Engineering education globally is facing numerous challenges as the world emerges from the pandemic and adapt to changes in demographics, workforce needs, and technology. In response, ASEE is leading efforts focused on diversity, curricula, and workforce needs. One initiative is focused on helping institutions change the way they recruit, admit, and educate engineering students. The goals of this initiative, entitled “Weaving Students into Engineering versus Weeding Them Out” is two-fold: first, to help institutions attract and educate a more diverse engineering workforce; second, to produce sufficient engineering graduates to support workforce needs in the face of declining birthrates and the diversification of the US population. This program is co-hosting a listening session with the National Science Foundation-funded Engineering Research Visioning Alliance to hear from to student voices, as well as a National Science Foundation-funded workshop, co-hosted with the National Academy of Engineering, to develop a framework of research-based strategies to for recruiting and retaining a more diverse spectrum of students in terms of pre-college preparation and opportunity. ASEE is also focusing on curriculum changes to keep pace with rapid technological change in the engineering workplace. The first effort, the Industry 4.0 Initiative, hosted a series of webinars and a summit on Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies to reach a consensus on improvements to curricula, work-based experiences, policies, and practices that students need to compete in today’s workforce. The second effort is a National Science Foundation-funded task force studying the undergraduate engineering curriculum in the US to provide recommendations for updating how students are educated today. The final report of this initiative will be similar to the 1955 Grinter Report, which has heavily influenced engineering education in the US for the last seventy years. ASEE is engaged in additional efforts focused on diversity. ASEE’s Commission on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion held a Year of Impact on Racial Equity in 2021-2022, focused on organizational change around increased awareness and action to dismantle racism. The ASEE Engineering Dean’s Council oversees the ASEE Diversity Recognition Program, created to publicly recognize those engineering and engineering technology colleges that make significant, measurable progress in increasing the diversity, inclusion, and degree attainment outcomes of their programs. Recognition occurs at three levels: bronze, silver, and gold. ASEE has multiple programs to help engineering faculty stay current in the face of rapid change and to improve the quality of their teaching. The first is the Delta Workshop series which provides online training for future faculty, new faculty, junior faculty, department heads, and aspiring deans. ASEE’s National Science Foundation-funded Faculty Teaching Excellence Program is developing a framework to promote and recognize continuous improvement in the quality of engineering and engineering technology instruction. This initiative, currently in the planning stage, will provide faculty with personalized pathways for ongoing professional development training in topics of relevance to them, with levels of recognition for acquiring knowledge, demonstrating expertise, and engaging leadership in engineering education. ASEE’s efforts in each of these areas are designed to help its members and programs innovate and keep pace with the rapid changes impacting engineering and engineering education, as well as realize notable change in educating a more diverse engineering workforce.

View full abstract

The fundamentally-required literacy in higher education, even for non-engineering students, has been modified along with the change of social demands, which includes more engineering-tinted basics, such as computer programming, machine learning, artificial intelligence, digital fabrication, and biology. This trend is being accelerated by the rise of artificial intelligence and the worldwide spread of various pandemics. However, from the author’s experience, it seems that the currently required subjects are not the same as what has been believed necessary in traditional engineering pedagogical approaches. In this talk, we share our experiences and lessons learned to teach mathematics and programming to more than one hundred students of machine learning from almost-all majors, in a single classroom.

View full abstract

Hands-on and haptic educational materials, which were developed for use in university lecture classes of the Mechanical Engineering Department, were diverted to visiting lectures in high schools and an interdisciplinary meetup online. Sets of materials were fabricated to improve students’ basic knowledge of mechanical design and machine elements. For outreach in engineering and manufacturing, one subject relating to tolerance was selected mainly from these materials. For the visiting lectures, before the COVID-19 situation, the materials were brought and given to the students in a classroom to touch and interact with; after the situation, they were used as demonstration tools. For the online meetup, a short video was made by playing the materials with our hands and uploading them on the website. The materials and videos would help high school students and different fields’ audiences become interested in engineering and understand its function.

View full abstract

Okayama University has deeply committed in the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) activities, one of which is the next generation education in both Japan and overseas. On September 15 to 17 of 2021, her Faculty of Engineering hosted “SDGs Seminar 2021 Autumn”, a special online seminar fostering international exchange between high school students and university students. Over 175 people participated in the seminar, including the undergraduate students and university personnel from INTEC Education College in Malaysia and the students from Okayama Ichinomiya High School, as well as the undergraduate and graduate students and university personnel from Okayama University. Details of this activity was described here. After COVID-19 is over, the holding way of International seminar, face-to-face or via web, should be chosen by participants’ advantages.

View full abstract

Tohoku University High School Bridging Program is a two-week educational program designed for high school students who have been admitted to Tohoku University. The aim of this program is not only to form the foundation for students who can take an active role in the global stages, but also to increase the number of students who can provide a good stimulus to other students having eagerness to engage in international activities including study abroad and language learning after enrolling the university. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the program provided online, was made up of English for engineers, keynote lectures in engineering fields, academic skills including presentation and thesis, as well as virtual tours to the cultural and industrial sites where it provided the students with a new way of engineering education that could not have done at onsite. As a result, students were able to focus on building the foundation of academic skills for engineers and the online program produced more significant educational benefits than the onsite program which involved sensory learning. Improving the program while considering the merits of both online and onsite is the next challenge.

View full abstract

This paper describes how TSUBAMATE, which is founded on community-based, functions as an intermediary organization for internships between higher education institutes (HEIs) and companies, and what kind of effects their activities present. TSUBAMATE executes coordination for the problem-based learning (PBL) in internships that are carried out by collaborating HEIs and companies. An important factor for successful PBLs is connecting learning goals established by HEIs with real industrial problems; therefore, close communication with both HEIs and companies to deepen mutual understanding is essential. TSUBAMATE not only gives HEIs the appropriate training contents but also conveys the insights induced by participating students to the companies at the same time. This win-win process can be said “program development” rather than coordination that TSUBAMATE accomplishes with the rich and strong relationships with both sides of the collaboration in nature. We observe the excellent contribution to the regional development by an academia-industry collaborating PBL program developed by TSUBAMATE via an international internship project as a good practice case.

View full abstract

In the context of rapid technological innovation and globalization, engineering education has been focused on global competencies to foster students who can solve multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary problems in the global society. In particular, after the COVID-19 pandemic, global project-based learning (PBL) to enhance global competencies has been conducted online with a pedagogy of collaborative online international learning (COIL) with industry-academia collaboration. A current challenge is the evaluation of global competencies in COIL. This study focuses on a weekly report system as an evaluation tool for global competencies in engineering education. Hence, this study aims to examine the weekly report system, as a trial utilization, which was applied to an industry-academia PBL-type COIL program conducted by the Faculty of Engineering, Niigata University in the winter of 2021. Consequently, the usefulness of the tool was demonstrated and future challenges were discussed.

View full abstract

Online lectures are actively held in many institutions under the restrictions caused by COVID-19. Online lectures are advantageous because many students can attend lectures without geographical restrictions, and this feature has also made it easier to invite foreign lecturers to hold online lectures. However, especially in exercise-based lectures regarding IoT and manufacturing, we should devise a thoughtful preparation method for teaching students online because hardware devices such as microcomputers and electronic components are indispensable in many cases. For example, the lecturer needs to not only share screens, but also tell students how to handle the actual hardware and connect them to each other. Students also need to appropriately share the questions and concerns that occur during the exercise with the lecturer and/or other participants to obtain solutions. At the National Institute of Technology, Tokyo College (Tokyo Kosen), in collaboration with a lecturer at the Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences (HMUAS), an online intensive lecture on programmable system on chip (PSoC) devices was held for Kosen students. In this study, practical examples and the findings obtained through our efforts are reported.

View full abstract

Japanese College of Technology (KOSEN), starting at the age of 15, is Japan's original five years tertiary education and has played an important role in fostering innovative engineers in the last fifty years in Japan. KOSEN-KMITL is the first Japanese-style KOSEN established in Thailand as a Thai's national project for fostering practical and innovative engineers urgently required by industries in Thailand. There are many historical, cultural, and institutional differences between KOSEN-KMITL and Japanese long-term existing KOSEN colleges. To launch KOSEN education, it is crucial to build school spirits and students' KOSEN engineering mindset in addition to the implementation of KOSEN classes. To develop students' KOSEN mindset and their readiness for KOSEN study, an introductory subject module including engineering contents, cognitive approaches, hands-on work, and Lab work is provided for all first-year students. It is shown that the module is very effective as early engineering education.

View full abstract

Educational methods have long been the focus of research in foreign language learning. However, even with the most grounded methods, many students still have a harsh experience in learning a new language. Much of these negative experiences can be attributed to high levels of anxiety when communicating in a foreign language. Previous research has shown that anxiety coming from outside of language learning is not correlated with low levels of language acquisition. Instead, it is anxiety specific to communicating in a foreign language that is responsible. Factors that cause anxiety at one of National Institute of Technology, Oyama College’s classes that is taught in English has been identified. This paper reports on these anxieties and the measures taken against them. By minimizing anxiety in a classroom environment, students are less afraid of making mistakes, and are more open to fully expressing themselves in a foreign language.

View full abstract

A project aimed at promoting the quality of Japan's high-tech research by promoting joint research with overseas countries and developing human resources for young researchers was adopted by the government. The activity was based on three extreme technologies: strong magnetic field, large current, and ultra-high pressure, with the aim of reducing the AC loss of superconducting materials. Three young researchers supported by four Japanese research institutes were dispatched for about a year to collaborate with five European research institutes. The dispatched researchers collaborated with local researchers, planned new collaborations, and presented the results at the international conferences worldwide. The researchers’ action ranges were well broadened, and six international co-authored papers and six international conference presentations were accumulated. As a result, the project was very effective in fostering human resources for researchers and improving the level of research fields.

View full abstract