Becoming a Professional Engineering Educator: A New Role for a New Era

Engineering education faces significant challenges as it seeks to meet the demands on the engineering profession in the twenty-first century. Engineering faculty will need to continue to learn new approaches to teaching and learning, which in turn will require effective professional development for both new and experienced instructors alike. This article explores approaches to effective professional development and provides a conceptual framework for responding to the challenge of becoming a professional engineering educator. The “cycle of professional practice” is introduced as a prelude for identifying what individual professors and their institutions can do to generate more powerful forms of engineering education. The article concludes with two case studies that illustrate the possibilities when faculty and academic leaders join together in addressing calls for change.