What is concepts of engineering and technology

Credit Hours:. Add to cart. Course Details. You will need access to word processing software, presentation software, basic school supplies, a device for scanning or taking photos of engineering journal entries, a device for taking videos optional , and a way to upload photos, scans, or videos for submission. Discuss some of the ethical concerns around technology.

Discuss open and closed systems. Identify how technological systems interact to achieve goals. Find technological solutions through problem solving. Design and maintain a computation engineering notebook. Unit 3: From Sketches to Products As an engineer, you will likely find yourself in a situation where you know exactly what you want to build, but the only problem is your ideas are stuck in your head.

Describe the fundamental processes needed for a project, including design and prototype development. Identify the chemical, mechanical, and physical properties of engineering materials. Assess risks and benefits of a design solution. Maintain a professional portfolio. Unit 4: Civil Engineering Are you a practical person? Work in teams to apply the design process. Assume different roles within an engineering project. Develop and test a project model. Use time-management skills to meet project objectives.

Use criteria to meet project expectations. Describe and demonstrate team functions, quality, and requirements. Unit 5: Introduction to Engineering: Mechanical Engineering Were you one of those kids who liked to take things apart or, more truthfully, break them to see what was inside? Define and describe the applications of physical and mechanical systems. Describe various career opportunities and emerging issues within these fields.

Explain the history of mechanical engineering and its current trajectory. Apply design concepts to problems in physical and mechanical systems. Describe applications of process control and automation systems. Describe career opportunities in process control and automation systems.

Apply design concepts and identify fields related to process control and automation systems while identifying emerging issues. Understand and follow safety tests and guidelines while recognizing how to classify and dispose of hazardous materials and waste. Unit 7: Introduction to Engineering: Biological Engineering If you consider healing the world to be a worthwhile endeavor, then you have the spirit of a bioengineer. Describe the different fields of biotechnology.

Identify the underlying principles of bioengineering. Understand career opportunities, related fields, and emerging trends in biotechnology. By submitting the outcomes of the Delphi study to a panel of experts in a two-day meeting we were able to add structure to the Delphi results. Thus we reached a concise list of concepts and contexts that can be used to develop curricula for education about engineering and technology as a contribution to technological literacy goals in education.

One of the main issues in the development of engineering and technology education is the search for a sound conceptual basis for the curriculum. This search has become relevant as the nature of technology education has changed: it has gradually evolved from focusing on skills to focusing on technological literacy.

This literacy implies that pupils and students have developed a realistic image of engineering and technology. What is a realistic image of engineering and technology? The answer is derived from several sources; among them are the academic disciplines that study the nature of engineering and technology, such as the philosophy of technology, the history and sociology of technology, and design methodology see De Vries for an extensive description of the insights that these disciplines have brought forward for technology education.

A different approach is to ask experts for their opinions on this matter, and that is the route we have taken to find broad concepts that offer a basis for developing engineering and technology education. We need to be explicit about what we mean by engineering and technology.

Technology, the broader of the two disciplines, encompasses the way humans develop, realize, and use and evaluate all sorts of artifacts, systems, and processes to improve the quality of life. Technological literacy is what people need to live in, and control, the technological environment that surrounds us. This literacy comprises practical knowledge, reasoning skills, and attitudes. Engineering is more limited. It encompasses the professions that are concerned with the development and realization of such artifacts, systems, and processes.

Engineering and technology education has long been delivered in two ways: through general education and through vocational education. In general education, the focus historically has been on practical craft skills. In vocational education the focus has been on preparing for a career in the commerce or in technical areas. This kind of teaching has focused on specific knowledge and skills. The latest development is that engineering has been accorded a more substantial place in general technology education.

This shift is combined with the integration of science and math and leads to what is known as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics STEM education. Our use of the term engineering and technology education ETE relates to these contemporary developments and characterizes ETE as important and valuable for all students.

Traditionally, curricula for engineering and technology education are structured according to either engineering disciplines e. These structures do not offer much insight into the nature of engineering and technology. We believe a better approach for developing insights is to search for basic concepts that are broadly applicable in engineering and technology and cut through different engineering domains and application fields.

An example of such a concept is the systems concept. In the s, the Man-Made World David et al. Since then, little work has been done in this area, although useful work has been done on identifying usable concepts. The various efforts to develop a sound conceptual basis for teaching engineering and technology have led to the development of important insights and ideas. In these standards there are many concepts related to engineering and technology.

Although eminently useful as focal points for learning, standards typically define what students should know and be able to do in specific content or programmatic areas. In some cases, competencies defined by standards are quite broad; in other cases, the competencies are atomistic. To enhance standards-driven curricula by helping learners understand relationships among technological domains, this study has identified a set of overarching, unifying concepts that cut across domains and thus give insight into the holistic nature of engineering and technology.

These broad, unifying concepts can be used to develop curriculum and learning experiences in engineering and technology education. Some opportunities exist to make this study different from previous ones.

The disciplines are. This last discipline is concerned with communicating about science, engineering, and technology, and it too is faced with the need to work with clear and broadly applicable concepts related to engineering and technology.

We realized that the purpose of this study was to give directions for secondary school education and for that reason we selected a majority of technology educators as they are in the best position to judge what fits with the nature of this level of education.

The Standards for Technological Literacy project was primarily an effort involving experts in the US. This should be seen against the background of recent developments in educational research.

Such research has led to the insight that concepts are not learned easily in a top-down approach i. Even an approach in which concepts are first learned in a specific context and then transferred to a different context has proved unfruitful Pilot and Bulte The most recent insights developed reveal that concepts should be learned in a variety of contexts so that generic insights can grow gradually Westra et al.

This growth leads to the ability to apply the concepts in new contexts. In this approach, it is important to identify the concepts that should be learned as well as the contexts that are suitable for learning those concepts. In summary, this article describes a study that has identified basic and broad themes in engineering and technology, as well as the contexts that are suitable for learning about those themes.

We have asked an international group of experts be it with a bias towards the USA in a variety of disciplines for their input. What we have looked for are overarching concepts and themes that are both basic and broad: they must be transferable over a wide range of engineering and technological fields of study, and subsume and synthesize a body of related sub-concepts.

One way to ascertain the opinion of a group of experts is to conduct a Delphi study Brown ; Reeves and Jauch The reputation of Delphi studies has changed. Although the number of Delphi studies is still not high, the method has once again been accepted as a serious research design.

A Delphi study was conducted by Jonathan Osborne, Sue Collins, Mary Ratcliffe, Robin Millar, and Rick Duschl, a group of well-respected science education researchers, and published in a high-quality academic journal, the Journal of Research in Science Teaching , in Osborne et al.

This study was relevant not only because it justified our choice of the Delphi method, but also because it had a goal that was very similar to our own: to establish a list of basic and broad concepts related to science for use in the development of science education curricula.

Our research design, similar to the one Osborne et al. A group of experts were invited by e-mail to participate in the study. In a first round, the 32 experts who agreed to participate were asked to generate concepts in Osborne et al.

The number of experts involved is well over the 20—25 usually involved in a Delphi study Osborne et al. In our research we have adapted this first round: in addition to asking the experts to generate their own concepts, we provided them with a draft list of concepts to rate on a 1—5 Likert scale. We did this because we wanted to clarify the level of generality we were looking for.

As a source of inspiration for such concepts, we used, among others, David et al. Another adaptation is that we added draft definitions to the concepts in the draft list. We asked the experts to comment on these and to indicate whether or not they found the defined concepts suitable. The idea here was not to get exact definitions for the concepts, but to make sure everyone was thinking of the same concept when considering its suitability.

The following rounds were more standard. In the second and third round the experts were presented with both the new concept entries and our draft list of broad concepts and their amended definitions. We decided not to give back the average scores in the second round, but only in the third round, because we wanted to have the full lists for participants to score, before making the scores public.

The experts were asked to give scores of importance again, based on their own opinion and in round three also based on the information related to the total average score of the whole group. No more concepts could be added. We emphasized that our aim was not to reach exact definitions of the concepts.

Instead, we hoped to convey the essence of each concept, so that the experts would not need to respond again to the definitions but only rate the concepts.

Also, we asked the experts to be sparing with high scores so that only the most important concepts would stand out.

We pointed out that aiming for a short list was also the reason why we did not include each concept that the experts had suggested in the first round. We did something similar for the contexts part, but allowed for more variety in the levels of generality here. In the second and third rounds we therefore included suggestions for contexts of different levels of generality, thereby leaving it to the experts to indicate whether they favored high-level generality contexts or lower-level contexts.

In the second round we also mentioned more criteria for ranking the contexts. Usually this second round does not lead to sufficient consensus so a third round is needed. The third round is also needed to check for stability in the answers, for both concepts and contexts. To stimulate consensus in the third round, the experts are asked to account for deviating substantially from the average score.

In case this still fails to result in consensus, one can search for subgroups in which consensus can be established in our case this could, for instance, be the engineering education experts. However, the National Bureau of Labor Statistics does not have a category called "technologist" and consequently industrial job titles show little distinction between technologists and engineers.

Decisions about higher education are usually difficult and complex. One of the best ways to figure out if this is the right program for you, is to come on to campus. Here you will be able to explore, ask questions and get a feel for our Wayne State community. Graduates of baccalaureate engineering technology programs have been very successful in obtaining professional employment relevant to their education.

Wayne State engineering technology graduates are employed in:. A professional engineering technologist's job responsibilities require technical and practical knowledge. They can apply their abilities in using technical equipment, selling technical products, serving as manufacturers' technical representatives, or supervising varied construction projects and manufacturing processes. While industrial duties range, the technologist's responsibilities are close to that of an engineer, and often they work alongside engineers on the various aspects of project development, production planning, and the final testing of industrial, military or consumer products.

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