Instructor Resource Modules:

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Instructor Resource Modules Online Teaching
Resource for Professional Engineering
Skills John Keesee, MIT February 17, 2005
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Motivation

• Undergraduate engineering education must
  integrate professional skills into engineering
  curricula that are already full
• Tomorrows engineers must not only be technically
  expert but also socially aware and
  entrepreneurially astute to be leaders in the new
  global society
• Example skills include Communication, Teamwork,
  Design, Manufacturing, Operations, and Creative
  and Critical Thinking
• Engineering faculty require access to curricular
  materials on these skills to integrate
  instruction into existing courses
• IRM Concept Collect instructional materials on
  these topics and make them available to the
  undergraduate engineering faculty responsible for
  teaching these skills

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Outline

• IRM Overview
• Demo of Prototype IRM
• IRM Process Flow
• Status of IRM effort
• Focus of near term effort
• How CDIO collaborators can contribute

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Functional Requirements

• Provide resources, teaching suggestions, and
  assessment tools to instructors and curricular
  designers on each of the CDIO Syllabus skill
  areas
• Permit instructors to easily integrate CDIO
  skills into their existing engineering courses
• Must be easily modified, revised and updated
• Provide multiple levels of instruction to address
  individual situations
• Level of students
• Time available
• Required knowledge level after learning

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IRM Concept

• Create a web site where instructors can get the
  resources they need to integrate instruction on
  non-technical knowledge, skills, and attitudes
  into their existing curricula
• Multimedia format rich with active learning
  activities
• Examples, scenarios, case studies as well as
  lecture notes and background information
• Modular format would be integrated into the
  instructors existing learning
• Available to engineering instructors everywhere
• Links to other resources for deeper background
  study
• Draw content from the experience and expertise of
  the CDIO team/schools

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Demo of IRM Prototype
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IRM Factory Process

• Obtain lesson material -- OCW, CDIO team members,
  MIT internal development
• Review material to determine which IRMs should
  use it
• Determine where the material will be used in an
  IRM (Lesson material, best practice, etc)
• Tailor material - Combine, supplement, modify,
• Apply for IP permissions
• Put material on CDIO server
• Create IRM x.x webpage
• Create IRM x.x.x webpage
• Create lesson plan (etc) web pages
• Expert/faculty review of IRM for accuracy and
  usefulness
• Receive IP permission
• Activate links

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Status

• Twenty five of 70 (x.x.x level) IRMs in work (See
  next slide)
• Approximately 250 content sources identified in
  MITs Open Courseware website
• Integration into the IRM teaching material
  underway
• Significantly improved web architecture now
  online
• Content development and mining in work among
  several team universities to
• Complete development of several IRMs this spring
• Post content we harvest from existing courses

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IRMS in Work or Completed

• 2.2.3 Experimental Inquiry
• 2.4.4 Critical thinking
• 2.4.6 Curiosity and lifelong learning
• 2.5.1 Professional Ethics
• 2.5.3 Proactively planning for ones career
• 3.1 Teamwork
• 3.2 Communications
• 3.3 Communications in a Foreign Language
• 4.2.3 Technical Entrepreneurship
• 4.3.1 Setting System goals and requirements
• 4.3.2 Defining function,concept
• 4.3.4 Development Program Planning
• 4.5.5 Test,Verification, Validation and
  Certification

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Focus Areas for 2005

• Many opportunities remain
• 2.1Engineering Reasoning and Problem Solving
• 2.2 Experimentation and Knowledge Discovery
• 2.3 System Thinking
• 2.4 Personal Skills and Attitudes
• 2.5 Professional Skills and Attitudes
• 4.1 External and Societal Context
• 4.2 Enterprise and Business Context
• 4.4 Designing
• 4.5 Implementing
• 4.6 Operating

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What we need from you

• Content only, not full IRM lesson materials
• Teaching activities
• Best practices
• Assessment techniques
• Active learning activities
• Useful references
• Lecture notes
• We are just looking for the materials you use (or
  would use) to teach these topics

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Conclusion

• First one-third of IRMs should be online this
  spring at http//www.cdio.org/irms
• Additional content collection and integration
  ongoing
• Seeking new commitments for additional IRM
  content from your expertise or areas of interest
• Note CDIO, the Universities, and the
  contributing authors are clearly recognized in
  the IRMs
• Id love to hear from you at jkeesee_at_mit.edu

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Backups
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X.X Level IRM Design

• Background for Syllabus Topic X.X
• Overview/Motivation
• General Resources for the subject area
• Web sites
• Books
• People to contact
• List of the Sub-topics to follow

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X.X.X IRM Design

• Instructional material for Syllabus sub-topic
  X.X.X
• Definition of sub-topic
• Under which circumstances it might be used
• Learning objectives
• Teaching and learning activities
• Pre-requisites for each
• Recommended use and class size
• Classroom, lab and technology requirements
• Estimate of time required

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IRM Format/Content

• Teaching suggestions and resources
• Presentation materials in multiple media
• Problems, exercises, scenarios and examples
• Desired student activity/cognitive process
• People to contact for additional information
• Articles, web sites, books

• Best practices
• How you might use the material
• How it was integrated into a course
• Problems that might arise
• Advice on when to use which content
• IRM Authors
• Feedback opportunity
• Contribution process

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Development and Implementation Plan

• Revised plan
• Harvest content from existing CDIO team
  resources, rather than developing new content or
  linking to web resources
• Joint effort with Cambridge-MIT Institute for
  content
• Focus school efforts on content at x.x.x level,
  rather than x.x
• Schools obtain Intellectual Property rights for
  the material they submit
• Send IRM material to MIT for coding and
  integration into the web site
• IRMs hosted on the CDIO web site
• Plan to have 1/3 hosted by Dec 2004

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Development and Implementation Plan

• At MIT, Open Courseware will provide IP
  processing and meta-tagging
• Student team will mine the OCW, Aero-Astro, and
  Material Science courses at MIT this summer

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IRM Process Model

• Assemble subject matter team and survey existing
  content
• Create/locate IRM content among teaching
  materials at your school
• Secure Intellectual Property rights
• Design IRM teaching and learning model
• Level of instruction, intended audience,
  duration, etc
• Field beta version of IRM for the Web
• Conduct editorial review
• Field pilot IRM for user trials
• Create training program
• Conduct professional editorial review
• Create production/final Web version
• Update as required with additional/new material
  and inputs from discussion groups

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Issues

• Intellectual Property and Permissions
• If, When, Why, How, How Long
• Content
• How much, Too much, Too little, Right kind, Right
  way, My way, When
• Balance
• Partners, External, Diplomacy, Style
• Vision
• For me, For them, For who