Towards Excellence in Engineering Education

Dear Colleagues,

Engineers play different contextual roles in industry and academia, not only by teaching students but also being regarded as mentors, supervisors and trainers. Engineers educators are expected to provide their students with authentic learning experiences that are relevant to contemporary concerns and to place high value on developing responsible engineers who are insightful, can work independently, have good problem-solving skills, and can apply and adapt their knowledge to unexpected and new situations.

This Special Issue of Education Sciences focuses on important issues in engineering education. In this Special Issue, we invite educators and researchers from engineering universities to discuss and share their expriences “Towards Excellence in Engineering Education”. What makes engineering education different to other educational desiplines? What are the challenges facing engineering education and how should the educational system and curiculum be designed to cope with the fast development in technology? This Special Issue calls for papers to address topics as described in the following themes:

1.      Personal experiences in engineering education: Teaching philosophies

Lecturers may summarise their teaching experiences and educational journeys into a sum of ideas and reflections that form their teaching philosophies. This is much like a road map that represents an essential part of professional development. Such philosophies are subject to change over time as lecturers evaluate, reflect and act on their results, and develop different approaches to teaching. Contributors share their teaching experiences for the benefit of other academics.

2.      E-learning in engineering education

Many lecturers in the engineering field use technology to select, design, deliver, administer, facilitate and support learning. Examples are computer-based, web-based, and mobile learning. Contributors share their use of technology for the benefit of other academics.

3.      Decolonisation in engineering education

Decolonisation is the dismantling of colonial systems that were established where nations gained dominion over dependent territories. Many countries in the world, mainly developing countries, still operate under colonial education systems. In South Africa, for example, decolonisation and the dismantling of Western-centered institutions, systems, symbolism, and standards, are ongoing concerns in higher education institutions. Contributors from all over the world share their views and solutions on how to define and make proper use of this concept to improve our engineering educational systems.

4.      Women in engineering education: Gender equality

It is clear from international statistics that women are not as present as they could be in the engineering field. In general, women seem to prefer science courses rather than engineering. This makes the gender distribution in science education more balanced than in engineering. Contributors from all over the world share their views to determine why women do not choose engineering as a profession and what the solution would be to reach gender balance in this field.

5.      Curriculum in engineering education: What makes it different from other disciplines?

A curriculum in general refers to the means and materials via which students interact for the purpose of achieving identified educational outcomes. In engineering education, a curriculum offers rigorous analysis of theoretical principles as well as intensive hands-on experience. The engineering curriculum can be divided into three branches, namely engineering science, systems, and design and professional practice. Contributors present the differences between engineering curricula and curricula in other scientific educational disciplines, such as in the science curricula, to determine the characteristics specific to the engineering curriculum.

6.      Assessments in engineering education

In general, the term assessment in education refers to a wide variety of methods or tools that educators use to evaluate, measure, and document academic readiness, learning progress, skills acquisition, or the educational needs of students. Contributors discuss their experiences in assessing engineering students, and why continuous assessment is the preferred method in engineering universities.

7.      Modern teaching methods in engineering education

Teaching engineering students to learn ‘why’ is as important as to learn ‘what’. Several teaching methods can be applied by teachers to achieve this goal, for example, active classrooms, flipped classrooms, problem-based learning and many more that are suitable to the nature of engineering disciplines. Contributors share modern methods that, from their experience, make engineering education easier and more modern.

8.      Scholarship of teaching and learning in engineering education

Acquiring knowledge is a life-long process; we constantly need to keep abreast of developments and progress in science and other disciplines. Embracing a scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) means practising constant self-reflection and evaluation of one’s academic career and the ways in which one designs strategies to examine, interpret, and share learning about teaching. This practice not only yields benefits to the lecturer, but also enriches the scholarly community in the discipline. In general, SoTL is regarded as a vibrant practice of ongoing self-criticism and sharing the resulting accumulated teaching experiences with teachers, students and the teaching community at large. Contributors share their experiences on how their teaching portfolios reflect their personal development as teachers and how their teaching experiences are embedded in the scholarship of teaching and learning.

9.      Engineering education for community engagement

EPICS (engineering projects in community service) is an educational programme that combines teaching and learning ideas with the community. Teams of students participate with local and global community organisations to address human, community, and environmental needs. Contributors share their community experiences, and how they use their engineering education to help communities.

In this Special Issue, we are particularly interested in authors identifying and reporting research on the critical issue of engineering education. For this Special Issue to be published in 2018, we invite manuscripts to be submitted for review on or before 15 March, 2018. Manuscripts will be subject to the process of blind peer review coordinated by the Special Issue Guest Editor. The Special Issue will be made into digital book if ten papers are published, and printed out on demand.

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Education Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• teaching portfolio
• curriculum
• assessment
• decolonization
• gender equality
• community engagement
• engineering projects in community service
• scholarship of teaching and learning
• e-learning