Leveraging workforce needs to inform curricular change in computing education for engineering: The cpace project

Traditionally, industry computational needs have been couched in terms of proficiency with specific applications rather than around functional computational capabilities. In this global economy, the preparation of a globally competitive U.S. workforce with knowledge and understanding of critical computing concepts, methodologies, and techniques is essential. A Collaborative Process to Align Computing Education with Engineering Workforce Needs (CPACE) is an NSF-funded community-building initiative that brings together Michigan State University (MSU) in partnership with Lansing Community College (LCC) and the Corporation for Skilled Workforce (CSW) to design and implement a process to transform undergraduate computing education within the engineering and technology fields. We envision that this process will serve as a model for national efforts to revitalize undergraduate computing education in engineering. In this paper we detail the process we developed to engage a wide variety of stakeholders – business, community leaders and post-secondary educators – to collaborate on research to identify computational skills needed by the engineering workforce. We also discuss the results from our employer interviews and employee surveys. The aim of these analyses is to determine the stakeholder’s assessments of the computational skills needs in their business sectors. This research provides the foundation for revising the curricula across engineering departments to incorporate computational problem-solving tools within the various disciplinary contexts. The goal is for engineering graduates to enter the workforce with improved and practice-ready computational thinking that will enable them to problem-solve and understand computational problem-solving in the context of the principles of computer science. A Collaborative Process to Align Computing Education with Engineering Workforce Needs: The CPACE initiative There is a call for action to revise undergraduate engineering education to meet the challenges of the new era; these challenges include globalization, international competition, an increasingly diverse population, and a rapid growth in information technologies. For engineering education to prepare graduates to flourish in the new global economy, innovation and flexibility in curriculum design based on constituency input and quality improvement principles are necessary 1 . The CPACE project is designed to address these challenges in the context of computing education within engineering disciplines. CPACE brings together post secondary educators – represented by MSU and LCC – and business, industry and community leaders – represented by CSW – in a community building process to transform undergraduate computing education within the engineering and technology fields. The goal of the CPACE project is to develop a partnership among a wide variety of stakeholders to identify the computational skills that are essential for an engineering workforce for the 21 st Century. The objective is to revise the engineering curricula to address computational problem-solving that is aligned with industry needs. This approach somewhat mirrors the process by which ABET accomplished a reformed evaluation criteria based on customer focus, continuous program improvement, and outcomes in student learning 1 . We are developing a dynamic process that documents every step of the research from engaging the different stakeholders to implementing the process for curricular reform. Project Implementation CPACE is based on the ‘Transformation Model’ depicted in Figure 1. This model envisions a cyclic process with feedback among the five major nodes. Figure 1. CPACE Transformation Model. The model provides a framework that allows all stakeholders to view their needs in the context of the entire process. The primary focus of this project is on the nodes that are highlighted in blue. The various stakeholders groups and subgroups involved in node I are highlighted in red. The shaded node indicates the curricular implementation process that will be addressed in a subsequent project. The process comprises five stages: 1. Interview and survey stakeholders to identify specific workforce computational skills. 2. Abstract computational problem-solving principles from those skills. 3. Align those principles with computer science concepts to map the problem-solving requirements onto underlying computer science concepts that are the foundation of the computer science discipline. This alignment is checked among stakeholders to confirm that they capture important skills. 4. Identify opportunities for curricular integration that fit between the computer science concepts and engineering curricula in other departments. The abstract concepts are aligned with disciplinary problem-solving that addresses workforce needs. I III