ICT Education:

Evolution and Revolution

Workshop on Innovations in ICT Education

Beijing, ChinaOct. 22, 2012

Michael Lightner, Prof. and Chair ECEEUniversity of Colorado, Boulder

2012 VP EAB IEEE2006 IEEE President

Moshe Kam, Prof. and Head ECE Drexel2012 IEEE Past President

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OutlineCaveats and disclaimersEngineering education and previous reformsEvolution

– The fundamentals may be shifting– The profession is changing

Revolution– The tsunami facing higher education

At least in the US

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The Beginning of European Engineering Education

By the mid-1600s, artillery and fortifications had grown so complex that European armies began training officers in math and mechanics

The term “Engineer” has been in use (in the current sense) only for the last 200 years

Engineering education was formalized in France – School of Bridges and Highways, 1775

(Jean Parronet)– École Polytechnique, 1794

(Lazare Carnot and Gaspard Monge)

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First Engineering Schools in the USRevolutionary America had to rely on Civil Engineers from Europe for major projects

In 1802 the Army established the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to train artillery and engineering officers

Sylvanus Thayer, commandant after 1817, transformed West Point into the nation's first engineering school by copying the École Polytechnique

After 1825 courses in Civil Engineering were became available in Washington College, Princeton, New York University, and VanderbiltRPI (1828); University of Virginia (1833)

http://www.answers.com/topic/engineering-education-1#ixzz1CZzjL7Fn

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EE education in the US and Europe: the first 50 years in a glance

Early EE departments were established in the last 20 years of the 19th century– Most grew out of Physics departments– Curricula focused on AC and DC circuits and power

distribution– B.Sc. Degree was the norm for faculty

Plus hands-on training in industry

– After World war I communication options appear – Little academic research

In 1925 only one MIT EE faculty member had a Ph.D. Half of the faculty had a B.Sc degree + practical

experience

Terman 1976

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The Impact of World War II

The rise of new technology found the field unprepared– Most “EE work” was performed by scientists

from other disciplines, especially Physics

– Radar, microwaves, control systems, guided missiles, proximity fuses

The case was reform was clear

Terman 1976

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The First Reform (1945-1955)

Overhaul of textbooks and courses– A new book shelf

Focus on the fundamentals– Mathematics and Physics– Introducing Physics-based Calculus as the basic

first step of the engineering curriculum

De-emphasis of classes on “engineering practice” and apprenticeship– Drafting, surveying, practicum

Impetus for reform: new technology

Terman 1976

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The First Reform (1945-1955)

Large expansion of graduate programs– Beginning of federal funding of academic

engineering research

Emergence of new requirements and expectations from engineering faculty members – At least an M.S. degree– In many institutions – demonstration of ability to

conduct independent research Educate new Ph.D. students Obtain external support for research

Painful transition in many institutions

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The emergence and rise of graduate programs in engineering 1960-1975

Significant growth in the number of graduate engineering programs

Differentiation between the objective and nature of MS and PhD programs

The impact of strong graduate programs is being felt in industry…– Strong graduate programs start developing their

own industries

In 1962 the first US Computer Science program is established

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High Tech Industry is linked to availability of strong and well-trained engineer corps

Silicon Valley would not exist without Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley

Boston Route 128 would not be possible without MIT and Harvard

Austin’s Silicon Gulch is there because of the University of Texas – Austin

DSP Valley is around the University of Leuven, Belgium

Kansai Science City is linked to Osaka University

Numerous examples in China

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The “Axioms”

The post-WWII model of interlinked teaching and research in engineering academic programs continues to be dominant around the world– The best “stand-alone” research labs

continue to have strong links to universities

The connection between engineering and economic development has now become axiomatic both in developed and developing countries– A key justification for continued support of

engineering programs

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Differentiation and Compartmentalization1975-1985

Many engineering programs develop “tracks” – Often available only in the Senior year– EE: “Signal processing” “Power and Control” “Biomedical

Devices” “Computers” “Antennas and Propagation”

Computer Engineering programs proliferate– The emergence of the ECE department

‘Secession’ of Computer Science is complete

New programs emerge in Biomedical Engineering

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The impetus for the second US reform (1990-2003)

Desire to use emerging technology to improve instruction– Personal computer, digital communication and

networking–

The sense that the pendulum has swung too much toward Engineering Science

High attrition rate of students in the early years– Attributed to the abstract nature of preparatory

classes – in US only slightly more than 50% of students entering engineering graduate with an engineering degree

Graduates perceived to be deficient in communication and presentation skills

Serov 1997

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The impetus for the second US reform (1990-2003)

Graduates perceived to be unable to take into consideration economic, social, and ethical considerations; can’t work in teams

Increased economic gap between engineering and practitioners of the ‘professions’

Continued failure to attract minorities and women to engineering

A plethora of new proposals for better pedagogical approaches for engineering

Serov 1997

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General Outline of the Second Reform in the US

Started with the 1988 NSF-funded E4 experiment at Drexel University

Continued by establishment of NSF coalitions of schools, which operated 1992-2002– Gateway, SUCCEED

The coalitions developed new curricular materials, ideas and structures– Implementation and scaling proved difficult– Adoption of coalition-created instructional

material and methods outside home institutions was limited

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Formalization of Second Reform in US

ABET Engineering Criteria 2000, EC 2000 was the formalization of the concerns of the second reform

Maintain high level of engineering science while including/emphasizing new elements …– Team work– Capstone design– Ethics and societal impact– Globalization– Communication– Quality control assessment/feedback mechanisms

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Impetus for a Third Reform – Evolution and Revolution

The fundamentals may be shifting– Modern computing is not integrated properly in

engineering education– Life sciences becoming more important– Web 2.0 and internet causing fundamental shifts

The Fundamentals may be shifting

– Modern computing is not integrated properly in engineering education

Impetus for a Third Reform

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Computing is Changing the Nature of Engineering Work

The use of computing tools has pervaded almost all areas of engineering – Look under the hood of your car– Look under the hood of your Spectrum Analyzer

Engineering education did not yet catch up– For us it is still “computer aided design”– For industry this is the only design that there is

We continue to teach many subjects as if symbolic computation and computers do not exist

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A Few ExamplesWe continue to teach again and again how to find, guess and synthesize integrating factors

We still teach students how to use approximations and rules of thumb most of which will never ever be used– Think about Bode Plots and Root Locus Methods– How about Karnaugh maps

Fundamentals of software writing and software testing are often left for self exploration– And yet these are of increasing significance for

engineers on the job

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Cloud Computing

Obvious impacts– Change CS/IT education to understand

requirements for cloud implementations– Institutions using cloud-based approaches

for email, learning management systems, social computing

Non-obvious impacts– Data, both large and small, from real sources

allow new, real world, authentic problems to be explored at all levels of engineering education

– Resources available globally reducing barriers to access

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Computing vs. Programming (1)

Computing, herein, refers to use of specialized packages for computing certain results and for symbolic manipulation– Could be within more general packages such as

Matlab, Mathematica, Alpha, LTSpice– Allows larger and real world problems to be

done by students– Obviates the need for many specialized

techniques that reduce dimensionality of large problems

Students need to use these computational tools as tools to think with, not just tools to complete an assignment

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Computing vs. Programming (2)

Programming focuses on developing code for particular purposes– An important discipline and skill which is

not taken seriously enough in most current engineering curricula

– The erroneous assumption is that this is an add-on that students can learn on their own

– Another erroneous assumption is that programming for production is not done by engineers

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Thoughts for the Future

The role of computing in the education of engineers needs to be re-thought

Computing skills can no longer be add-ons and nice-to-haves

As analytical skill needed by engineers, computing may have become as least as fundamental as Calculus

The Fundamentals may be shifting

– Integrating Life Sciences into the ECE Curricula

Impetus for a Third Reform

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Intersection of Life Sciences & ECE

Data and Image analysis– Medical Image analysis– All the –omics (genomics, proteomics,

glucomics, etc)

Optics and advanced microscopyTelemedicine/TelehealthHealth InformaticsProstheses – Robotics, cognitive, sensory (cochlear, visual)

In vivo sensorsBiochipsBionanophotonics

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Student Interest

Significant student interest in bio-x engineering– Bioengineering, biomedical engineering,

biological engineering

Other departments are pushing strongly into these areas– Biomedical and Bioengineering departments– Mechanical engineering departments– Chemical engineering departments– Biological engineering departments

ECE often challenged to have significant bio-presence in the curriculum

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And there is more …

New approaches to education in Power and Energy

Engineering as enhancer of quality of life– Entertainment engineering, media, games

Grand Challenge Problems in the curriculum

The Profession is Changing…

– Geographically

Impetus for a Third Reform

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A Global Challenge

Educate future engineers to work in a transnational environment – E.g., encourage “a semester abroad” and

exchange programs– Introduce pertinent international trends into the

curriculum Including education in business and law

Provide resources to engineers to understand industrial and economical trends that affect the professionDevelop a global system of credential and accreditation recognition

The Profession is Changing…

– The Rise of the Service Economy

Impetus for a Third Reform

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The Role of Service Economy is Increasing

Increased importance of the service sector in industrialized economies

Look at the Fortune 500 – …more service companies– …fewer manufacturers

The old dichotomy between product and service has been replaced by a service-product continuum

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“Servitization of products”

• Today we have the commodization of our products tomorrow we will have the servitization of our products

• Products today have a higher service component than in previous decades

• Virtually every product today has a service component to it

• Many products are being transformed into services

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Revolution

• Collective learning• New tools changing the idea of labs• Internet and Machine Learning are providing the

basis for revolutionary changes in higher education, with engineering and computer science as the clear first targets

• This is made even more compelling as more is known about how we learn– Note that we professors are the best model for

didactic learning – after all we succeeded in the traditional system

– Can be hard for us to accept new perspectives – seems like either coddling the students or cheating

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Collective Learning

• Solutions to all textbook problems available online

• Many blogs and forums on engineering topics more responsive and informative than professors and TAs

• Makers movement– Online communities using tools such as

Arduino, small embedded processors, 3D printers, and more

– Authentic communities supporting the design and building of exciting projects

– Much more engaging than typical university labs

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National Instruments MyDAQ• A lab in your pocket

– EE, ME, Control….

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MyDAQ

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Altera DE0-Nano

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Arduino

• Simple and inexpensive microcontroller

• MANY peripherals (shields)

• HUGE community of hobbyists

• Great online help

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Collective learning - MOOCs

• Challenges from for-profit institutions• Challenges from certificate programs• If continuous education is the norm for a working

professional, how does that manifest in the classroom?

• Is the lecture still relevant? The classroom?• Important reading (there are many more)

– A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change Douglas Thomas, John Seely Brown

– From Abelard to Apple, Richard DeMillo.– DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher

Education Anya Kamenetz– Disrupting the Classroom: How Disruptive Innovation Can Deliver Quality

and Affordability to Postsecondary Education, Clayton M. Christensen, Michael B. Horn, Louis Caldera, Louis Soares, Innosight Institute, Feb 2011

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http://pcpp.zyante.com

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http://pcpp.zyante.com• Interactive animated content for C and C++• Developed by experienced faculty at three campuses

of the Univ. of California and Univ. of Arizona• Partnered with CodeLab

– Each sections has assignments that can be graded automatically

• Built in learning management system• The material has been used by about 200 students in

five courses at three universities, – and feedback has been outstanding, both from

instructors and students. – Fall 2012 another 300+ students. – Spring 2013 800 students multiple universities.

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Flippedclassroom

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What will happen? Evolution and Revolution

• We will evolve – already seeing changes in undergraduate programs– Math/computing still has a long way to go– Mixing disciplines more likely, especially in bio areas– Labs will become much more personal

• There will be a revolution– Why lecture when you can have an interactive class?

Students get lecture from the web – flipped classroom Problems/HW, labs, designs, all supported locally

– Labs and design teams can be more global Grades and degrees given locally

– Could see professional organizations offering some type of degree or certification based on testing material learned online

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The Flipped Classroom• Interactive Learning Online at Public

Universities: Evidence From Randomized Trials • The study compared how much students at six

public universities learned after taking a prototype introductory statistics course in the fall of 2011 in either a hybrid or a traditional format.

• Randomly assign a diverse group of 605 students to either– a hybrid group, with computer-guided

instruction and one hour of face-to-face instruction each week,

– or a traditional format, with three or four hours of face-to-face instruction per week.

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The Flipped Classroom

• The result? “We find that learning outcomes are essentially the same—that students in the hybrid format pay no ‘price’ for this mode of instruction in terms of pass rates, final exam scores, and performance on a standardized assessment of statistical literacy,”

• Purdue has conducted similar experiments for a number of years– Essentially no difference, except, students in

the flipped classroom performed better on more demanding conceptual problems than those in the traditional classroom

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What will happen?• Prediction – engineering education in 2020 will look

quite different than it does today.• Changes?

– MS degrees – radically changed done online from many sources with a variety of

assessments – even from IEEE???

– Lecturers in large undergrad courses challenged by available online lectures Flipped classroom becomes common Student communities become global

– Personal labs become more common Online help, and hobbyist communities become an integral

part of basic engineering education

– Role of, and economic value of, many universities will be called into question

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What do Universities provide?

Collection of experts Community of learners

Gateway to Industry and Profession

Definition of DegreesExpensive labs

Sanctioned Validation of Success

Face-to-face interactions

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What part of Universities cannot be replaced?

Collection of experts Community of learners

Gateway to Industry and Profession

Definition of DegreesExpensive labs

Validation of Success

Face-to-face interactions

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We Live in Exciting Times

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We Live in Exciting Times

Thank youQuestions and Comments…