Fostering Professional Competencies in Engineering Undergraduates with EPS@ISEP

Abstract

Engineering education addresses the development of professional competencies in undergraduates. In this context, the core set of professional competencies includes critical thinking and problem solving, effective communication, collaboration and team building, and creativity and innovation—also known as the four Cs—as well as socio-professional ethics and sustainable development—referred in this paper as the two Ss. While the four Cs were identified by the associates of the American Management Association based on the needs of the society, professional associations, and businesses; this paper proposes the two S extension to ensure that future engineers contribute to the well-being of individuals and the preservation of life on Earth. It proposes a tangible framework—the 4C2S—and an application method to analyse the contributions made by engineering capstone programmes to the development of these core competencies in future engineering professionals. The method is applied to an engineering capstone programme—the European Project Semester (EPS) offered by the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP)—and a specific project case—EPS@ISEP Pet Tracker project developed in 2013, constituting, in addition, a road map for the application of the 4C2S framework to engineering capstone programmes. The results show that EPS@ISEP complies with the 4C2S framework.

Towards meta–competences in higher education for tackling complex real–world problems – a cross disciplinary review

“…To understand how life on the planet developed and the ability to consider the planet's boundaries and the link to key political issues in the process "To understand the dynamics of working in a global context" (Nurius, 2017) "The identification with all life" (Glasser and Hirsh, 2016) "Ability to consider economic, environmental and sustainability constraints" (Malheiro et al, 2019) "Awareness of systems and oppression" (Valley et al, 2020)…”

“…This competence combines strategic thinking, forward or anticipatory thinking as well as critical thinking (Wiek et al, 2011;Rychen, 2019;Brundiers et al, 2020;). Functional competence means to be competent in activities, which are not directly connected to the individual's qualification, but necessary to deliver his or her job successfully and thereby differentiates from domainspecific competence (Cheetham and Chivers, 1996) To be able to stretch beyond traditional methods and procedures of problem solving including transdisciplinarity and creativity "Ability to apply knowledge creatively to solve problem" (Malheiro et al, 2019) "Analytic evaluation/measurement competency" (Flynn, 2014) "Transdisciplinary competence" as the ability to apply it as a tool and skill to work with experts from other disciplines and beyond disciplines into real-world cases (Demssie et al, 2019)…”

Modeling-Eliciting Activities in an Online Engineering Course for Improving Conceptual Learning, Professional Skill, Interaction

“…The American Management Association conducted a critical skills survey of engineering practitioners from the entrepreneurs' perspective in 2012. The 21st-century business requires high-level skills such as critical thinking and problem-solving, effective communication, collaboration and team building, creativity and innovation, beyond the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic [2]. A well-designed teaching strategy is a key to enhancing engineering students' conceptual learning and professional skills.…”

Solar Dehydrator

“…EPS@ISEP implements project-based learning and teamwork methodologies, promoting the development of transversal skills and addressing sustainability and ethics in a multicultural and multidisciplinary set up [4], [5]. Furthermore, the programme complies with the 4C2S core professional competencies framework proposed by [6], which correspond to critical thinking and problem solving, effective communication, collaboration and team building, and creativity and innovation competencies -the four Cs identified by the American Management Association -as well as socioprofessional ethics and sustainable development -the two Ss. Sustainable development is one of the most important subjects today.…”