Expanding Technological Literacy through Engineering Minors
The economic prosperity of the United States and the quality of life of her residents are critically dependent on making wise choices on the use and development of technology in areas such as energy policy, health care, defense spending, the environment, and telecommunications. Yet most decisions in these sectors are made by people with little or no formal engineering education. This program will develop a Minor in Engineering Studies (MES) as an approach to improving technological competence in non-engineering undergraduate students.
This program, funded by the NSF DUE CCLI program (2009–2010), is a collaboration between Dr. Mani Mina at Iowa State University, Dr. Robert Gustafson at Ohio State University, Dr. John Krupczak at Hope College, and Dr. James Young at Rice University. They will build on the promising results achieved in the MES Program at Iowa State. The MES is not intended to develop design-level engineering knowledge, but rather to provide the general competencies advocated by the National Academy of Engineering in such documents as Technically Speaking and Tech Tally. The MES provides a formal credential that students can use when entering the job market—a strong incentive and motivating factor for many students. At Rice, we plan to develop the MES in conjunction with education experts so that it will meet state certification standards for teaching K–12 engineering, further increasing the value of the degree.
Project Tasks
- Determine the most significant factors that motivate and interest non-engineers in pursuing a MES through the use of surveys and focus groups with non-engineering undergraduates, including those in the MES program at Iowa State.
- Develop a set of technological literacy outcomes for the degree, similar to the ABET a-k outcomes that are used for engineering degrees.
- Develop and test a set of common assessment methods for the outcomes.
- Develop course curriculum materials appropriate for non-engineers, including scaffolding materials and training plans for graduate students and faculty teaching technological literacy courses.
- Establish an online community and discussion group as a means for faculty from other institutions to obtain resources and to learn about the practical issues involved in creating a MES.
