University of Iowa

Pilot Program for Expanding Connections between Professional Practice and Education

The project abstract is below. For the indepth project description, click here to download a PDF.

Abstract

This report highlights the newly created Pilot Program for Expanding Connections between Professional Practice and Education that has been “embedded” in an existing service-learning course, Design for the Developing World, in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. The program enabled practitioners to participate more fully in course content delivery and in design team activities by emphasizing integrated participation to enhance student learning objectives. The course emphasis on service-learning also enhances and energizes practitioners that are already familiar with issues of the “developing world” as they see first-hand how modern engineering education can incorporate these issues into course content with the intent of impacting the world in ways that extend well beyond the classroom walls.

The course, Design for the Developing World, utilizes engagement, reflection, reciprocity and public dissemination as tools of “service-learning” pedagogy to deepen student understanding of course content. The course content typically focuses on water, sanitation, energy, shelter and food security technologies and appropriate designs for sustainable development in resource poor countries. The Pilot Program for Expanding Connections between Professional Practice and Education has extended the capabilities of the course to teach the concepts of professionalism, ethics and public engagement by using licensed, engineering practitioners as design team members. The goal of the program is to extend the role of the practitioner beyond that of a “client” whose influence exists only outside the classroom setting.

In this context, student/practitioner design teams developed solutions for drinking water, wastewater and energy needs for a real-world “indigenous school” and surrounding neighborhood in the Mexican community of Xicotepec de Juarez. These designs will be assessed by a follow-up team and will then be presented to the neighborhood leaders in Xicotepec during spring break 2009 with hopes that further design and subsequent implementation will soon follow.

This pilot program extends the ability of the Design for the Developing World course to show young, upcoming engineers and non-engineers some of the best things the profession has to offer the world and human-kind. The program also provides a tangible means for practitioners to be reminded of these same things and to re-engage them afresh. We intend to use any NCEES award monies to help transition from a “pilot program” to a self-sustaining program dedicated to better connecting professional practice and education via the means described herein. We feel the program has the potential to enhance the engineering profession in novel ways for years to come.