From BEEVT to DLR- NSF supported engineering education projects at virginia tech

This paper briefly discusses the motivating factors that led to formation of an active collaborative group of engineering and education faculty at Virginia Tech. This group is actively pursuing a number of engineering education research activities and has been successful in winning two grants from the NSF in first 12 months of their collaborative efforts. These collaborative activities are targeted at improving engineering pedagogy at Virginia Tech and began with a planning grant from the NSF in September 2003. A 15-month Masters/Licensure program has been developed specifically for licensing engineering graduates in Technology Education. A number of assessment activities have been initiated for analyzing curricular changes beginning with the freshman-engineering program. Use of electronic portfolio in engineering instruction is being explored. The curricula of freshman engineering and bioprocess engineering are being reformulated using a theme based spiral curriculum approach, which is part of a major research grant, under the Department-level reform program of the NSF, that began in September '04. The interdisciplinary group has developed/ is working on a number of research proposals for expanding the scope of ongoing studies. The information presented should be very useful for new engineering educators who are exploring similar collaborative ventures elsewhere.