Engineering Accreditation Changes: a Threat or an Opportunity
for Physics Programs?
Paul Zitzewitz, Chair, Forum on Education
Do you and your physics colleagues provide a service course for an undergraduate
engineering program? If you do you are certainly aware of the credit hours
the required calculus-based physics courses generates. Nationally 50% of
the student credit hours generated by physics departments come from engineering
students. Thus any change in the requirements for an engineering degree
is important for physics programs.
The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Inc., or ABET,
is in the midst of a three-year migration to a new set of standards, Engineering
Criteria 2000. These standards, which are being phased in over the
next three years, are available at the ABET website, http://www.abet.org.
The new standards, which have been planned, discussed, and revised since
1996, are fundamentally different from the old. Their focus is on the educational
objectives of engineering programs and on the way the programs determine
whether or not the objectives are met. Thus rather than prescribing the
number of hours of instruction, engineering programs must demonstrate that
graduates have an ability to apply knowledge of mathematics, science, and
engineering, to analyze and interpret data, to function on multidisciplinary
teams, to communicate effectively, and to have an ability to engage in
lifelong learning. Evidence that may be used includes, but is not
limited to the following: student portfolios, including design projects;
nationallynormed subject content examinations; alumni surveys that
document professional accomplishments and career development activities;
employer surveys; and placement data of graduates.
The new criteria specify that "the course work must include at least
one year of an appropriate combination of mathematics and basic sciences." ABET
defines one year as the equivalent of 32 semester hours or 48 quarter hours.
The Criteria 2000 document states that "The objective of the
studies in basic sciences is to acquire fundamental knowledge about nature
and its phenomena, including quantitative expression. These studies must
include both general chemistry and calculusbased general physics
at appropriate levels, with at least a twosemester (or equivalent)
sequence of study in either area." There is no requirement that the
mathematics or science courses must be taught outside of the engineering
school.
While there is still room for 16 (semester) hours of mathematics and
8 each of chemistry and physics, if the physics and chemistry courses are
10 credit hours, engineering may decide to reduce the requirement in one
of the sciences to one term only. There is also no room for required upper
division courses.
The ABET accreditation criteria demand that "the overall curriculum
must provide an integrated educational experience directed toward the development
of the ability to apply pertinent knowledge to the identification and solution
of practical problems in the designated area of engineering specialization." Do
the traditional calculus courses taught in the mathematics department and
the calculus-based physics course taught by physicists achieve this goal
for the engineering student? A 1995 NSF report ("Restructuring Engineering
Education: A Focus on Change," NWF Workshop on Engineering Education,
National Science Foundation, April 1995, p 8) suggested that it is not "efficient" to
teach mathematics and the sciences in isolation from their engineering
applications. The report charged engineering faculty with taking leadership
roles in integrating courses. The Electrical and Computer Engineering Department
at Drexel University, developed the ECE21 Curriculum (see http://cbis.ece.drexel.edu/ECE/ECE21/ece21.html)
that follows the Drexel E4 (Enhanced Educational Experience for Engineers)
program. The ECE21 document states that students are introduced to science
and mathematics "on a just-in-time basis, to solve real engineering
problems." Their program includes a three-quarter long course, Mathematical
and Physical Foundations of Engineering, that provides "an introduction
to mathematics and physics, the foundation of engineering" in an integrated
approach. Details of this course were presented at the 1996 ICUPE conference.
(D. H. Thomas and T.S. Venkataraman, "Drexel University's Freshman
Engineering Physics Course" in The Changing Role of Physics Departments
in Modern Universities, E.F. Redish and J.S. Rigden, editors, AIP Conference
Proceedings 399, 1997, pp 79ff) The primary physics content of the course
is mechanics. Electromagnetic waves and heat are taught in a two-term engineering
course on energy. In the third and fourth years there are additional interdisciplinary
courses involving gravity, electricity, and quantum mechanics, traditional
engineering topics, and economics.
Responding to another ABET-led initiative to shift program emphasis from
engineering science to engineering design and practice, the "Engineering
First" core curriculum at Northwestern University makes design an
integral part of the curriculum, starting in the first year. But, they
note that unless first-year students are exposed to engineering, their
design projects will be very limited. They also believe that students will
be better motivated by first year courses that have greater engineering
content. Thus mechanics, previously taught in the first quarter of the
year-long physics course, linear algebra, differential equations, and two
engineering courses are integrated into a four-quarter course sequence Engineering
Analysis, (EA). A year each of calculus and chemistry are taken concurrently
with the first three quarters of EA. In the second year, the second and
third quarters of the traditional physics course are taken in the Physics
Department.
Not all engineering initiatives have produced integrated courses. The
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Carnegie Mellon University
established a "Wipe the Slate Clean Committee" in 1989. Their
new curriculum, used for the first time in 1991 increased the exposure
of first-year students to engineering while still requiring a two-term
sequence of basic physics and two upper division math/science electives.
See http://www.ece.cmu.edu/Curric/Curric.toc.3.cfm for
details.
Are these changes a threat or an opportunity for physics departments?
If a department's "bread and butter" course is no longer required
for engineering students, or if the school of engineering decides it can
teach a more "relevant" physics course itself, the resulting
drop in credit hour production could lead to less income, less flexibility
to offer low-enrollment upper-division physics courses, or fewer graduate
students or faculty; the regulations are a definite threat.
On the other hand, if the accreditation changes can lead to constructive
dialog among the engineering, mathematics, chemistry, and physics faculty
in a university over ways of making course material more relevant to all
students then an improved university experience could result for all students.
Physics departments might also try to emulate Northwestern's program and
put "Physics First." How can we give our students a sense of
the excitement of physics research, or enable them to conduct research
projects early in their careers? Can our colleagues in industry and the
national laboratories help? The Forum and its newsletter and website can
serve as a means of further discussion on the effects on physics departments
of the accreditation changes and creative responses that departments have
made. Please communicate directly with me or with any of our newsletter
editors.
Reform: Sputnik and Today
Stan Jones
In the fall of last year the National Academy of Sciences held a symposium
prompted by the 40th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik. That launch
gave impetus to a variety of "reforms" in science, math, and
engineering education. I think it is fair to say that a great number of
the members of this Forum were influenced in one way or another by the
reforms of the 50's and 60's. For me, it was SMSG math, and PSSC physics.
Included in this issue of the Newsletter are excerpts from some of the
papers(1) at that symposium which analyzed the meaning of the
post-Sputnik reform movement.
We find ourselves again in the midst of reform in science education,
a reform prompted in part by the publication of "A Nation at Risk(2)." Indeed,
one might say we have spent much of the last half of the century "reforming" science
education. The paper presented by Rodger Bybee at the Sputnik Symposium
begins by asking the pertinent question "Why is this educational reform
different from all other reforms?" If past reforms "failed," how
do we know the next one won't? Bybee goes on to answer that question, saying
that, first, past reforms have not been total failures, only incomplete
successes. We build on lessons learned from past efforts, adding what we
have learned in the meantime.
One very important lesson learned over the years is that students are
not all alike, and that we have a vast and diverse audience to serve. There
is, therefore, no single way to best serve all students. We are asked to
be aware of different modes of learning, and correspondingly, different
ways of teaching, so that we might serve the students we face. We are asked
to teach "Science for All Americans(3)," and also
train the next generation of physicists. Not to mention the pre-meds.
Just as science is a process and not a book of facts, reform is an ongoing
process. It is not an event that occurs once and is then finished, leaving
the system in equilibrium for another generation. We are all the time re-examining
our philosophy of education, our curriculum and techniques, and our standards;
at least we should be doing this. In my local College of Education, the
process is called being a reflective teacher. In reflecting on what we
are doing, we revise, innovate, reject when we must, and thus continually
reform our practices.
It is true, however, that certain ideas grab our attention and call for
major shifts in our point of view. In this sense, the turn toward conceptual
learning, toward science literacy for all students, and toward student
centered (active) learning, constitute real changes in the way we view
science education. Like the introduction of PSSC physics 40 years ago,
the new ideas are generating considerable discussion. Unlike that reform,
they are also generating (and being prompted by) substantive research.
We cannot ignore this new movement, this new reform , which affects all
who teach and who strive to continually improve their effectiveness as
teachers.
Also in this issue are two interviews with physics educators on the subject
of reform. They bring current reform efforts into focus, and also raise
new issues that are just being recognized. The recently adopted national
science standards are part of the current reform effort. In an article
reprinted from the American Astronomical Society newsletter, Jay Pasachoff
notes some significant oversights in these standards.
In the previous issue, I issued a challenge to the readers to give their
views on proposals raised in this newsletter about broadening the spectrum
of paths to a physics bachelor's degree. Several took up the challenge;
their letters and an article from Illinois State are in this issue.
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