Integrating Technology Innovation and Creativity, Professional Responsibility, and Leadership into the Undergraduate Educational Experience
Harovel G. Wheat
Mechanical Engineering
The course activities are intended to integrate technology innovation and creativity, professional responsibility, and leadership into the undergraduate educational experience in several of the mechanical engineering courses. This integration will be introduced by means of a special assignment that is to be worked on throughout most of the course. In two of the materials courses, students will be given a special assignment that involves one or more materials-related problems taken from current newspapers or magazines. The solution to these problems will incorporate aspects of various topics in the course they are taking.
The special assignment will run parallel to the normal weekly assignments, which are intended to provide fundamental information about the subject matter. It will be expected that the special assignment will be in the back of the students’ minds throughout the course. Students will work on it in groups of three to five.
In addition to including their proposed solution to the problem, their final report will describe some of the challenges the group may have faced regarding leadership and ethics aspects. At the outset, the students will be asked to keep a record of these issues.
The activities are not intended to require an extraordinary amount of time. Instead, they are intended to provide opportunities to make the course more relevant and to make topics such as ethics more real in their lives. Students who provide solutions that are deemed to be especially noteworthy will be encouraged to expand their ideas and to submit them in appropriate competitions.
Many students view technology innovation/creativity, professional responsibility, and leadership as separate and abstract entities. Moreover, many feel that these are not a part of their overall undergraduate educational experience. They recognize that unethical behavior, such as cheating on exams, is wrong, but often do not see that this relates to professional responsibility. Some have actually confessed that they feel they may have to conduct themselves in a less-than-honorable-manner during college, but that once they have a job in an engineering company, they have no doubt that they will be able to handle themselves in a professionally responsible way.
Benefits Expected:
The goal is to make students more aware of the interrelationship between technology
innovation and creativity, ethics, and leadership, not only in the special assignment,
but also in ethical issues associated with their undergraduate educational experience.