Individual-centered education: An any one, any time, any whereapproach to engineering education

摘要

Engineering education is beset by many of the same challenges thatnhave affected American industry. Much has been recommended andnimplemented to improve engineering education. However, the traditionalnstructure of engineering education remains, even though currentnexigencies require a fundamental restructuring. In an earlier paper, thenauthor proposed a para/professional model as an alternative to thentraditional engineering degree structure (J.M. Tien, 1999). At a morendetailed level, the paper proposes to restructure the very nature of hownhigher education is delivered: from a group-centered activity to annindividual-centered approach that would allow any one to accessneducational material or multimedia courseware at any time and from anynwhere. Fortunately, the enabling technologies for such annindividual-centered approach are, for the most, available. Nevertheless,nseveral challenges must be addressed before individual-centeredneducation can become a reality