineering solutions in a broad societal, environmental, economic, and ethical context. The problem is how to stimulate and implement innovation in curriculum and instructional delivery and outcomes. In the past, there has been reluctance to implement large-scale reforms due to the perceived risk to the accreditation status of the program. ABET found during the pilot-study for the implementation of Engineering Criteria 2000 that engineering programs will not take substantial steps towards a new educational paradigm as described in the Action Agenda until they are confident that their programs can successfully meet the requirements of EC2000. The expected results of the workshops are that faculty will acquire the confidence and skill to develop objectives, an assessment plan, and a feedback mechanism to meet the requirements of EC2000. From this, they will be able to implement curricular and instructional reform as well as assess the success of those reforms. ABET will develop case studies to assist the institutions and provide training materials for ABET program evaluators. From these workshops, an network of faculty will be developed, assisting in the exchange of information on best practices in assessment and innovation. The faculty will also have an opportunity to strengthen ties with industry and determine ways to gather information on the changing needs of the employers of engineering graduates.
