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Artificial Intelligence (AI) has impacted many disciplines, particularly permeating engineering. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers recognizes over 25 affected engineering specialties, including biomedical, civil, manufacturing, chemical, mechanical, environmental, industrial, aerospace, electrical, and computer science.
In this panorama, educational institutions have the arduous task of updating their curricula to train professionals for a future saturated with emerging technologies. The curricular programs must train students to detect when, how, and where to apply the most recent or advanced technological models and resources while offering a solid foundation for engineers to use AI algorithmic frameworks in their problem-solving skills, gaining a significant advantage over other candidates.
During the WEEF & GEDC 2023 Summit, organized by the World Engineering Education Forum (WEEF) in collaboration with the Global Engineering Deans Council (GEDC), university deans from various countries met to discuss engineering education. In the conferences, panels, and workshops, they debated the educational future that thousands of students and teachers will face worldwide, considering it urgent to assess how the next generations will be educated in modern technologies.
In the workshops held during the three-day event, the deans shared experiences, best practices, and replicable models that mitigate the challenges in the profession. Notably, the participants addressed the issue of integrating Artificial Intelligence into engineering curricula. In the working groups, they noted the most significant dilemmas that they had observed in integrating AI into engineering instruction. They exchanged key actions they had undertaken to overcome the challenges. The deans established the cruciality of active learning about AI, highlighting that its integration into the curricula allows students to observe biases, incorrect results, or reliability problems.
Moreover, there must be a better understanding of Prompt Engineering to formulate appropriate questions or instructions that guarantee an effective communication bridge between humans and AI applications. This requires strengthening critical thinking skills to understand the complexity of various problems and elaborate the correct questions to make informed decisions.
However, participants agreed that an educator alone would struggle to teach critical thinking to all students effectively; AI support is necessary. However, it is essential to consider the ethical aspects of using Artificial Intelligence, relying on a framework assembled by academicians and national and international organizations that provides detailed guidance to educators and future professionals.
Thus, universities must define parameters in references and models for teaching and administrative staff to leverage these technologies responsibly. It is crucial for them and students to recognize AI’s limits and potential and adopt it usefully and transcendental. However, knowing how to use AI to promote learning does not mean it should dominate the curricula. There must be a balance between using AI tools and developing fundamental skills. Engineering Institutions train engineers, not AI specialists; the engineering curricula must not lose their essence.
Some of the specific strategies the deans proposed to face challenges were:
- Raise awareness among the student body about the correct use of these tools.
- Ongoing training for teachers.
- Faculties, aligned with accrediting bodies, must include humanities courses in their curricula to improve soft skills such as empathy and interpersonal skills.
- An Ethics course at the undergraduate level is fundamental.
- Work with instructional design teams to include Problem-Based Learning (PBL), Challenge-Based Learning (CBL), and Problem-Oriented Learning (POL) to adopt AI.
- Model for first-year students the appropriate use of Artificial Intelligence as a problem-solving tool, demonstrating when AI provides “incorrect” or “inaccurate” information.
- Establish an institutional-level data privacy and regulatory framework to guide the correct use of these resources. This framework should be developed with the support of various stakeholders and constantly updated.
Including Artificial Intelligence in the curricular design of engineering school subjects helps articulate profiles that address dealing with new technologies. Fostering a culture that embraces change and questions, analyzes, and applies it with purpose equips engineers to make outstanding breakthroughs in their communities. The report IFE Insights, Teaching Engineering in the 21st Century: 4 Key Themes delves into this and various reflections highlighted in WEEF & GEDC 2023. Explore innovative educational best practices in engineering – download it and learn more!
Translated by Daniel Wetta
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This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 
