Faculty Development for Educating Engineers of 21st Century

Abstract

Faculty development is a critical element of the institutional effectiveness in engineering education. Faculty who gets involved in continuous professional development gets benefitted in terms of increased vitality, informed latest pedagogy, teaching innovations, and perform scholarly teaching. Moreover, faculty development contributes to the effective use of emerging technologies and establishes a firm foundation for the overall development of high-quality programs and curricula. At the stage when we are talking about outcome-base education, improving quality of engineering graduates, developing attributes as listed by ABET, faculty development becomes a prime goal. The engineers of the 21st century must have the desired skill set to perform outstandingly and achieve the global standards. We can build on that progress only if we pay keen attention to the challenges associated with genuinely improving teaching and learning which ultimately links to the development of the engineering faculty. If we ignore these challenges, the 21st century skills movement will not produce any results as desired.