REVISING CURRICULUM ACCORDING TO TYPES OF LEARNING: THE CASE OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION

Using engineering education as a model of current efforts in curricular reform, this presentation presents a method for curricular review based on learning types in order to design an undergraduate experience that is transformational. The Accrediting Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) has taken significant steps in addressing this need for change. ABET changed accreditation criteria putting more focus on student learning outcomes. The new standards, known as EC2000, ask programs to set clear educational objectives, to collaborate with industry, to conduct outcomes assessment and feed data from these assessments back into the program for continuous improvement. The conceptual framework underpinning this revision posited that program change including curriculum and instruction, faculty culture and policies and practices would impact student experiences in and out of the classroom thus impacting outcomes both in student learning and employer ratings of new hires. Curriculum examination as directed by ABET is typical of scientific curricula rooted in the traditional instructional paradigm. The focus of such a review of curriculum is on areas of content knowledge arranged sequentially. Our proposed model attempts to blend three learning types, transmissive, transactive, tranformative, progressively reducing the opportunities for transmissive learning in favor of transactive and transformational experiences for both transactional and transformational perspectives are constructivist in nature and are, thus, congruent with the learner-centered paradigm as they view the learner as an individual in control of his/her own learning and view learning as a holistic process, promoting the social function of learning. In this more holistic approach, curricula is organized according to broad concepts and themes as opposed to a sequence of units of knowledge. Mapping a new curriculum in this model will involve the identification of broad concepts and themes and designing learning experiences to facilitate their acquisition.