Emerging learning environments in engineering education

Three major challenges, sustainability, the fourth industrial revolution, and employability, will require new types of engineering programs, to help students develop skills in cross-disciplinarity, complexity, and contextual understanding. Future engineering students should be able to understand the needs for technological, sustainable solutions in context. The engineering graduates should be able to act in complex and chaotic situations. The question is how engineering institutions are responding now and how they should respond in the future. This article analyses the general responses from engineering education over the last 20 years. These responses are student-centred learning, integration of theory and practice, digital and online learning, and the definition of professional competencies. Examples are given of institutions that are already applying several of these components in the curriculum. On the long-term horizon, more personalised curriculum models are emerging based on students developing and documenting their own learning and career trajectories, as part of their lifelong learning strategy.