Session 1 : The Professional Engineer

1. Session 1 : The Professional Engineer The Training of More Professional Engineers: An Ongoing ChallengePatrik DOUCETMechanical Engineering DepartmentUniversité de Sherbrooke - Canada

2. Outline • Mechanical engineering program reform: • Brief historic of the reform • Overview of the new program • Two major guidelines followed • Improving the occupational health and safety (OHS) competency • Developing a high level of teamwork skills

3. Mechanical engineering program reform • In 1992, a task force was set up to: • evaluate the existing program; • make recommendations. • Simultaneously, a pilot project, that aims to make students live a real design experience, was launched. • In winter of 1993, the task force visited universities in: • United States (Cornell, M.I.T., Toledo); • France (Toulouse).

4. Mechanical engineering program reform • In spring of 1994, the task force submitted its major recommendation: • to undertake a complete program reform. • In spring of 1996, an outside advisory committee gave an extremely favorable review of the proposed program. • In fall of 1996, the new program was launched. • In December 2000, our first students were graduating.

5. Mechanical engineering program reform • Overview of the actual program: • composed of eight sessions of studying plus four work terms (total duration of nearly 4½ years); • comprises a major design project: • counts for 10% of the diploma's credits; • is going from the fifth to the eighth session; • addresses all the design phases (from the definition of the project to the validation and exhibition of a functional prototype).

6. Mechanical engineering program reform

7. Mechanical engineering program reform • The major difference is that the new program aims to develop engineering competencies: • cognitive skills, psychological-sensory-motor skills (know-how) and socio-affective behaviors, • which enable graduated students to carry out an activity or a task at the entry-level of the job market. • To do so, a shift from the "teaching paradigm" to the "apprenticeship paradigm" is required. • Two fundamental principles shall be respected.

8. Mechanical engineering program reform • "Knowledge integration" principle • "For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them" (Aristotle). • Design projects are used to ensure knowledge integration along two axes: • vertically : semester-based projects during the first four sessions; • horizontally : mechatronics project (6th session) and major design project (from 5th to 8th session).

9. Mechanical engineering program reform • "Less is more" principle • The teacher has to be very selective about the theoretical notions he will address: • knowledge integration is preferred to knowledge accumulation; • solving real and complex problem requires time. • The bet which is taken is that students: • will learn how to learn; • will recognize their own competencies' limits.

10. Mechanical engineering program reform • Are the results of this reform worth all the invested time? According to a survey answered by 56 graduate students and 29 of their employers, the answer is yes: • both students and employers recognize that most of the developed competencies are useful in their job; • 69% of the employers recognize that our graduates are more autonomous and resourceful. • However, forming more professional engineers is an ongoing challenge...

11. Outline • Mechanical engineering program reform: • Brief historic of the reform • Overview of the new program • Two major guidelines followed • Improving the occupational health and safety (OHS) competency • Developing a high level of teamwork skills

12. Clam shell Improving the OHS competency • A mechanic died in this machine... The mechanical protective armhas been bypassed with a... screwdriver! The wrong position selector button had been installed!

13. Improving the OHS competency • A young man lose his right hand in this rubber press... "Safety components" were not approved for safety applications...and they failed!

14. Improving the OHS competency • According to the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board, "each program must ensure that students are made aware of the role and responsibilities of the professional engineer in society. Appropriate exposure to ethics, equity, public and worker safety [...] must be an integral component of the engineering curriculum". • The new program comprises a OHS compulsory course of 1 credit (among the 120 credits of the whole program).

15. Improving the OHS competency • The identified problem: • OHS related knowledge are very diversified. • OHS was a small part of the new program, which means a few hours to acquire knowledge, and a lot to lose it! • Thus it is reasonable to assume that our graduate engineers are not competent to deal with OHS problems. • Interventions in plants support this assumption.

16. Improving the OHS competency • The implemented solution: • A safety management training program has been developed by the IRSST (Quebec OHS Institute). • To respect the knowledge integration principle, it has been decided to: • separate this program in two major themes; • fit its different components into seven existing compulsory courses.

17. Improving the OHS competency Horizontal integration (from 5th to 8th sessions) Vertical integration Vertical integration

18. Improving the OHS competency • Risk assessment training component: • Tackled during the 5th session, in the design methodology course. • To respect the "less is more" principle, only one risk assessment method is presented: • greater mastery of the overall process; • awareness of its weaknesses and limits. • Knowledge integration principle implies to provide authentic and complex problems...

19. Improving the OHS competency • The ideal scenario: to bring the 50 students into a realindustrial plant. • The adopted solution: to virtuallybring the plant in class. • We created a multimedia support: • Composed of video, schemes, pictures, all linked together in a web environment; • Initiated by a simple video showing an overview of the plant and the machine to analyze, then… …the video freezes on a picture…

20. Interview with the operator (past accident, ideas to improve safety, other tasks to do, etc.) General and special functions (normal operation, E-Stop, special command modes, etc.) Detailed functions(E-Stop and limit switch specifications, cleaning tasks, etc.) Improving the OHS competency

21. Improving the OHS competency • Safety and protective devices training component: • Tackled during the 4th session, in the first mechatronics course. • In order to insist on the importance of this subject, an expert (from the IRSST) is invited to present: • past accident examples, pictures, statistics; • general safety and protective device notions.

22. Improving the OHS competency • Then, to respect knowledge integration principle, students have to inspect eight laboratory modules (IRSST)... Voluntary misusesof technologies ! To favour the "less is more" principle, they have to focus on only two fundamentals concepts.

23. Improving the OHS competency • The next step: • OHS horizontal integration can be improved. • Indeed, OHS relates to not only engineering design nor mechatronics. It concerns many other topics: • safety factor calculus for any kind of structure; • dimensioning of hydraulic circuit components; • experiment planning, and so on. • A project (initiated in spring of 2006) aims at creating educational objects (case study, anecdotes, tricky problems) for any mechanical engineering courses.

24. Developing a high level of teamwork skills • Since 1992, teamwork training is offered to our students. • During the 2nd session, students are exposed to: • Efficient individual and group time management. • Myers-Briggs’ types indicator (MBTI). • Planning, leading, and documenting a meeting. • During the 4th session, the following topics are addressed: • Characteristics of efficient teams and leaders. • Efficient communication (active listening, feedback). • Conflict management

25. Developing a high level of teamwork skills • The identified problem: • In spite of these two courses, important conflicts were arising during the major design project. • Conflict arising is a normal phenomenon in team development... the imperative is to manage conflicts. • Saying that is much more easier than doing it! • In fact, only few students are able to manage their conflicts, and many others know important difficulties (team break-up, psychological discomfort, burn-out)

26. Developing a high level of teamwork skills • The implemented solution: • Since 1997, a three-component solution is being developed: • team contract establish by the team members; • efficient self-and-peer evaluation process (calculus of an individualcontribution factor, which varies from 0.90 to 1.10, and multiplies the collective mark); • relational coaching approach, to assist students encountering difficulties within their team.

27. Developing a high level of teamwork skills • The next step: • Things we have to learn before becoming an efficient team member, we learn them by working within a team. • Throughout their 4½ years of study, there are many opportunities to improve students teamwork skills......which are not seized! • Horizontal integration can be considerably improved, with a portfolio approach for example...and that is my next challenge!

28. Conclusion • During this presentation, my intention was to give you an overview of what we did – and what we continue to do – to improve the professionalism of our undergraduate students. • I focused on two simple, but very important, principles to favour the "apprenticeship paradigm". • To train more professional engineers, we did many things... but many challenges are still arising! • It is truly an ongoing challenge...