Empowering Professional Teaching in Engineering. John Heywood
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Lest it be thought that this argument only applied to the UK, it should be noted that in the U.S. in 1970, Owens argued that since the teachers are professionals they should be responsible for what goes on in the classroom. The teacher is no different to the medical practitioner in this respect [13]. But those who teach in higher education do not regard teaching as a professional activity. In engineering their allegiance is to the engineering profession, and their research is associated with that allegiance. This is one of the, if not the major reason why faculty do not have much interest in aligning their teaching and assessment to the knowledge base of techniques that is available to them. It is one of the reasons why it is so difficult to reform or change the practices of engineering education.
The best that can be said of the majority of engineering educators is that they are “restricted” professionals to use a term coined by Eric Hoyle. He made a distinction between “restricted” and “extended” professionalism. He argued that at that time teachers looked for a restricted notion of professionalism which is “a high level of classroom competence teaching skill and good relationships with pupils” [14]. And this is what the public would expect. In Ireland, Henry Collins (sometime President of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland) examined Hoyle’s model of restricted professionalism, and concluded that achieving the competence that the public expects of teachers would necessarily extend their professionalism [15].
“Extended professionalism” wrote Hoyle “embraces restricted professionalism, but additionally embraces other attitudes of the teacher. These include seeing his/her work in the wider context of community and society, ensuring that his/her work is informed by theory, research, and current exemplars of good practice; being willing to collaborate with other teachers in teaching, curriculum development and the formation of school policy, and having a commitment to keep himself/herself professionally informed.”
Hoyle’s model of restricted and extended professionalism is easily adapted for higher education as Exhibit 1.1 shows.
Engineering Educators who attend the annual ASEE and FIE conferences are more likely to be, or have a tendency toward extended professionalism, and to take the issue of accountability seriously.
An important step that would enable engineering educators to become a professional has been taken by the American Society for Engineering Education who have promoted a code of ethics. Cheville and Heywood have discussed the problems of developing a code of ethics for engineering education with reference to those in use in engineering (world-wide) and other professions, and suggested the code shown in Exhibit 1.2 [16]. As yet there is no universally recognized system of training engineering educators that is the hallmark of a profession.
It is evident from the foregoing that what has been written about accountability in the school system applies equally to higher education.
The beginning engineering educator finds her/himself in a situation where it seems that she/he may have to choose between different priorities or to balance those priorities as best as he/she can. In 1994 Michael Bassey President of the British Educational Research Association published a book with the title “Creating Education through Research” [17]. He used the second page of his introduction to adapt and develop work by W. G. Perry whose study of student intellectual development in higher education is of considerable importance [18, see chapter VIII]. The last two paragraphs read,
“My fifth discovery was that I am not a watcher of the world but an actor in it. I have to make decisions and some of them have to be made now. I cannot say, ‘stop the world and let me get off for a bit, I want to think some more before I decide.’ Given differences of opinion among reasonable people, I realize that I cannot be sure that I am making the ‘right’ decisions. Yet because I am an actor in the world, I must decide. I must choose what I believe in and own the consequences.”
| Restricted Professionality in Engineering Education | Extended Professionality in Engineering Education |
| Instructional skills derived from experience | Instructional skills derived from mediation between experience and theory |
| Perspective limited to immediate time and place | Perspective embracing broader social context of education |
| Lecture room and laboratory events perceived in isolation | Lecture room and laboratory events perceived in relation to institution policies and goals |
| Introspective with regard to methods of instruction | Instructional methods compared with those of colleagues and with reports of practice |
| Value placed on autonomy in research and teaching | Value placed on professional collaboration in research and teaching |
| Limited involvement in non-teaching professional and collegial activities | High involvement in non-teaching professional and collegial activities |
| Infrequent reading of professional literature in educational theory and practice | Regular reading of professional literature in educational theory and practice |
| Involvement in continuing professional development limited and confined to practical courses mainly of a short duration | Involvement in continuing professional development work that includes substantial courses of a theoretical nature |
| Instruction (teaching) seen as an intuitive activity | Instruction (teaching) seen as a rational activity |
| Instruction (teaching) considered less important than research | Instruction (teaching) considered as important as research |
| Assessment is a routine matter. The responsibility for achievement lies with the student | Assessment is designed for learning Achievement is the co-responsibility of the institution, instructor (teacher) and student |
Exhibit 1.1: An adaptation of Hoyle’s descriptions of restricted and extended professionalism on school teaching for higher education.
Engineering education has a large impact on the world, serving the ideal of human development through education and the ideal of truth through scholarship. Engineering educators respect the impacts culture and individuality have on these ideals. To serve these ideals engineering educators:
1. recognize that engineers and engineering works may impact the world for good or for ill. Engineering educators strive to develop their own and students capacity for moral purpose, serve as an example for life lived well, and recognize the rights of others to define their own welfare and quality of life;
2. treat others fairly, support others’ learning at all times, and honor differences between learners that arise through opportunity and culture;
3. balance responsibilities of the multiple roles they assume within the education system:
a. in the role of a teacher or mentor the engineering educator seeks to support learning, professional development, and enabling human thriving through education;
b. in the role of a scholar the engineering educator