Developing a responsive & responsible curriculum for computer engineering EDULEARN 2011 2-Jul-2012 Software Defined Radio Research Group Presentation by: Simon Winberg Department of Electrical Engineering University of Cape Town Pedagogical Innovations in Engineering Education Cape Town South Africa
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EDULEARN 2011 2-Jul-2012 Software Defined Radio Research Group Presentation by: Simon Winberg Department of Electrical Engineering University of Cape Town.
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Developing a responsive & responsible curriculum for computer engineeringEDULEARN 2011
2-Jul-2012
Software Defined RadioResearch Group
Presentation by:
Simon WinbergDepartment of Electrical EngineeringUniversity of Cape Town
Pedagogical Innovations in Engineering Education
CapeTown
South Africa
Reporting on a ‘Curriculum refinement’ process for an engineering degree course
Introduction
Multiplestakeholders
Industry
Partners
ResearchPartnersEngineeringCouncil
DegreeRequiremen
ts
Four-year BSc in Electrical & Computer Engineering
Curriculum changes to accommodate:
Context
Responsiveness
in terms of industry needs
Responsibility in terms of fundamentals, Washington accord, Engineering council
New technologies
& tools
Cost-effective
solutions
Specializedapplications
How can we accommodate our industry partners’ needs while maintaining the requirements for other stakeholders (i.e., degree certification requirements as set out by the engineering council, etc.).
Main objective
Q: What parts of the curriculum are suitable for change to accommodateindustry needs?
Q: What parts can - or should - be left alone?
Research questions
Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) Degree programme◦ Offered by the Department of Electrical
Engineering at the University of Cape Town◦ Follows more an electronics and special-purpose
computer systems design perspective (in contrast to the computer science approach)
Moment of background
What jobs does the degree lead to? …
Integrates
Hardware+
SoftwareDesign
Hardware Software
Jobs for ECE graduates
Digital computer circuitdesign
Embedded system& software design
Control system design
TelecomsDigital SignalProcessingprogramming
+ many others
Industry collaborators3 South African companies◦ 2x companies involved in development of special-
purpose high-end embedded systems & software◦ 1x company involved in development of software
for high performance computing applications
Industry & Research Collaborators
Industry collaborators Research collaborators: 2 South African research institutions
◦ Karoo Array Telescope Project (KAT): the South African part of the international Square Kilometre Array project)
◦ Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)
Industry & Research Collaborators
Collaborations In terms of Software defined radio, radar, use of hardware description languages
Carried out as a part of a larger curriculum renewal project that concerns:◦ Updating courses to use up-to-date tools◦ Reducing duplication between courses◦ Re-evaluating service courses used and
provided◦ Time line mid-2009 Dec 2014
Methodology
the process …
For accommodating or industry partners’ needs
Methodology
1. Data gatheringMeetings, telephone,email archive
Refinement &Trade-offs
2. Analysing the dataMaking lists of points requested, identifying commonalities, prioritizing items, negotiating trade-offs
3. Refining the curriculumIdentify main courses to make changes to. Discuss curriculum requests with lecturer(s) involved. Report back tothe partners.
Results…
Types of knowledge related to most of collaborators’ requests
Level 3
Level 5
following approach described by Henson (2006)
Knowledge categories used to group collaborators’ requests
Desired graduatequalities
(effective/valuing)
Techniques gradsShould learn (cognitive/
comprehension)
Application contexts& problems
(cognitive/application)
Types of systems /projects students should do
(cognitive/application)
Important professionalqualities
(affective / organizing)
Henson’s Knowledge domain / knowledge level in parentheses
Resultsof prioritizing
requests
After negotiation with courselecturers and the industry
collaborators
All collaborators agreed that the fundamental ‘core knowledge’ of the computer engineering discipline needs to be ‘protected’ – regardless of immediate industry/technology needs
Finding #1:Protecting the Core
“… Typically, candidates are chosen not for experience in any single technology or environment, but for a strong grounding in the fundamental concepts”
(ind. collaborator 1)
core
Commonly discussed:Professional values & theunderpinning of professional expertise
Difficult to explain in clear terms – generally discussed as largely tacit qualities that a professional develops over time (‘a professional knows how to behave professionally’)
Finding #2: the need to impart
The essential professional expertise
“… taking responsibility …” (ind. collaborator 5)
“… able to do time-planning, Gantt charts, budgets…” (res. collaborator 3)
Incorporate problem-solving for particular application contexts – train students to use relevant tools for these contexts
Including simulated work conditions: e.g. reviewing designs, decision marking, leadership, design critique and peer assessment
Finding #3:Problem-solving in context
“… taking responsibility …” (ind. collaborator 5)
Assessing students’ assessment ability
A collection of specific tools and techniques were identified from the collaboration
Both industry & research partners recommended against specific training – they qualified requests with alternate approaches
Finding #4:Specific techniques and tools
“Our products are built with java…and a tomcat server. … Embedded coding in java is obviously not essential in the course, mastering embedded programming in C would be effective also.” (ind. collaborator 4)
visual modelling tool
Knowledge model for graduates
Recommendation for deciding curriculum changes to implement
breadth of know- ledge & flexibility
Implementing curriculum changes… Collaborators generally want graduates with
experience and skills that can be applied in a broad application contexts using a variety of tools
Towards:
Way forward…
depth
of d
isciplin
ary
know
ledge
‘T-shaped’ graduates *
* Rip 2004
Thank you!
SKA meerKAT (Karoo Array Telescope) project for SDRRG and RHINO funding
Xilinx for donations & support of RHINO project Texas Instruments for donation of development
resources and hardware SDRG team: thanks to Prof. Inggs, Dr. Langman,
Dr. Mishra, and the SDRG students
Acknowledgements
Rip, A., 2004, "Strategic research, post-modern universities and research training," Higher Education Policy, 17, pp. 153-166.
Shackelford, R., McGettrick, A., Sloan, R., Topi, H., Davies, G., Kamali, R., Cross, J., Impagliazzo, J., LeBlanc, R., and Lunt, B., 2006, "Computing curricula 2005: The overview report," ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 38(1), pp. 456-457.
2002, "Agents for change: Bringing industry and academia together to develop career opportunities for young researchers. Policy Briefing 17, European Science Foundation, Stockholm (Sweden).
ACM, 2004, "Computer Engineering 2004 - Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Computer Engineering," Association for Computing Machinery.
Henson, K. T., 2006, Curriculum planning: Integrating multiculturalism, constructivism, and education reform, Waveland Pr Inc.