Current and future teaching of engineering mathematics to civil engineering students : issues relating to empowering and enhancing critical and creative thinking skillsud

摘要

The future engineering curriculum should be built arounduddeveloping skills with much focus on shaping analytic skills,udproblem-solving skills, and design skills. Future engineers must beudeducated and prepared to be creative and flexible, to be curious andudimaginative. Substantially, surveys and findings have also revealedudthat most employers and educational institutions recognize theudimportance of effective critical and creative thinking skills,udespecially among engineers. Despite the current demands, thereudhave been some marked significant complaints relating to theudcapability among engineering graduates and young engineers toudtransfer methods and knowledge from one discipline to another.udThis ability forms an essential and necessary condition for pushingudthe boundaries of engineers’ thinking. Mathematics being integraludto engineering, is becoming ever more indispensable as theudcomplexity of engineering tasks grows and abstract informationudprocesses start playing an essential role in technology. This is a strong indication that fluency with mathematics is an essentialudweapon in the modern graduate engineer’s armory. Hence theudteaching of mathematics to the engineering undergraduates too isudnever spared from the current requirements and demands. Thisudpaper seeks to explore and examine the current and future teachingudof engineering mathematics to undergraduate civil engineeringudstudents at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) pertaining to theudempowerment and enhancement of critical and creative thinkingudskills.