Title
An Online Resource for Developing Technological Literacy Courses
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Publication Date
2011
Publication Source
Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference, Austin, TX
Publisher
American Society for Engineering Education
Abstract
This work describes an effort to create on online resource forEngineering faculty who would like to teach generalEducationEngineering or technological literacy courses for non-engineers.Engineering departments can contribute to a greater understanding ofEngineering and technology by offering courses on technological topics at a level that is appropriate for nonengineers. However doing so requires appropriate curriculum and course materials. To facilitate this process, a review was conducted of technological literacy courses already being taught byEngineering faculty. It was found that courses can be classified in four categories. These four groups are survey courses, focus courses, design courses and connections courses. The survey courses aim to cover a wide range to technological products, systems, and issues. The focus courses address a more narrowly defined area such as energy or nanotechnology. The design courses emphasize developing a familiarity with theEngineering design process. Connections courses concentrate on the interconnections betweenEngineering, technology and other areas of society and culture. These four categories are proposed as templates or models that other faculty can use in developing and planning a course. These four models were found to be consistent with the recommendations made by the National Academy ofEngineering and the International TechnologyEducation Association regarding standards for technological literacy. It is intended to develop an online database of course materials organized around the proposed framework. An additional feature to be included is classification of material based on cognitive level of Bloom’s taxonomy. The current status of the development of the online system is described.--from source
Keywords
American Society forEngineeringEducations, Technology and Literacy
Recommended Citation
Published in: Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference, Austin, TX, January 1, 2011. Copyright © 2011 American Society for Engineering Education, Washington, D.C.. The final published version is available at: http://www.asee.org/public/conferences/1/papers/1166/view
Comments
This paper was part of the Technological Literacy for Undergraduate Students session at the 2011 ASEE annual conference held at the Vancouver International Conference Centre on Mon. June 27, 2011.