Getting Down to Brass Tacks: Student Involvement & Fa09 iFoundry Rollout

D. E. Goldberg, A. Cangellaris, K. Hyman & R. PriceUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

{deg,cangella,kkhyman,price1}@illinois.edu

Motivation• First cohort of iFoundry students will enter in Fa09.• How will their courses/experiences be different?• Why are students so important to the rollout?• Review idea of current plans and seek

– Membership and leadership on tiger teams to start working today.

– Action to bring iFoundry to life.– Ways this can make a difference to success of transformation

efforts.

Roadmap• Review key ideas of iFoundry:

• Failure of engineering education change efforts.• Systems view of the problem of academic change.• iFoundry: Cross-departmental incubator or pilot.• What engineers don’t learn: A view from industrial-based senior

design.• 3Space as balanced framework: ThingSpace, ThinkSpace, &

FolkSpace.• Brass tacks: 6 foci for 2009-2009: ThingLab, 3Space Studios,

Operation Fresh, Admissions, Rollout planning & EOTF2.0.• iFoundry wants you: Leadership, teams, & student

involvement decomposition.

Can Engineering Education Change?• Creative era: category creators,

not just category enhancers.• Many failed efforts:

• Corporations: Sponsor research, conferences, educational change.

• Alums understand need for change in their work.

• Academy: NSF coalitions, Engineer of 2020, Duderstadt report, Olin College.

• Bottom line: Some success, no diffusion across departments, colleges, borders.

• Systems problem: Not firing on all cylinders.

• Change efforts isolated.• Philosophically unsound &

conceptually unclear.

Why Curriculum Doesn’t Change• Organizational resistance: Academic

NIMBY (not in my back yard) problem. OK to reform, but don’t change MY course!

• Content errors after WW2: Math and science squeezed out design in WW2 and cold war. Don’t have correct content or materials (books, cases, artifacts) to teach anything else.

• Reform doesn’t scale: Best exemplars require faculty heroics, funding, and exclusive dedication to undergraduate education. Won’t xfer verbatim to Illiniois with 5700 ugrads and world-class research enterprise.

Vannevar Bush (1890-1974)

iFoundry: Unblocking the Organization

• Collaborative, interdepartmental pilot unit. Permit change.

• Volunteers. Enthusiasm for change among faculty & student participants.

• Existing authority. Use signatory authority for modification of curricula for immediate pilot.

• Respect faculty governance. Permanent changes go through usual channels.

• Scalability. 300 @ teaching U vs. 5700 at research U.

• Open-source curriculum change. Do it in the open.http://www.illigal.uiuc.edu/web/ifoundry/files/2007/08/ifoundry_concept.pdf

What Engineers Don’t Learn: & Why They Don’t Learn It

• Experience from real-world senior design.• After 4 years they

– Can’t ask questions (Socrates 101).– Can’t label things (Aristotle 101).– Can’t model qualitatively (Aristotle 102, Hume

101). – Can’t decompose problems (Descartes 101). – Can’t experiment or measure (Locke 101).– Can’t visualize/draw (daVinci/Monge 101).– Can’t communicate (Newman 101).

• Huge “quality” failure: “product” (engineering students) inadequate to intended function.

• 7 failures as decomposition for repair.• Teach critical/creative thought: context of design.

Socrates (470-399 BCE)

Start with Artifacts, Not Analysis• Cold war content shifted

to math and science, but these are not the essence of engineering.

• Place artifacts (things)—products, processes, and systems—at center.

• Recognize importance of engineeering thought (think) and engineering as social process (folk).

• Yields philosophically well grounded decomposition.

3Space: A Balanced, Systems Approach

• Content, 3Space:– ThingSpace: Artifacts as key

product of engineering thought.

– ThinkSpace: Engineers do more thinking than mere math & science.

– FolkSpace: Engineering is performed by and for groups of people.

• Cold war curriculum unbalanced toward math & science in ways unacceptable in a creative era.

3Space

Big Picture: Aims of Revisions

Professional MS Degree w/ Advanced Analysis

BS

MS

1st yr

Fa08/Sp09 Foci: 6 Elements• Fall08:

• ThingLab: Lab transforms graphics to ThingSpace basics.

• 3Space Studios: Digital media to promote open & viral curriculum development.

• Operation Fresh: Transformation of the freshmen year of engineering.

• Spring09– Admissions: Design and

implement admissions process for first cohort.

– Rollout planning: Coursework & changes in place for Fa09 students.

– Engineer of the Future: April 1st part of Olin-Illinois Partnership.

The Students Are Coming! Fa09 Rollout Goals

• Increased balance in 3Space: from cold war to creative era curriculum (category creators & enhancers).

• Increased joy of engineering: Improved recruitment & retention, including women & minorities.

• Increased student choice: Improved satisfaction and ownership of degree.

• Integrated student life from get go.

One Size Doesn’t Fit All

• Different departments choose different options:– Basic iFoundry option: ENG 100++ and HAPI

themes.– Student-life plans: Teamwork for Quality

Education (TQE).– Optional options: Freshman Think/Thingspace

Option & Qualitative science swap.– Departmental pilot changes.

Priority #1 - Student Involvement • Student led, staff supported.• Resources (cameras, computers,

office space) accessible & open for student use.

• Emphasize iFoundry principles:– student engagement and input

critical.– student-created digital media and

social networks key (Facebook, YouTube, etc.)

• Teams align with iFoundry mission and projects at grassroots level.

Student Teams & Leaders

• Outreach: Grace Wellman.• Content and Curriculum: Lisa Mazzocco and

Cyrus Rashtchian.• Communications and Marketing: <your name

here>.• Digital Media and Website: <your name here>.• Olin-Illinois Partnership: Lisa Mazzocco.• Entrepreneurship: Jared Tame & Matt Gornick.

Outreach/Admissions

• Fall 2009 cohort of 50 students to be selected from applicants

• Application and selection process launched with Associate Dean Tucker letter

• Hundreds of visiting parents and students responding to Assoc. Dean Tucker letter

• Application and visit process runs January 21 through May 1

Excerpt from Letter to Students“Now for the special opportunity. Last September we launched iFoundry, the Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education. iFoundry is a “curriculum incubator,” a group of students, faculty, and staff who are thinking about where engineering education needs to go in the future, and are actively taking it there. iFoundry seeks to enhance students’ critical thinking skills, and deepen their engagement with the joys of engineering. A student in iFoundry remains enrolled in his or her home curriculum (Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, etc.) and earns the corresponding degree.”

More Excerpt

“In addition, iFoundry students take a special first-year orientation course, participate in team activities with other iFoundry students, and have priority access to newly-developed courses. . . If iFoundry sounds right for you, watch your e-mail this spring for more details.”

Outreach: iFoundry Ambassadors

• Campus visits, one-on-one meetings with iFoundry interested parents and admitted students.

• Make sure they understand iFoundry story.• Assisting with ESOP, Campus visit days,

Engineering College visits, EOH.• Lead recruiting visits to Chicago area high

schools & help with phone-athons.• Facebook Student Outreach Page.

Content & Curriculum• Provide student input for ENG 100++ course

development.• Offer feedback and direction on HAPI themes content.• Partner with Olin students to understand Olin

innovations – Design Nature, User-Oriented Collaborative Design – and how to scale at Illinois,

• Help develop peer-to-peer community for ENG100++ participants.

• Develop new course ideas responsive to student interests.

Communications and Marketing

• Share iFoundry story with company execs and recruiters here at ECS Career Fairs and Engineering Expo.

• February 5 and week of February 9 – high need.• Design communications, brochures, fliers to promote

iFoundry to key audiences.• Create student blogs and YouTube videos to run on

dedicated iFoundry channels, and on Undergraduate Admissions website.

Digital Media and Website

• YouTube productions – the student voice needed on website.

• Unleash inner Spielberg to film student life, classroom activities, extracurriculars.

• Employment opportunities still open.

Olin-Illinois Student Partnership• Coordinate with Olin Students for Summit on Engineer of the

Future 2.0, March 31-April 1, 2009, or for spring break visit to Olin.

• Serve on EOTF2.0 student panels.• Pair with Olin for Olin student exchange to UIUC Fall 2009.• Partner with Olin students to understand Olin innovations –

Design Nature, User-Oriented Design – and how to scale at Illinois.

• Develop Facebook and YouTube community for OIP students.

Engineer of the Future 2.0

• September 5, 2007 was first EOTF.

• Workshop at UIUC with keynote talks by Bill Wulf (NAE) and Sherra Kerns (Olin).

• EOTF 2.0 part of OIP (Olin-Illinois Partnership).

• 3/31 – 4/1/2009 at Olin.• http://engineerofthefuture.olin.edu

Entrepreneurship Team• Foster strong partnership with TEC,• Work with Olin student partners to strengthen UIUC start-up

culture with infusion of new ideas.• Serve on EOTF2.0 Student Panels.• Build new iFoundry & entrepreneurship lecture series with

outside speakers and student-led presentations.• Film broad array of start-up activities on campus: IEN,

competitions, TEC fairs.• Work with entrepreneurial students via basecamp

application.

More Information

• iFoundry: http://www.ifoundry.illinois.edu • ETSI: http://www.illigal.uiuc.edu/web/etsi • Workshop on Philosophy & Engineering:

http://www-illigal.ge.uiuc.edu/wpe • Engineer of the Future 2.0:

http://engineerofthefuture.olin.edu/

• YouTube: www.youtube.com/illinoisfoundry

• SlideShare: www.slideshare.net/ifoundry