News Detail

Embracing Innovation in Education

10/1/2018

ACI is busily training and educating the next generation of concrete professionals. It is one of the things we do the best. The growth of certification programs has been one of our major success stories in recent years. ACI attracts a strong following of college professors who find the conventions to be an effective place to share research and classroom methods.

As much as we see the world in rapid change around us, I find it a bit mystifying that today’s civil engineering curriculum seems so similar to my own experience in the 1970s. Similar course names, similar assignments, similar classroom settings. Are we missing something in the way we approach higher education?

I reached out to three experts to get their take on the State of Engineering Education. Keith Hjelmstad is a Professor and Chair of the Civil, Environmental, and Sustainability Engineering program at Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ. He commiserated with me about the stagnant educational model for undergraduate education, but he also pointed out that there may be a reasonable explanation for the apparent stodginess.

Math, chemistry, physics, and mechanics are the foundations of the "canon," Hjelmstad observed. We need not be concerned that Newton’s Laws are unchanged after 300 years. On the other hand, it is consoling to see that our graduate courses are much more diverse and evolving. For example, all the top universities have quickly responded to the rise of blockchain technology by rolling out new degree programs. Closer to home, one sees new structural engineering graduate courses in resiliency, sustainability, risk, and repair methods.

Stu Walesh, an author, consultant, and past dean of engineering at Valparaiso University, encourages fellow engineers to consider basic ideas about creativity and innovation. Our brains like to rest on things that have worked in the past, and this "design fixation" can become an impediment to change.

In civil engineering, we carry the considerable burden of public safety that tends to increase conservative tendencies. How then can we ever break out of doing things the same old way to get the same old results? Walesh wants us to raise our expectations across the profession, and he sees that strong fundamental education is a key to equipping engineers to adapt and innovate throughout their careers. Weaker educational experience leaves engineers with lower capacity to overcome design fixation.

Dave Goldberg is an author, educator, entrepreneur, and artificial intelligence researcher. He is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Illinois, and in recent years has been writing, consulting, and "coaching" educators and leaders. He blames the malaise in higher education on a failure to understand what we should be teaching.

It is a myth, Goldberg suggests, to think that practice is merely the application of theory. The result is that we are churning out engineering graduates who may know math and mechanics, but don’t understand how to motivate change in their organizations.

Today there is a great amount of discussion about reforming engineering education. Although the technical foundation may seem unchanging, the upper level of the curriculum is flexible and able to quickly adapt. Teaching techniques are evolving, and one hears about "flipped classrooms" and advances in classroom technology. I certainly welcome the deep thinking that my three colleagues contribute because we need the inspiration and provocation they provide.

My sense is that the culture in ACI pushes us all in the right direction. Our recent strategic planning discussions have emphasized the need to be nimble and open to change. Our work with codes and guides for construction will pull us to be conservative, so it will serve us well to be very intentional about embracing innovative ideas. ACI is a better ACI when we adopt a bold and disruptive character.

David A. Lange