Authentic Innovation: The Role of Apprenctice Learning in Engineering Education

In 2000, the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET) adopted an outcomes based approach to the US engineering curriculum. The new accreditation criteria, commonly called EC2000, call for program outcomes and assessment that provide for a ‘well rounded engineer’. Approaching nearly a decade now, are students reaping the benefits of the reform? Are students able to design better? Apply knowledge of mathematics, science, and engineering better? Are they able to communicate better and use techniques, skills and modern engineering tools necessary for engineering practice? Most importantly, are they more “well-rounded?” It may be argued that despite ABET accreditation reform, the undergraduate mechanical engineering curriculum has remained relatively static over the last decade, adjusting for obvious changes in cross-disciplinary study and some emergent technologies. Girt with hundreds of hours of core and required subjects such as calculus, physics, dynamics, fluid mechanics, strength of materials, thermodynamics, etc. the undergraduate mechanical engineering student generally has but one occasion to flex his/her intellectual and innovative acuity—the senior design project. While students occasionally work in teams, rarely are students exposed to genuine challenges of group interaction, delivery schedules and cost constraints as catalyzed in industry. How is authentic innovation achieved in a learning environment?