Goal

The ultimate goal of the Consortium to Promote Reflection in Engineering Education (CPREE) is a larger number of U.S. engineering graduates who are better prepared for the contemporary challenges of the profession. To this end, CPREE will improve engineering teaching across a wide range of educational settings and for a wide range of student populations by targeting an essential but oft-neglected component for effective learning: reflection. Reflecting, or exploring the meaning of experiences and consequences for future action, has always been important for the development of expertise. Thus, the specific goal is to catalyze the understanding, development, and use of reflective practices in engineering education. This will deepen engineering learning and broaden the set of individuals who succeed in the engineering education experience. A significant pragmatic advantage of our approach is the potential for reflection to enhance a wide range of existing teaching practices, including active learning, project-based learning, and lab instruction, as well as co-curricular experiences, such as research experiences and internships. The compatibility of reflection with other teaching efforts means this project neither competes with other teaching reform efforts nor requires unrealistically drastic changes in teaching practice to succeed; on the contrary, it can multiply the impact of most teaching reform efforts.