Advancing Engineering Education through Technology-Driven Teaching Innovations
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American Society for Engineering Education, 2016. With the proliferation of technologies that are able to overcome the obstacles of time and space, it is inevitable that change would transform and reshape the traditional ways of doing things. In higher education, the impact of educational technologies and their potential to enhance the teaching and learning experiences as well as improve learning outcomes is yet to be felt in any tangible way. This is mainly attributed to the lack of motivation by faculty to utilize new technologies in their classrooms. To further motivate faculty to introduce and integrate digital technologies into the classroom as teaching aids, a comprehensive plan was developed at Texas A&M University at Qatar (TAMUQ) to promote and encourage the use of technology in innovative ways. The groundwork for triggering successful technology adoption cycles requires developing targeted strategies that promote the use of technology. Transitioning from the state of non-acceptance to the state of adoption involves going through several intermediary stages that inform, train, and reward faculty members. Although strategies employed at TAMUQ address each of the three stages, they go beyond the goal of adoption to stimulate innovation. In order to promote the innovative use of technology, an annual Teaching Innovation with Technology competition was introduced with the goal of encouraging faculty to experiment with new technologies and assess their impact on their classrooms. The competition has been running for two years and has resulted in several innovative ideas. This paper summarizes the results from the three finalist projects coming out of the second year competition. The results demonstrate that technology can reshape teaching and learning in engineering education in productive ways. On one hand, students involved in classes that employed technology to complement the educational process have become more interested and engaged in their classrooms. On the other hand, faculty exposed to motivational strategies have become more receptive to the idea of employing and experimenting with new technologies in innovative ways.
