Teaching Engineering as a design science

In this paper, we take the position that teaching engineering itself is a design science. Engineering educators worldwide creatively design, implement, and evaluate new ways of teaching to facilitate the learning of their students and to respond to various societal challenges. Sadly, their teaching and course design discoveries often remain with them. By representing successful experiences in engineering education as structured pedagogical patterns, we could develop this vital professional knowledge collectively into a so-called pattern language. The pattern language method acknowledges the complexity of instructional design and divides it into smaller and more understandable pieces. One piece is called a ‘pattern’. This paper aims to set the argument of why and how to develop a pedagogical pattern language for engaging and activating engineering education. In Delft, we see this pedagogical language as a part of TU Delft’s so-called ecosystem approach toward learning and teaching. TU Delft recognizes the need among students for impact-driven education that matches the way this generation learns and what our society needs. Successful ecosystem pedagogies will be the core of the intended pedagogical pattern language. It is our idea to develop this pattern language in close cooperation with the teaching communities of TU Delft, that is the TUD Teaching Academy, the 4TU Centre of Engineering Education, and CDIO.