The project is supporting the organization and implementation of a one and one-half day forum to consider the important, yet underexplored issue of characterizing reasonable expectations for change and transformation within the engineering education community and have implications for the STEM education community as a whole. The project is seeking to answer the following questions: (1) What were the critical (human, organizational, resource, etc.) factors that led to successful innovation? (2) What intermediate metrics provide indication of short-, mid-, and long-range success (educational impact) in innovation? (3) What broad strategies emerge from the examples by which to pursue transformative education innovations? (4) What were the critical (human, organizational, resource, etc.) factors that led to successful diffusion? (5) What intermediate metrics provide indication of short-, mid-, and long-range success (educational impact) in diffusion? (6) What broad strategies emerge from the examples by which to pursue diffusion of transformative education innovations? The twenty-five attendees are broadly representative of diverse individual and institutional perspectives and constituencies in engineering education including former NSF rotators, engineering educators, social science and education researchers, administrators, program evaluation experts, and change management scholars. They are drawing on comparisons of successful and less successful examples of transformative educational innovations and their diffusion (dissemination and use), as well as commissioned white papers.
We hosted a forum on "Characterizing the Impact and Diffusion of Transformative Engineering Education Innovations" in February 2011. The 36 invited attendees and 5 observer guests represented diverse individual and institutional perspectives and constituencies in engineering education. Prior to the forum, attendees voted on the most innovative and most successfully diffused innovations from a list of instructional activities that had been identified by a panel of experts. Eleven innovations were listed, and attendees had five votes to use any way they wanted, ranging from voting once for five different innovations to voting five times for the same innovation. Votes were tallied for both innovativeness and diffusion, with each vote receiving one point regardless of the order in which attendees placed their votes. Scores for Innovativeness ranged from 2 to 27, with five innovations scoring a 17 or greater ("More Innovative") and six innovations scoring 11 or less ("Less Innovative"). Similarly, scores for Diffusion ranged from 1 to 28, with five innovations scoring a 13 or greater ("More Diffused") and six scored 10 or less ("Less Diffused"). The original innovations and their scores for Innovativeness (I:xx) and Diffusion (D:xx) were: 1) Holistic Integration of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences into Engineering Curricula: spanning programs to make engineers better writers to programs leading to the bachelor of arts in engineering (I:27, D:6; categorized as "More Innovative, Less Diffused") 2) Challenge/Problem/Question/Context-based Learning (curricular, co-curricular, and non-curricular) including case-based learning (including cases in failure, ethics, etc.), project or service learning, engineering design courses and clinics, particularly when they include lower-level students (I:22, D:21, categorized as "More Innovative, More Diffused") 3) Student Cohort-based Learning (e.g., learning communities) often with other innovations (I:18, D:19, categorized as "More Innovative, More Diffused") 4) Cooperative/Team-based Learning (I:17, D:28, categorized as "More Innovative, More Diffused") 5) Use of Formative Assessment tied to Course Objectives including minute papers, concept inventories, personal response systems/clickers, question driven instruction (I:17, D:22, categorized as "More Innovative, More Diffused") 6) Engineering Ethics courses and modules, particularly when earlier in the curriculum (I:2, D:13, categorized as "Less Innovative, Less Diffused") 7) Spatial Visualization Skills courses (I:10, D:3, categorized as "Less Innovative, Less Diffused") 8) Integrated theory, skills, and practice spaces (e.g., Learning Factory, Ideas to Innovation Lab, etc.) (I:10, D:10, categorized as "Less Innovative, Less Diffused") 9) Introductory Mathematics for Engineering Applications (I:8, D:10, categorized as "Less Innovative, Less Diffused") 10) Systematic topical spine/thread/context learning throughout undergraduate curriculum (I:11, D:1, categorized as "Less Innovative, Less Diffused") 11) Engineering Entrepreneurship courses (I:11, D:13, categorized as "Less Innovative, Less Diffused") Workshop Discussions Drawing on comparisons of successful and less successful examples of transformative educational innovations and their diffusion (dissemination and use), as well as four commissioned white papers and six recommended articles, attendees discussed the following questions: 1a. What were the critical (human, organizational, resource, etc.) factors that led to successful innovation? 1b. What intermediate metrics provide indication of short-, mid-, and long-range success (educational impact) in innovation? 1c. What broad strategies emerge from the examples by which to pursue transformative education innovations? 2a. What were the critical (human, organizational, resource, etc.) factors that led to successful diffusion? 2b. What intermediate metrics provide indication of short-, mid-, and long-range success (educational impact) in diffusion? 2c. What broad strategies emerge from the examples by which to pursue diffusion of transformative education innovations? Attendees were split into breakout groups to focus separately on questions 1a-1c and 2a-2c and the general meeting chair and breakout chairs summarized the discussions following the meeting. The report written by the general and breakout chairs for the Forum has been posted to our website (www.nae.edu/Activities/Projects/CASEE/26338/26183/26293.aspx). In addition, the general chair attended the Transforming Education: From Innovation to Implementation conference at Purdue University in October, 2011, to present a summary of the Forum discussions. She also presented information at a workshop for the NAE Climate Change Education Partnership Phase I grant in October, 2011. The Forum agenda, report, and colleague's response to the report are linked to the Online Ethics Center (www.onlineethics.org/Topics/Enviro/Climate/ClimateArticles.aspx).
