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Journal of Engineering Education ResearchVol. 15, No. 4, pp. 53~57, July, 2012

A Multi-level Engineering Talents Cultivating SystemYong Xie* ․ Jin-Cheol Ha** ․ Ruheng Li* ․ Yun-hae Kim**,† ․ Se-Ho Park***

***College of Engineering, Dali University, China***Korean Maritime University***Yamagata University Graduate School of Sclence and Engineering Management of Technology for Manufacturing (MOT) Major

ABSTRACTModern manufacturing needs a great number of advanced engineers. China has the world's second largest equipment manufacturing

and electronic information industry, and in 2020, the shortage of talented personnel in key industries will be more than 5 million in China. Universities and colleges are the main places to cultivate engineering talents. In this paper, we will introduce a multi-level engineering talents cultivating system we have applied in Dali University, China for more than 4 years. Under this training system, we have achieved some gratifying results.

Keywords: engineering education; training system; CDIO

I. Introduction1)

China has the world's second largest equipment manu-

facturing and electronic information industry. In order to

win the competition in the world, a great number of highly

educated and well trained engineers are required. In June

2010, the Ministry of Education of Chinese government

launched the excellent engineers training plan, and 61

universities nationwide were chosen as the experiment

units. This plan has three major properties: the enterprises

fully involved in the process of cultivation; the universities

and colleges training the engineering talents based on

general standards and the industrial standards; strengthening

the cultivation of the students' engineering ability and the

innovation ability.

At present, to some extent, the higher engineering

education in China still pays more attention to class teaching

instead of hands on experiment. Another issue is that the

experimental environment on campus lags behind the pro-

duction of the companies. In order to satisfy the requirement

of modern development, our engineering students must be

able to lead in aspects of conceiving, designing, implementing,

and operating systems, products, processes, and projects.

In this paper, we will introduce an engineering talents

Received 4 October, 2011; Revised 12 June, 2012Accepted 17 July, 2012† Corresponding Author: yunheak@hhu.ac.kr

cultivating system we have applied to the engineering

education in Dali University, China.

II. Multi Level Cultivating System

1. CDIO is the Core of the System

The CDIO (conceive, design, implement, operate) theory

has become the most important engineering education mode

in north America, Europe and Asia. This mode not only

improves the students’ engineering ability, but the basic

engineering knowledge, the ability of life-long learning,

team work, and the ability to control the macro systems

as well. According to the education standards of CDIO,

we should take the students as the products of university

or college, take the social needs as the goal of the engi-

neering students cultivation. In the design of our engineering

education curriculums, we follow the procedure as the work

Fig. 1 Multi-level engineering talents cultivating system

Yong Xie․Jin-Cheol Ha․Ruheng Li․Yun-hae Kim․Se-Ho Park

공학교육연구 제15권 제4호, 201254

flow in production; train the students from classes, labs,

scientific research works, to innovation activities, and de-

veloped a multi-level engineering talents cultivating system.

In this system, we regard knowledge as basic, ability as

key point, quality as aim, and innovation as core. It is

demonstrated in Fig. 1.

2. Master a Deeper Working Knowledge of Technical

Fundamentals

The modern industrialization needs the advanced engineers

with strong applicable ability and strong innovation ability.

But to master a deeper working knowledge of technical

fundamentals is always important to the engineering students

because this is the essential foundation for students to

go any further. University is the place where the foundations

of subsequent learning are laid. In order to help students

understand the technical fundamentals deeply, we need to

diminish the traditional teaching method which only focuses

on knowledge inculcating. To reform teaching method, we

build a PDS (Pre-read, Discuss in class, Summary) teaching

mode as shown in Fig. 2.

In this mode, we assigned students to pre-read the

text book and reference materials independently. Then

we arrange some teaching hour for discussing in class.

In order to help students study and think effectively, the

instructors put questions main focus on the emphasized

and difficult concepts and principles first, and then we let

students put questions and answers questions for each

other. In the later stage, the instructors help to analyze

the question or the answer only when needed. The last

step is to let students summary the chapter according on

their understanding and the information other students

provided in class discussion. In the whole process, the

Fig. 2 PDS teaching mode

students are the center of learning; the instructors play

the role of facilitator.

3. Improve Experiment and Creative Ability

Experimental teaching is the major way to train students

to improve practical ability and creative ability. It is the

most important component in our training system.

In the first two college years, our goal is to help students

adapt to higher engineering education system as soon as

we can, strengthen students’ engineering awareness, and

develop their engineering practical ability. At this stage,

we teach students basic experiment skills and the students

will learn to use the equipments and understand common

rules of scientific experiment. Then we will train the stu-

dents to do the experiments related to their majors. The

teacher will provide a brief guidance and students will learn

to design the experiment by themselves. Therefore, the

students’ ability of observation, operation, data and error

analyzing are the most concerned factors.

In the third and fourth year, we ask students to come

up with an idea related to their major and discuss with

faculty advisor. With the guidance of advisor, the student

will design and complete the experiment independently.

At the same time, we encourage students think creatively

and put what they have learned into practice. The students

will design a project using all the equipments we have.

The projects are not limited to their major. They will

consult with the advisors if they need. The diagram in

Fig. 3 illustrates our experiment training stages.

Fig. 3 experiment training stages

A Multi-level Engineering Talents Cultivating System

Journal of Engineering Education Research, 15(4), 2012 55

4. Quality ultivation

By quality we mean teaching students critical thinking,

professional ethics, integrity, responsibility, civic values,

and self-discipline. Personal and interpersonal skills are

the basic quality of engineering students preparing for

their professional future. Good engineers work in teams

and communicate effectively.

Campus is just an ideal society for students. To train

students’ personal and interpersonal skills, we make ar-

rangements for the students go to internship sites, factories,

and country side to practice and gain experiences. Team

work is the key of the activities. Engineering students

work in teams when they conceive, design and implement

the product, process, or system. Teams are often including

experienced engineers from internship sites or factories,

so they can exchange thoughts, ideas, data and drawings

with others around the work site.

5. Develop Engineering Innovative Ability

In enterprise situation, according to de Jong and Brouwer

(1999), the innovative ability can be defined as: the ability

of an enterprise’s employees to generate ideas and to work

with these ideas to develop new or improved products,

services, technologies, work processes or markets.

In CDIO syllabus, engineer’s abilities are classified into

4 aspects: technical knowledge and reasoning; engineering

reasoning skills and attributes; interpersonal skills: team-

work and communication; conceiving, designing, implementing

and operating systems in the enterprise and societal context.

All the abilities are the foundation of engineering innovation

ability.

Followed by the syllabus of CDIO, we designed a training

plan for developing our engineering students’ innovation

ability. In this plan, we encourage students think creatively,

put what they have learned into practice. The students

will design a project using all the equipments we have.

The projects are not limited to their major. They will consult

with the advisors if they need. We train engineering students

to develop a strong vision for innovation, be prepared for

professional challenges or graduate study through the

creativity training and career planning.

III. Results and Discussion

We started to apply the multi level cultivating system

in 2008. The results show that this system is practical

and effective.

1. Students’ Study Habits Improved

In Nov. 2010, we had a survey on 458 students majored

in Electrical Engineering, Electronics Information Technology,

and Architecture about their study habits. The results in

question 1 and question 2 demonstrate that the juniors

and seniors pre-read more effectively than lower grade

students (Table 1).

As we can see from Table 1, most of the students get

used to do pre-reading after first two years training.

The pre-reading habits are varying from different grates.

Sophomores like to discuss questions with each other.

Most the juniors and seniors tried to find the answers of

problems they had in pre-reading.

In class discussion, the siniors participate more actively.

They can raise profound questions and suggest proper

solutions.

Table 1 Survey results on students’ study habitsQuestion 1: Do you pre-read:

A. Very often B. Some times C. Never

Year A(%) B(%) C(%)

1 12.0 30.0 58.0

2 30.1 42.7 27.2

3 49.6 35.6 14.8

4 55.6 33.3 11.1

Question 2: When you encounter problems in pre-reading, you will:

A. Stop pre-reading B. Ask others

C. Try to solve them and keep going on

D. Write down the problems and finish pre-reading

Year A(%) B(%) C(%) D(%)

1 65.7 11.4 5.7 17.1

2 10.7 56.0 22.7 10.7

3 7.8 37.4 48.7 6.1

4 5.8 39.4 50.0 4.8

2. Students’ Experiment Skills Enhanced

In Dali University, lab teaching takes a percentage of

Yong Xie․Jin-Cheol Ha․Ruheng Li․Yun-hae Kim․Se-Ho Park

공학교육연구 제15권 제4호, 201256

more than 30% in the curriculums for engineering students.

We have 19 labs for Electronic Information Technology

major, 10 labs for Electrical Engineering, 3 labs for Ar-

chitecture major.

Through our stage by stage experiment training, the

students developed strong interest in hands-on experiments,

especially in the comprehensive experiment because they

can design experiments to verify what they have learnt.

Some excellent students found new methods and new

systems to improve our lab teaching.

Following photos show that our students are in the

experiment.

Fig. 4 Students in physics experiment

Fig. 5 Students in electronics experiment

Fig. 6 Students in electrical power control experiment

Fig. 7 The earthquake rescue robot which won the second prize award in “the 4th National College Mechanical Innovative Design Competition, China” In 2010

3. Innovation Activities Attract More and More

Participants

In order to construct an environment for improving

students’ innovative ability in university level, we open

all the labs available for junior and senior students, and

provide a Fischertechnik robotic system donated by a

German company. Every year, we hold a competition of

innovative design in College of Engineering. In 2010, two

of our students designed an earthquake rescue robot based

on Fischertechnik robotic system, and won the second

prize award in “the 4th National College Mechanical

Innovative Design Competition, China” and the first and

second prizes award in “First National College Students

High School Physics Teaching Skills Competition”.

IV. Conclusion

Higher Engineering education based on CDIO has de-

veloped rapidly in recent years. How to find and build

concepts and training system suitable for local situation

and requirements is the key of our engineering education

research.

The multi-level engineering talents cultivating system

we have applied in practice has worked effectively. It

helped train students to study independently. It provided

a series experiments according to students different learning

stages, and enhanced students’ innovative abilities.

References

1. Edward Crawley, et al. (2007). “Rethinking Engineering

A Multi-level Engineering Talents Cultivating System

Journal of Engineering Education Research, 15(4), 2012 57

Education-The CDIO Approach”, Springer, pp. 9-13

2. Yongfu Chen, et al. (2009). Student Ability Training in

Teaching of Experiment in University―Based on Reform

& Practice of Experiment Course of Basic Biology.

Theory and Practice of Education, 29(9): 54-56.

3. J. Lucena and J. Schneider (2008). Engineers,

development, and engineering education: From national

to sustainable community development. European Journal

of Engineering Education, 33(3): 247–257.

Yong Xie

He received the Bachelor degree of Physics at Yunnan

Normal University, China in 1982 and the Mater degree

of Physics from California State University, Fullerton, USA

in 2006. Currently he is a doctoral student at Korea

Maritime University.

Phone: +86-13987253832

Fax: +86-872-2219965

E-mail :dlxieyong@163.com

Ruheng Li

He received the Bachelor degree of Physics at Southwest

China Normal University, China in 1986. Currently he is a

doctoral student at Korea Maritime University.

Phone: +86-13608829118

Fax: +86-872-2219965

E-mail: ruheng_li@126.com

Yun-Hae Kim

Prof. He received his B. S. degree in Marine Engineering

from Korea Maritime University in 1983. He received his

Ph. D. degree from Kyushu University in Japan in 1993.

He was a guest Professor from 1997 to 1998 at National

Institute of Standards and Technology in the U.S.A. He is

currently full Professor at the Division of Marine Equipment Engineering at

Korea Maritime University in Busan, Korea. He is also a Director of Innovation

Center for Engineering Education at Korea Maritime University. He was a

Chair of Asian Conference on Engineering Education 2009. He is co-chair of

ISMST 2010 internation conference. Prof. Kim`s research interests are in the

area of innovative engineering education and composites fabrication, the

evaluation of strength and physical metallurgy.

Phone: +82-51-410-5212

Fax: +82-51-403-1344

E-mail: yunheak@hhu.ac.kr

Jin-Cheol Ha

He received his B. S. degree in Marine Engineering from

Korea Maritime University in 1987 and the Mater degree

from Dalian Maritime University, China in 2001. Currently

he is a doctoral student at Korea Maritime University.

Phone: +82-51-410-4966

Fax: +82-51-403-1344

E-mail: chnhjc@naver.com

Se-Ho Park

He received his B. S. degree in Industrial Engineering

from Kyungnam University in Korea in 2006.He then went

on to receive his the M. A. degree form Kyungnam

University in 2008. He received his Ph. D. degree from

Korea Maritime University in Korea in 2012.

Currently he is a Visiting Scholar in Yamagata University

Phone: +82-51-410-5211

Fax: +82-51-403-1344

Email: parkse35@hhu.ac.kr