TY  - CHAP
A1  - Leicht-Scholten, Carmen
A1  - Steuer-Dankert, Linda
A1  - Bouffier, Anna
T1  - Facing Future Challenges: Building Engineers for Tomorrow
T2  - Conference proceedings : new perspectives in science education : 5th Conference edition, Florence, Italy, 17-18 March 2016
N2  - Future engineers are increasingly confronted with the so-called Megatrends which are the big social challenges society has to cope with. These Megatrends, such as “Silver Society”, “Globalization”, “Mobility” and “Female Shift” require an application-oriented perspective on Diversity especially in the engineering field. Therefore, it is necessary to enable future engineers not only to look at the technical perspectives of a problem, but also to be able to see the related questions within societies they are developing their artefacts for. The aim of teaching engineering should be to prepare engineers for these requirements and to draw attention to the diverse needs in a globalized world.
Bringing together technical knowledge and social competences which go beyond a mere training of the so-called “soft skills”, is a new approach followed at RWTH Aachen University, one of the leading technical universities in Germany. RWTH Aachen University has established the bridging professorship “Gender and Diversity in Engineering” (GDI) which educates engineers with an interdisciplinary approach to expand engineering limits. In the frame of a sustainable teaching concept the research group under the leadership of Prof. Carmen Leicht-Scholten has developed an approach which imparts a supplication-specific Gender and Diversity expertise to engineers. In workshops students gain theoretical knowledge about Gender and Diversity and learn how to transfer their knowledge in their special field of study and later work. To substantiate this, the course participants have to solve case studies from real life. The cases which are developed in collaboration with non-profit organizations and enterprises from economy rise the students to challenges which are inspired by professional life. Evaluation shows the success of this approach as well as an increasing demand for such teaching formats.
KW  - Diversity
KW  - Engineering Education
KW  - Gender
KW  - Higher Education
Y1  - 2016
SN  - 978-886292-705-5
SP  - 32
EP  - 37
ER  - 
TY  - CHAP
A1  - Steuer-Dankert, Linda
A1  - Leicht-Scholten, Carmen
T1  - Social responsibility and innovation - Key competencies for engineers
T2  - ICERI 2016: 9th International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation: Conference Proceedings : Seville (Spain), 14-16 November
N2  - Engineers are of particular importance for the societies of tomorrow. The big social challenges society has to cope with in future, can only be mastered, if engineers link the development and innovation process closely with the requirements of people. As a result, in the frame of the innovation process engineers have to design and develop products for diverse users. Therefore, the consideration of diversity in this process is a core competence engineers should have. Implementing the consideration of diverse requirements into product design is also linked to the development of sustainable products and thus leads to social responsible research and development, the core concept formulated by the EU.
For this reason, future engineers should be educated to look at the technical perspectives of a problem embedded in the related questions within societies they are developing their artefacts for. As a result, the aim of teaching engineering should be to prepare engineers for these requirements and to draw attention to the diverse needs in a globalized world.
To match the competence profiles of future engineers to the global challenges and the resulting social responsibility, RWTH Aachen University, one of the leading technical universities in Germany, has established the bridging professorship “Gender and Diversity in Engineering” (GDI) which educates engineers with an interdisciplinary approach to expand engineering limits. The interdisciplinary teaching concept of the research group pursues an approach which imparts an application oriented Gender and Diversity expertise to future engineers. In the frame of an established teaching concept, which is a result of experiences and expertise of the research group, students gain theoretical knowledge about Gender and Diversity and learn how to transfer their knowledge into their later field of action.
In the frame of the conference the institutional approach will be presented as well as the teaching concept which will be introduced by concrete course examples.
KW  - diversity
KW  - innovation
KW  - social responsible engineering
KW  - engineering education
Y1  - 2016
SN  - 978-84-617-5895-1
U6  - http://dx.doi.org/10.21125/iceri.2016.0353
SN  - 2340-1095
SP  - 5967
EP  - 5976
ER  -