Ken Reid, director of engineering education at Ohio Northern University, is one of 72 of the nation’s most innovative, young engineering educators selected to take part in the National Academy of Engineering’s (NAE) fourth Frontiers of Engineering Education (FOEE) symposium to be held in Irvine, Calif., from Oct. 14-17.

Faculty members who are developing and implementing innovative educational approaches in a variety of engineering disciplines will be part of the event, where they can share ideas, learn from research and best practice in education, and leave with a charter to bring about improvement in their home institution. The attendees were nominated by fellow engineers or deans and chosen from a highly competitive pool of applicants.

“This will give me a chance to work with a community of researchers with similar interests and really build on the research that we’re doing at ONU,” Reid said. “This gives us the chance to take the excellent results so far from our new engineering education degree and look at the program from a nationwide perspective. This will, hopefully, let us have an even greater effect on engineering within K-12.”

This year’s FOEE program will focus on innovations in the context, curriculum and delivery of engineering education.

“It is absolutely critical that U.S. engineering educators learn how to become more effective in the classroom, utilizing technology and pedagogy in creative ways in order to produce more innovative graduates who have the ability to address the complex problems of the 21st century,” said Larry Shuman, senior associate dean for academic affairs and distinguished service professor of industrial engineering at the University of Pittsburgh, and the chair of the FOEE planning committee.

“To do otherwise will cede the nation’s place as an educational leader to other, more aggressive countries. At FOEE, these outstanding faculty will learn about the newest educational developments ranging from MOOCs (massive, open, online, courses) to online publishing.”