Systems-approach design of an undergraduate stem programs academic methodology

Abstract

The goal of education is to empower students with knowledge and skills required to enter their professional lives and bring added value to society, through successfully tackling complex socio-technical problems. Yet, many programs have been designed without duly considering how that end goal is to be achieved. In addition to the students, other stakeholders need to be factored in. This paper describes how effective undergraduate programs in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics domains were designed following the systems approach. The identification of the learning objectives led, through consideration of all stakeholders and their requirements, to the identification and evaluation of alternative academic methodologies. The selected one was project-based-learning coupled with continuous assessment. Although project-based learning is well known, alone it does not render the required results. Feedback is a pivotal element in any educational process and continuous assessment proved to be the true learning enabler when applied in project-based learning environments. Projects are executed in an incremental manner, going from course-specific projects, through transdisciplinary projects that span across several courses, to the final capstone or graduation project. Connection with industry is always close and is articulated in multiple cooperation strategies; the main ones and the lessons learned are summarized. Being validation essential in the systems approach, this paper shows how validation was recurrently performed and how the collected feedback was used to fine-tune and improve the methodology. The main results achieved in over six years are presented. Moreover, the road ahead is presented with the sketch of a third element that will further reinforce the effectiveness of the methodology. Students’ self-assessments bring gradually implemented, to complement the methodology. It helps students develop the maturity required to have proper awareness of the quality of the work they perform, so as not to have to rely entirely on external evaluations.