Educators, researchers, and policy makers have advocated student involvement for some time as an essential aspect of meaningful learning. In the past twenty years engineering educators have implemented several means of better engaging their undergraduate students, including active and cooperative learning, learning communities, service learning, cooperative education, inquiry and problem‐based learning, and team projects. This paper focuses on classroom‐based pedagogies of engagement, particularly cooperative and problem‐based learning. It includes a brief history, theoretical roots, research support, summary of practices, and suggestions for redesigning engineering classes and programs to include more student engagement. The paper also lays out the research ahead for advancing pedagogies aimed at more fully enhancing students' involvement in their learning.

No abstract

Modern cooperative learning began in the mid-1960s (D. W. Johnson & R. Johnson, 1999a). Its use, however, was resisted by advocates of social Darwinism (who believed that students must be taught to survive in a "dog-eat-dog" world) and individualism (who believed in the myth of the "rugged individualist"). Despite the resistance, cooperative learning is now an accepted, and often the preferred, instructional procedures at all levels of education. Cooperative learning is being used in postsecondary education in every part of the world. It is difficult to find a text on instructional methods, a journal on teaching, or instructional guidelines that do not discuss cooperative learning. Materials on cooperative learning have been translated into dozens of languages. Cooperative learning is one of the success stories of both psychology and education. One of the most distinctive characteristics of cooperative learning, and perhaps the reason for its success, is the close relationship between theory, research, and practice. In this article, social interdependence theory will be reviewed, the research validating the theory will be summarized, and the five basic elements needed to understand the dynamics of cooperation and operationalize the validated theory will be discussed. Finally the controversies in the research and the remaining questions that need to be answered by future research will be noted.

Engineering education research (EER) has been on the fast track since 2004 with an exponential rise in the number of Ph.D.s awarded and the establishment of new programs, even entire EER departments. The National Research Council's Discipline-Based Education Research (DBER) report (National Research Council, 2012) captures the state-of-the-art advances in our understanding of engineering and science student learning and highlights commonalities with other science-based education research programs. The DBER report is the consensus analysis of experts in undergraduate education research in physics, chemistry, biology, geosciences, astronomy, and engineering. The study committee, chaired by Susan Singer, also included higher education researchers, learning scientists, and cognitive psychologists. A central aspect of the DBER report is the focus on and application of research in the education, learning, and social-behavioral sciences to science and engineering curricula design and teaching methods.Froyd, Wankat, and Smith (2012) identified five major shifts in engineering education in the past 100 years:1. A shift from hands-on and practical emphasis to engineering science and analytical emphasis 2. A shift to outcomes-based education and accreditation 3. A shift to emphasizing engineering design 4. A shift to applying education, learning, and social-behavioral sciences research 5. A shift to integrating information, computational, and communications technology in education They also argue that the first two shifts are completed and the last three are in progress. The DBER study is particularly focused on Shift 4, applying education, learning, and social-behavioral sciences research. The DBER report supplements and complements a flurry of activities in engineering education research, such as the emergence of Ph.D.-granting departments in colleges of engineering (Purdue, Virginia Tech, and many others in the United States and abroad; Benson et al., 2010) as well as the establishment of centers for engineering education research (

No abstract

for additional information. This is an Open Access journal. This means that it uses a funding model that does not charge readers or their institutions for access. Readers may freely read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles. This journal is covered under the CC BY-NC-ND license.

Current concerns over reforming engineering education have focused attention on helping students develop skills and an adaptive expertise. Phenomenological guidelines for instruction along these lines can be understood as arising out of an emerging theory of thinking and learning built on results in the neural, cognitive, and behavioral sciences. We outline this framework and consider some of its implications, such as developing a more detailed understanding of the specific skill of using mathematics in modeling physical situations. This approach provides theoretical underpinnings for some best-practice instructional methods designed to help students develop this skill and provides guidance for further research in the area.

No abstract