TY - JOUR
T1 - Aligning learning objectives and approaches in global engineering graduate programs
T2 - Review and recommendations by an interdisciplinary working group
AU - MacDonald, Laura
AU - Thomas, Evan
AU - Javernick-Will, Amy
AU - Austin-Breneman, Jesse
AU - Aranda, Iana
AU - Salvinelli, Carlo
AU - Klees, Rita
AU - Walters, Jeffrey
AU - Parmentier, Mary Jane
AU - Schaad, David
AU - Shahi, Ayush
AU - Bedell, Emily
AU - Platais, Gunars
AU - Brown, Joe
AU - Gershenson, John
AU - Watkins, David
AU - Obonyo, Esther
AU - Oyanedel-Craver, Vinka
AU - Olson, Mira
AU - Lau, Rachael
AU - Rao, Gouthami
AU - Arzon, Alexander
AU - Krishnaswamy, Kiruba
AU - Pickering, Amy J.
AU - Mabey, Christopher
AU - Johnson, Abigale
AU - Gehr, Rachel
AU - Linden, Karl
N1 - Funding Information:
Karl Linden, Evan Thomas, Amy Javernick-Will, Laura MacDonald reports financial support was provided by National Science Foundation.The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Karl Linden, Evan Thomas, Amy Javernick-Will, Laura MacDonald reports financial support was provided by National Science Foundation.Communities around the globe are littered with abandoned or dysfunctional engineering projects, including water supply and sanitation systems, energy supply systems, and agricultural processing machinery. According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), failure rates for WASH projects may be as high as 30-50% (Lu, 2019), and studies report non-functionality rates of 25-40% for water points in Sub-Saharan Africa (Banks and Furey, 2016; Foster et al., 2020). In many cases, these systems were designed and constructed by outside organizations without sufficient community involvement or planning for operation and maintenance. It is typical for communities to be handed engineered systems without accounting for their technical and financial ability to manage and repair these systems. In some cases, the engineered systems may not even align with community needs, priorities, or customs, leading to lack of adoption and rapid abandonment.These concepts are best explored in the classroom, through a combination of lectures and small group discussions conducive to debate. Some suggestions for classroom-based activities to achieve this learning objective include: review of IPCC climate reports, review of UN Conference of Parties agreements, identification of the disparities associated with climate change, case studies with existing technological solutions to help students develop a critical eye for engineering technologies to support resilience and climate change adaptation and mitigation; case studies covering current disasters (climate change, natural disasters, etc.) to contextualize and apply lessons learned; and intentional self-reflection exercises to allow students to explore their own sociological understandings of disaster.We recommend a classroom-based approach, using a combination of lectures, readings, written reflections, case studies and a term paper. Lectures would cover: the major causes of the global burden of morbidity and mortality, food systems, pathogens of concern transmitted through the environment, environmental controls, study and survey design, data management, ethics, protection of human subjects, basic biostatistics, and epidemiology concepts. Assigned readings and written reflection would support lectures by requiring students to engage with and explore questions or concepts presented in lectures and readings. Case studies on successful and failed interventions would let students apply the concepts covered in lectures and readings, prepare written reflections, and discuss the lessons learned. For the term project, we recommend that students choose a research topic, conduct a literature review supported in part by a review of the Global Burden of Disease database managed by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, and write a proposed study protocol that involves human subjects, IRB requirements, data to be collected, methods, sample size calculations, ethical implications, and an analysis plan.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors
PY - 2022/1
Y1 - 2022/1
N2 - Despite decades of global development programming, poverty persists in the low-and-middle-income countries targeted by these efforts. Training approaches to global development must change and the role of engineers in these efforts must evolve to account for structural and systemic barriers to global poverty reduction. Rapid growth in Global Engineering graduate programs in the United States and Canada creates an opportunity to unify efforts between academic institutions and ensure that programs align with the sector's needs as identified by practitioners. To build consensus on how to equip engineering students with the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary, we convened practitioners, faculty and graduate students for a two-day workshop to establish an agreed-upon Global Engineering body of knowledge. The workshop was informed by a pre-event survey of individual participants and representatives of participating academic institutions with graduate programs in Global Engineering or a related field. Through the workshop breakout sessions and post-event work by the authors, we developed the following priority learning objectives for graduate education in global engineering: Contextual Comprehension and Analysis; Cross-cultural Humility; Global Engineering Ethics; Stakeholder Analysis and Engagement; Complex Systems Analysis; Data Collection and Analysis; Data-driven Decision Making; Applied Engineering Knowledge; Project Design; Project Management; Multidisciplinary Teamwork and Leadership; Communication; Climate Change, Sustainability, and Resilience; Global Health; and Development Economics. Although technical skills are central to preparing the next generation of Global Engineers, transversal and interdisciplinary skills are equally important in equipping students to work across sectors and account for barriers to global development and equity.
AB - Despite decades of global development programming, poverty persists in the low-and-middle-income countries targeted by these efforts. Training approaches to global development must change and the role of engineers in these efforts must evolve to account for structural and systemic barriers to global poverty reduction. Rapid growth in Global Engineering graduate programs in the United States and Canada creates an opportunity to unify efforts between academic institutions and ensure that programs align with the sector's needs as identified by practitioners. To build consensus on how to equip engineering students with the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary, we convened practitioners, faculty and graduate students for a two-day workshop to establish an agreed-upon Global Engineering body of knowledge. The workshop was informed by a pre-event survey of individual participants and representatives of participating academic institutions with graduate programs in Global Engineering or a related field. Through the workshop breakout sessions and post-event work by the authors, we developed the following priority learning objectives for graduate education in global engineering: Contextual Comprehension and Analysis; Cross-cultural Humility; Global Engineering Ethics; Stakeholder Analysis and Engagement; Complex Systems Analysis; Data Collection and Analysis; Data-driven Decision Making; Applied Engineering Knowledge; Project Design; Project Management; Multidisciplinary Teamwork and Leadership; Communication; Climate Change, Sustainability, and Resilience; Global Health; and Development Economics. Although technical skills are central to preparing the next generation of Global Engineers, transversal and interdisciplinary skills are equally important in equipping students to work across sectors and account for barriers to global development and equity.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.deveng.2022.100095
DO - 10.1016/j.deveng.2022.100095
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85123913736
SN - 2352-7285
VL - 7
JO - Development Engineering
JF - Development Engineering
M1 - 100095
ER -