The information-delivery part of our job, however, is ripe for takeover. Multi-media courseware and distance education are two examples of the impact technology will have on information delivery for higher education. And although I've learned a lot from books, most of my really important lessons have been learned through interaction with others. To successfully compete for our students' attention we need to spend less time delivering information to them and more time evaluating their performance and suggesting ways to improve. We can serve as role models, we can listen, we can react.
Students crave the opportunity to walk out from behind their televisions and do something.
Designing, building, testing, role playing, any activity in which students emulate practicing engineers will elicit enthusiastic participation. Students need to see role models, they need to practice being engineers, they need approval and they need an occasional personal kick in the pants. The program has been taught to three freshman classes, beginning in the Fall of 1994. The most striking result of the program is the attitude of the students at the end of the freshman year. Compared to students in the traditional curriculum, students from the experimental program take more responsibility for learning and work harder.