Teamwork and collaboration are twenty-first century skills valued by STEM employers for addressing the most urgent problems in society. To prepare undergraduate STEM students, they must graduate valuing teamwork and collaboration. The Integrated Concentration in STEM (iCons) program aims to meet this goal by utilizing interdisciplinary team-based…

Engineering education addresses the development of professional competencies in undergraduates. In this context, the core set of professional competencies includes critical thinking and problem solving, effective communication, collaboration and team building, and creativity and innovation--also known as the four Cs--as well as socio-professional…

The engineering graduate of today will engage in a career which will span the middle of the twenty-first century, and beyond. They will work in a world which is increasingly more complex and uncertain than at any time before. This will require an integrated combination of technical knowledge and transferable skills and values, to a greater extent…

There is an increasing interest in design and creative thinking processes in the Sciences, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and health education disciplines. Many new degree programs are integrating design thinking into their syllabi, with the intention of bringing creative problem-solving methods to these disciplines. In reality,…

With the ever-increasing push towards authentic learning within post-secondary institutions, many approaches are being explored. One such method with a particular focus on real-world applications has been the International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition program. At the University of Calgary, the iGEM program sees teams of…

For many educators, the inspiration to teach comes from a desire to make a positive difference in students' lives. As they seek to guide students toward their big goals through trying times, teachers need resources that strengthen social and emotional skills. Facing this very challenge, Allison Silverman, a teacher at Port Chester Middle School in…

Contribution: An analysis of the extent to which sustainability is present in the syllabi, project briefs, report templates, and student final reports of the three Iberian European project semester (EPS) providers, over a five-year period. Background: EPS is a one-semester capstone project framework that adopts project-based learning and…

In recent years, accreditation standards for international engineering education have led to a dramatic rise in the use of outcome-based education at universities. In this system, enticing new undergraduate students to science and engineering, although challenging, is the first important step toward building students' career competencies. An…

Orientation programs on college campuses across the United States exist to serve the needs of new students to transition and thrive in their new setting. Some students may arrive on campus for even more specialized programs beyond traditional orientation programs, such as athletic practice, that focus on academic courses or involve a wilderness…

For higher education graduates to be effective in the workplace, they require strong technical skills and the capability to operate across diverse knowledge landscapes to solve real world problems. At an Australian university, an interdisciplinary, short-term study tour programme was utilised to enhance students' inexplicit employability skills…

The importance of reducing the gender gap in engineering programs by recruiting and retaining female students is well recognized. Although women hold roughly half of all jobs in the United States, only 24% of STEM jobs are occupied by women. The problem is even more pronounced for engineering, where women held about 12% of jobs as of 2013 (Corbett…

The development of transversal competences is essential for the success of engineers, who need to have the ability to adapt to the new and changing demands posed by modern society and scientific advances. It is a challenge for professors to teach and evaluate transversal competences, since such competences are related to attitudes and values. We…

This article describes the implementation of an interdisciplinary design studio as a means to teach creative problem-solving through project-based learning. "Learning and Innovation Skills" has been designated as a core skill that students need to be successful in today's world, and project-based learning is one approach to helping…

Racial inequity is a pernicious problem in American schools. Discrepancies in school discipline show that black students are two to three times more likely than their peers to be suspended and expelled, even for similar infractions. This directly affects the racial achievement gap, school dropout, and involvement in the juvenile justice system.…

Management of "wicked problems", messy real-world problems that defy resolution, requires thinkers who can transcend disciplinary boundaries, work collaboratively, and handle complexity and obstacles. This paper explores how educators can train undergraduates in these skills through applied community-based research, using the example of…