Teaching Engineering

The majority of professors have never had a formal course in education, and the most common method for learning how to teach is on-the-job training. This represents a challenge for disciplines with ever more complex subject matter, and a lost opportunity when new active learning approaches to education are yielding dramatic improvements in student learning and retention. This book aims to cover all aspects of teaching engineering and other technical subjects. It presents both practical matters and educational theories in a format useful for both new and experienced teachers. It is organized to start with specific, practical teaching applications and then leads to psychological and educational theories. The practical orientation section explains how to develop objectives and then use them to enhance student learning, and the theoretical orientation section discusses the theoretical basis for learning/teaching and its impact on students. Although the focus is engineering education, most of this book will be useful to teachers in other disciplines.

Frank S. Oreovicz recently retired as education communication specialist in the Purdue University School of Chemical Engineering. Phillip C. Wankat is the Clifton L. Lovell Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering and Engineering Education at Purdue University. He is interested in separation processes and in improving engineering education. His current research in separation processes focuses on large-scale chromatography and simulated moving bed systems, distillation, and analysis of the engineering education research literature.