Becoming TC2K Compliant: Implementing Outcomes Based Assessment to Improve Engineering Technology Course Delivery

摘要

The shift in the accreditation process in both engineering and engineering technology from traditional instructional models to curricula centered on outcomes based assessment presents a challenge to department chairman and program coordinators to meet the requirement of these new criteria. Similarly, this new criteria presents an interesting challenge and opportunity to teaching faculty to both meet this challenge as well as to improve the delivery of their course materials. The successful shift to outcomes based assessment will require teaching faculty to reassess the manner in which the approach to the preparation of course materials will center on the instructor to identifying what skills, techniques and knowledge will be developed by the student during each individual course. The challenge for the instructor is then to develop methods to demonstrate that these skills, techniques and knowledge have been successfully transmitted to the student. Implicitly, this is what has been done in the past but without a specific measure of the skills, techniques and knowledge to developed in each course. Therefore, the shift to this new assessment technique is not really that great but requires a shift in focus in the instructor's thought process of course delivery as well as developing the tools to assess the learning style of the students as well as the effectiveness of the course delivery. This paper will present examples of techniques to convert existing materials to the outcomes based assessment approach as well as suggest techniques to measure the delivery of these materials in both course imbedded techniques as well as techniques to assess course-established objectives and outcomes.