3/10/2011
As a cross-disciplinary curriculum incubator at the College of Engineering, the Illinois Foundry for Innovation and Engineering Education (iFoundry) is looking to transform the way students approach and interact with their educational curriculum, both within and outside of engineering.
Written by
As a cross-disciplinary curriculum incubator at the College of Engineering, the Illinois Foundry for Innovation and Engineering Education (iFoundry) is looking to transform the way students approach and interact with their educational curriculum, both within and outside of engineering.
“Faculty members recognized a need for a change,” said Bruce Litchfield, an iFoundry Fellow and an assistant dean in the College of Engineering. “Individual faculty members have made small adjustments as needed since technology has developed and engineers have had to know new things, but there hasn’t been an overall change in decades.
“We’re a bunch of researchers and thinkers. We experiment to see how something works before commiting to more permanent changes.”
Founded in 2007 as a college-supported initiative to pilot change, iFoundry admitted its first class of 77 first-year engineering students in fall 2009. As a result of the successful pilot project, the College of Engineering expanded the program to serve 300 incoming students under the Illinois Engineering First Year Experience (iEFX), beginning in fall 2010.
Students in the program took a one credit-hour introductory class which introduced them to the critical- and creative-thinking skills they will need to be successful engineers.
iFoundry's curricular initiative has since carried over into several new innovative courses. There are 13 pilot courses this semester that aim to enhance the professional, creative and intellectual development of students. Many of these classe--such as Creativity, Innovation, and Vision; Foundations of Business & Entrepreneurship; User-Oriented Collaborative Design, for example--are open to students of all academic disciplines.
“The goal of a class like this is to include as many different perspectives as you can in order to aid the learning process,” said Albert Liao, a graduate student in electrical and computer engineering and a teaching assistant for ENG 333, Creativity, Innovation, and Vision. “In a lot of ways, it reflects what’s going on in the real world.”
“We’ve gotten great feedback from our students who really enjoy that experience of exercising these social connections,” Litchfield said. “We’re always looking to encourage and nurture student aspirations.”
______________________
Contact: Bruce Litchfield, College of Engineering, 217/333-8980.
Writer: Jay Lee, Engineering Communications Office.
If you have any questions about the College of Engineering, or other story ideas, contact Rick Kubetz, editor, Engineering Communications Office, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 217/244-7716.