Abstract
Engineering Education at Utah State University and in the United State of America
Collaborative Research Opportunities
Engineering education is an emerging field of study in the United States of America and the same issues that plague engineering here in the USA is common to engineering programs throughout the world. Engineering, as a profession, differs from many science and mathematics disciplines in its emphasis on creation and design rather than inquiry. Rapid changes in the worldwide engineering enterprise have motivated the profession to rethink how future generations of engineers should be educated to build analysis-based design skills.
Dr. Kurt Becker and Dr. Oenardi Lawanto, Department of Engineering and Technology Education (ETE) at Utah State University (USU) will present an overview of the engineering education program in the USA and at USU. They will present future directions in the department, the possibility of collaborative research opportunities in the engineering education research emphasis areas, and opportunities for graduate research fellowships between USU and colleges of engineering in Indonesia. An analysis of the transformation of engineering education to a research-based discipline will also be discussed.
Speaker:
Dr. Kurt Becker
Professor & Department Head
Engineering and Technology Education
kbecker@engineering.usu.edu
Kurt Becker is Department Head in Engineering and Technology Education (ETE) at Utah State University. Under his direction, the PhD in Engineering Education program in his department was started. His areas of research include adult learning cognition, engineering design learning and thinking, engineering education professional development and technical training. He is currently working with the National Science Foundation (NSF) on several funded projects including a National Center for Engineering and Technology Education. He has extensive international experience working on technical training and engineering projects funded by the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, and U.S. Department of Labor, USAID. Countries where he has worked include Armenia, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, China, Macedonia, Poland, Romania, and Thailand. He is currently a consultant on a USAID-funded project that involves workforce development and enterprise competitiveness. He also works with the technology teacher education program in the ETE department and teaches undergraduate and graduate courses.
Dr. Oenardi Lawanto
Assistant Professor
Engineering & Technology Education
olawanto@engineering.usu.edu
Oenardi Lawanto is an Assistant Professor of the Department of Engineering and Technology Education at Utah State University. Dr. Lawanto holds BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State University and University of Dayton respectively. He received a PhD degree in Human Resource Education from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He teaches Electrical Engineering for Non-Majors and develops a new graduate course about cognition in engineering education. Before coming to Utah State University, he had taught at the Universitas Surabaya in Indonesia for fifteen years and developed several online courses at the University of Illinois for five years. He has also an international experience working with the World Bank Institute (WBI) on Enhancing Training Quality Through Customer Service workshop. His research interests include areas in cognition, learning, instruction, and e-learning. Currently, he works on one National Center for Engineering and Technology Education (NCETE)-funded project that investigates how different approaches to solve engineering design problems influence students’ motivation at grades 9 – 12.
Tuesday, 06 October 2009
08.30 – 13.00 WIB
KPTU Fakultas Teknik Universitas Gadjah Mada.