CDIO - Integrating soft/generic competencies in engineering education Kristina Edström, KTH DTU

1. engineering CDIO - Integrating soft/generic competenciesin engineering education Kristina Edström, KTH DTU kristina@kth.seOctober 21, 2008

2. KRISTINA EDSTRÖM Kristina Edström is an engineer from Chalmers.Educational developer and lecturer (universitetsadjunkt) in Engineering education development at KTH. Since 2001 participates in and leads educational development projectsat KTH, in Sweden and internationally. Since 2004 also teaches faculty development coursesin teaching & learning in higher education.

3. Two anecdotes...

4. Industry needs a new kind of engineer • Present focus • Context: Engineering science • Reduced, “pure” problems(with right and wrong answers) • Design phase • Individual effort • Desired focus • Context: product and system development (products and systems in a wide sense, not just Mech. disciplines) • Systems view, problems go across disciplines, are complex and ill-defined, and contain societal and business aspects • Understand the whole cycle: Conceive, design, implement, operate • Teamwork, communication

5. ”Engineers who can engineer...” The CDIO vision is to educate students who understand how to conceive - design - implement - operate complex value-added engineering systems in a modern team-based engineering environment.

6. The CDIO Syllabus - a long list of desired competences • Technical • Personal • Interpersonal • Conceive - Design - Implement - Operate in the societal and business context The CDIO Syllabus is available at www.cdio.org

7. U. Pretoria U. Auckland US Naval Academy Queen’s U., Belfast Denmark Tech. U. ISEP École Poly., Montréal U. Liverpool Singapore Poly. Queen’s U. Ontario CDIO DISSEMINATION FOUNDERS MIT Linköping Chalmers KTH NEW COLLABORATORS Politecnico di Milano JönköpingUniversity Hogeschool Gent Daniel Webster College Umeå U. University of Colorado California State U. U. Wismar U. Sydney

8. The book:Crawley et al. (2007) Rethinking Engineering Education: The CDIO Approach, Springer Verlag. ISBN 0387382879 Visit the 5th International CDIO ConferenceJune 8-11 2009, Singapore polytechnic, Singapore Visit www.cdio.org AN INVITATION

9. CDIO IS NOT A COOKIE CUTTER APPROACH CDIO is not a prescription Everything has to be translated-transformed to fit the context and conditions of each university / program Take what you want to use, transform it as you wish, give it a new name CDIO provides a toolbox for working through the process Local faculty ownership is key

10. CDIO is NOT a research project • The focus is on development of programs • We take on the challenge as an engineering problem rather than a research problem • Of course we publish papers - but as a by-product

11. Project management Teamwork Oralcommunication Writtencommunication THE BASIC IDEA OF CDIO SYSTEMATIC INTEGRATION Year 1 Introductory course Mathematics I Physics Numerical Methods Mechanics I Mathematics II Year 2 Solid Mechanics Product development Mechanics II Fluid mechanics Sound and Vibrations Thermodynamics Mathematics III Year 3 Signal analysis Control Theory Electrical Eng. Statistics

12. CDIO Standard 3 -- Integrated Curriculum A curriculum designed with mutually supporting disciplinary courses, with an explicit plan to integrate personal, interpersonal, and product, process, and system building skills

13. When Edison invented the light bulb in 1879... ...KTH was already celebrating its 50th anniversary.

14. BARRIERS: WHY AND HOW • Integrating competencies doesn’t make senseunless we see them as engineering competencies

15. ? Key question Why integrate skills

16. WHY INTEGRATE COMPETENCES? Competences are context-dependent and should be learned and assessed in the technical context. ...communication as a generic skill... ... communication as contextualized competences

17. EMBEDDED COMPETENCES Communication in engineering means being able to ► use the technical concepts comfortably, ► discuss a problem at different levels, ► determine what is relevant to the situation,► argue for or against conceptual ideas and solutions,► develop ideas through discussion and collaborative sketching, ► explain the technical matters for different audiences, ► show confidence in expressing yourself within the field... Communication skills as contextualized competences are embedded in, and inseparable from, students’ application of technical knowledge. The same kind of reasoning can be made for teamwork, ethics (etc...) as well. This is about students becoming engineers!

18. NOT A ZERO-SUM GAME • Practising CDIO competences in the disciplinary context means that students will have opportunities to express and apply technical knowledge. • Training for the competences will therefore at the same time reinforce students’ understanding of disciplinary content – they will acquire a deeper working knowledge of engineering fundamentals. • ”I can’t see that a credit of writing reports in my course is a wasted credit. Writing reports is an appropriate learning activity in my subject.” (Claes Tisell, KTH Machine design) • Engineering faculty are engineering role models and we must show commitment by involving ourselves.

19. MAPPING CDIO LEARNING OUTCOMES ONTO THE CURRICULUM • Find appropriate combinations of disciplinary knowledge, engineering skills, and attitudes • Sequence the CDIO knowledge, skills, and attitudes from simple to complex • Build on strengths: • Identify the CDIO learning outcomes already taught in existing courses and consolidate these if necessary • Identify faculty who are enthusiastic about developing their courses in this direction and work with them • Create new courses when necessary • Take advantage of the course’s sequence in the program • Facilitate coordination between courses (communication between faculty)

20. Project management Teamwork Oralcommunication Writtencommunication THE BASIC IDEA OF CDIO SYSTEMATIC INTEGRATION Year 1 Introductory course Mathematics I Physics Numerical Methods Mechanics I Mathematics II Year 2 Solid Mechanics Product development Mechanics II Fluid mechanics Sound and Vibrations Thermodynamics Mathematics III Year 3 Signal analysis Control Theory Electrical Eng. Statistics

21. ”OK, lets add a lecture on group dynamics then.””Of course they learn communication in my course, we have a written exam.”

22. LEVELS OF COMMITMENT • Introduce (I): • the topic is treated in some way in the course, but • it is not assessed, and • probably not mentioned in the course objectives. • Teach (T): • there is an explicit course objective, • and it is part of a compulsory activity, • students get to apply and get feedback on their performance (usually in assessment). • Utilize (U): • it is applied in a compulsory activity, but • mainly to achieve or assess other objectives in the course. Taking responsibility means this!

23. CONSTRUCTIVE ALIGNMENT - A MODEL FOR COURSE DEVELOPMENT Formulating objectives Designingassessment Designing activities What should the studentbe able to do as a result of the course? John Biggs 1999 What work should the students do, to reach the objectives? What should the students do, to demonstrate that they reached the objectives?

24. DESIGN-BUILD COURSE Integrating several engineering competencies in a project course...

25. DESIGN-BUILD PROJECT (EXAMPLES) Solar-driven aircraft, KTH Nano satellites, MIT Walking robot, LiU Formula Student, Chalmers

26. learn A project course is a framework for students to build things

27. AT KTH: NEW PROJECTS EVERY YEAR...

28. BUT ALWAYS THE SAME LEARNING OBJECTIVES After the course the participant is expected to be able to • work in a project setting in a way that effectively utilises the knowledge and efforts of the group members • explain mechanisms behind progress and difficulties in such a setting • communicate engineering – orally, in writing and graphically • analyse technical problems from a holistic point of view • handle technical problems which are incompletely stated and subjects to multiple constraints • develop strategies for systematic choice and use of available engineering methods and tools • make estimations and appreciate their value and limitations • pursue own ideas and realise them practically • make decisions based on acquired knowledge • assess quality of own work and work by others They enter as students and leave the course as engineers!

29. The CDIO implementation process

30. Starting point I: Validation • What competencies (in the CDIO Syllabus) should be prioritized in this program? • Validate plans with all stakeholders • This was made through surveys to alumni, students, industry • Comparisons with accreditation / regulations etc • Discussions in faculty

31. Survey data: KTH [Benchmarking Engineering Curricula with the CDIO Syllabus. Bankel et al. (2005)The International Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 21 No. 1, 2005.]

32. Starting point II: Existing curriculum • What competences (in the CDIO Syllabus) are already addressed in our courses? • The existing curriculum was benchmarked against the CDIO Syllabus • This was made through interviews with every faculty member responsible for a course in the program

33. Project management Teamwork Oralpresentation Report writing Plan for systematic integration Development routes (schematic) Year 1 Introductory course Mathematics I Physics Numerical Methods Mechanics I Mathematics II Year 2 Solid Mechanics Product development Mechanics II Fluid mechanics Sound and Vibrations Thermodynamics Mathematics III Year 3 Signal analysis Control Theory Electrical Eng. Statistics

34. BARRIERS: WHY AND HOW • Integrating competencies doesn’t make senseunless we see them as engineering competencies • Integrating competencies still doesn’t happenunless we see how it can be done

35. Course development phase 1. Create new courses or retask existing ones • build on existing strengths (consolidate & develop existing learning activities) • work with faculty who are willing & able • invite proposals rather than give orders 2. Supporting the development • increase number of credits for new responsibilities? • allocate resources for course development, give individual support • allocate resources for faculty development: individual support, workshops etc • Remember that we are developing the people as much as we are developing the programme

36. VEHICLE ENGINEERING – KTH Table of contents Introduction Program goals Engineering skills (CDIO Syllabus to second level of detail and associated expected proficiencies) Program structure Program plan Explicit disciplinary links between courses Program design matrix Sequences for selected engineering skills All courses in program Intended learning outcomes Contribution to engineering skills INTEGRATED CURRICULUM - SAMPLE

37. Black box coordination exercise OUTPUT: INPUT: Previous knowledge and skills Input to later course i • All courses in the program are presented through their input-output only • The black box approach enables efficient discussions • Makes connections visible (as well as lack thereof !) • Serves as a basis for improving coordination between courses • Helps faculty learn about the program as a whole Input to later course ii Course (here: black box) Input to later course iiietc. Final competence

38. Process overview 1b. Benchmarking of existing courses (interviews) 1a. Validation with stakeholders 2. Mapping of CDIO competences to existing and new courses 3. Course development 4. Fine-tune coordination

39. Results of 7 years of CDIO

40. 1. Engineering education in Sweden Effects on different levels

41. The National Agency for Higher Education used the CDIO Standards as a framework for the evaluation. The final report was extremely favourable for the programs that had implemented CDIO. ”CDIO” occurs 66 times in the 270 page report. The 2005 national evaluation of all engineering programs

42. Bids were made for nationally funded networks for educational development. CDIO was chosen as the framework for the engineering education network. 2007 and 2008: networks for educational development

43. The National Agency for Higher education awarded 5 national prizes 2 of them went to CDIO programs (KTH & Linköping) We think there will be a CDIO winner also in 2009 ;-) 2008: national prizes

44. 2. and at KTH Effects on different levels 1. Engineering education in Sweden

45. Vehicle Engineering is now a CDIO programme in steady state. 3 programmes have been thoroughly overhauled with a ”CDIO light” approach Mechanical Eng. Product Design & Development Eng. Materials Eng. 5 other programmes have been inspired and done parts of the CDIO development. Out of 15 programmes at KTH

46. Our unit is (more) legitimate and aligned with engineering faculty The staff development course (7,5 ECTS credits) has been made over to address CDIO-style course development 300 staff have now completed the course. And counting... Also the educational development unit reshaped itself around CDIO

47. Success is created through successful implementation, it is not inherent in a method Limitations

48. We planned for steady state from the very beginning Strategies: The trick is to make the permanent organization able to carry on by themselves It was never seen as a project with limited life Making it pervasive: this is just the way we do things around here nowadays... Begin with the end in mind

49. It turned out at KTH that the CDIO project was actually developing people as much as it was developing programs. Learning dimension

50. “If you want to learn about a system, try to change it”(after Le Chatelier’s principle)