purdue mechanical engineering department transformation | strategic doing
TRANSCRIPT
An Engineering Education ‘Skunkworks’ to !
Spark Departmental RevolutionPI: Anil Bajaj, Head of the School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University!
Co-PI: Ed Berger, Engineering Education Researcher (School of Engineering Education and School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue)!Co-PI: Elizabeth Briody, Anthropologist (Cultural Keys, LLC)!
Co-PI: Ed Morrison, Change Agent (Purdue Center for Regional Development)
Vision
Objectives
Theory1of1Change
Research1PlanBarriers
Faculty1Development
How1will1you1be1a1national1leader1for1revolutionizing1engineering1departments?
Goals
•Students with dramatically improved PFE outcomes, defined as (5XME report*):!•Flexibility and agility!• Innovation and creativity to benefit society!•Global focus!•Teamwork and leadership!
•Communication skills!•An ME program with dramatically improved levels of trust, more student-centrism, and a massively expanded capacity to develop/deploy educational innovations
•Trust, human nature!
•Critical competing demands on time!
•Academic norms about performance, metrics, individuals!
•SD helps build trust in networked organizations!•SD demands agile, evidence-driven decisions based upon measureable outcomes
Roadmap1for1Scaling1and1Adaptation
Bookkeeping—time, money, people, collected throughout project—the “cost” Evidence—research questions, both EERQ and CCRQ (quantitative, qualitative)
Cultural context—characterization of current and envisioned culturePublication—ASEE, ASME, organizational change, anthropology
Workshops—ASEE, ASME, special sessionsPurdue Foundry--commercialization
NSF I-corps
roadmap
“traditional” dissemination
scaling and adaptation
time
Research Questions
Culture and change research questions!CCRQ1: How do ME dept. members describe the current culture,
and how does that compare to the envisioned future culture?!CCRQ2: Using Strategic Doing, can a leadership team guide agile
networks to use research-based pedagogies at scale?!CCRQ3: How does the Purdue MES enable broad-scale cultural
change by driving the conversation at the borderlands?
Engineering education research questions!EERQ1: How do students navigate the pedagogical borderlands encountered in concurrent/consecutive classes?!EERQ2: How do faculty calibrate their pedagogical approaches for student achievement of PFEOs?!EERQ3: What are the most useful and effective tools for assessment at scale?
Students (~400) Faculty (~70)Staff (~130)interviews
surveys
Faculty (~35) in-class observations
Students (~20) Faculty (~20)Staff (~20)Students (~10) Faculty (~10)Staff (~5) External (~4) Skunkworks
Data Collection
plus routine data collection from alumni and employers for ABET and other self-study purposes, augmented with specific questions related to achievement of PFE outcomes
•ME undergraduates will experience powerful educational programs under continuous innovation by faculty, staff, and students.!•ME students will achieve PFE outcomes in radically improved ways that prepare them for future opportunities.!•ME students, faculty, and staff relationships will be rooted in trust developed through execution of a shared mission.
doplan assessidea
Purdue MES; key issues: evidence, context, bookkeeping
assessdo adjust
Purdue ME Program; key issues: evidence, context, scaling
Promising? Successful?
* A. G. Ulsoy, “Report of The ‘ 5XME ’ Workshop : Transforming Mechanical Engineering !Education and Research in the USA,” Arlington VA, 2007.
• Transformation requires strategic design of open, loosely joined networks among students, faculty and administrators.!• These new networks must engage
individuals at both an intellectual and emotional level in the creation of new, shared value. !• Strategic Doing (SD) provides a tested
protocol to design and guide these networks.
• To create new more powerful educational experiences, faculty need more productive collaborations with colleagues and students.!• Skunkworks will provide guided workshops for faculty to develop
these skills as they design/test/use educational innovations. !• Incentives emerge as faculty learn to “link and leverage” their
assets and become more productive. Less wasted time meeting, more time engaged in teaching and research.
The SD approach might be one of the most effective ways of implementing change on campus.… Our diverse team of faculty and administrators have pivoted many times because of the continuous feedback that we analyze and plug back in into the decision making process.!
Ilya V. Avdeev, Ph.D.!Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical
Engineering!Founder, UWM Student Startup Challenge (SSC)!
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee