Teaching Engineering

I was reading the 2008 Science and Engineering Indicators from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and found that a large percentage (83%) of instructional faculty use lectures and discussion as the primary instructional method in undergraduate classes. Here are some other interesting tidbits about higher education faculty from the report:

• More than half of natural sciences and engineering faculty require their undergraduate students to participate in group projects (compared with 48% of social and behavioral sciences faculty), and more than 60% require lab assignments (compared with 24% of social and behavioral sciences faculty).
• The use of term papers increased in all disciplines between 1992 and 2003. Social and behavioral sciences faculty are more likely than faculty in other S&E fields to require written work of their students: 85% of social and behavioral sciences faculty require term papers of their undergraduate students compared with 76% of agricultural/biological/health sciences faculty and 57% of physical/mathematics/computer sciences/engineering faculty.

You can read the full report at: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind08/toc.htm.

I lecture, discuss (a lot thanks to an NSF CCLI Phase 2 grant I am part of on metacognition and discourse in engineering), and use projects.  I don’t think I have my undergraduate students write enough, though.