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Helping Undergraduate Students of any Engineering Discipline Develop a Systems Perspective
Author(s) -
Simoni Mario,
Andrijcic Eva,
Kline Bill,
Bernal Ashley
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
incose international symposium
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2334-5837
DOI - 10.1002/j.2334-5837.2016.00174.x
Subject(s) - perspective (graphical) , curriculum , computer science , process (computing) , order (exchange) , engineering education , engineering ethics , mathematics education , engineering management , engineering , artificial intelligence , pedagogy , psychology , programming language , finance , economics
The complexity of problems that engineers are being asked to solve is increasing rapidly. Effective solutions often require the integration of mechanical, electrical, computer software, chemical, and/or biological components. In order to manage this complexity, it is becoming important for all engineering students to learn how to approach the solutions to these problems using a systems perspective (Baldwin 2014). In order to better motivate this approach to students the authors are introducing it within courses of their own engineering discipline. The authors are adapting traditional systems engineering concepts to create a framework of system models that can be introduced into courses of any engineering discipline at any level. Through the process of learning how to create these models, students gain an understanding of what is meant by a systems perspective and how this perspective can help them to solve problems. This paper discusses which systems models were incorporated into undergraduate curriculum and how each model is broken‐down into pieces that are easier for undergraduates to understand and faculty to teach.