Illinois and Olin Aim to Transform Engineering Education

Posted on September 22, 2008  Comments (2)

It appears Illinois is preparing to attempt to apply some of the idea piloted at Olin on a larger scale. It will be very interesting to see what happens. Illinois Partners with Olin College to Transform Engineering Education

“Illinois is to be commended for embarking on a serious initiative to demonstrate scalable innovation at a large land-grant school,” Miller stated. “Olin has pioneered many innovations in its multi-disciplinary, project-based engineering curriculum, but we still don’t know how widely applicable these reforms are. Through this partnership, Olin and Illinois will be able to explore how to diffuse innovation more broadly throughout the engineering education community. The partnership is a true collaboration, offering Illinois access to Olin’s unique educational Petri dish, and offering faculty and students at Olin special access to Illinois’ quality researchers and facilities, recognized as among the best in the world.”

As part of this effort Illinois seems to be using a new something (I am not sure what it should be called): iFoundry. Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education, is an interdepartmental curriculum incubator in the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois designed to pilot principled change while respecting faculty governance.

Related: Innovative Science and Engineering Higher Education Olin Engineering Education ExperimentNational Science Board Report on Improving Engineering EducationImproving Engineering Education the Olin WayLeah Jamieson on the Future of Engineering Education

2 Responses to “Illinois and Olin Aim to Transform Engineering Education”

  1. Dave Goldberg
    September 24th, 2008 @ 6:35 am

    Thank you for the post about iFoundry and the Olin-Illinois Partnership. Your readers may also be interested in our YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/illinoisfoundry and our SlideShare slidespace at http://www.slideshare.net/ifoundry. A portion of the iFoundry notion is to try new elements of the curriculum through the aggressive use of digital media to promote a kind of viral curriculum reform.

  2. 2012 Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education » Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog
    March 9th, 2015 @ 8:34 pm

    Innovation in engineering education will pay high dividends, especially providing a focus on the nexus of engineering and entrepreneurship…

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