At the 2nd International Congress on Public Administration in 2024, held at Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul in Campo Grande, Brazil, the 13th-16th November, Dr Manuela Rosa, Professor at University of Algarve and EPC Ethics Ambassador, promoted the Sustainability Toolkit in her presentation “Resilience and Territorial Sustainability”.
November 2024
Ethics Toolkit project manager Dr. Sarah Jayne Hitt promoted the Ethics Toolkit in her keynote speech at INCOSE UK’s ASEC2024 conference, held in Edinburgh, 5 – 6th November 2024.
Ethics Toolkit project manager Dr. Sarah Jayne Hitt chaired a panel on ‘Ethical Practice – What, Why and How?’ at the Hazards Forum in Manchester on 4th November, and promoted the Engineering Ethics Toolkit to audience members from academia and industry.
October 2024
At the 24th International Walk21 Conference on Walking and Liveable Communities, held at ISCTE in Lisbon, Portugal, 14th-18th October, Dr Manuela Rosa, Professor at the University of Algarve, and Ethics Ambassador for the EPC, promoted the Engineering Ethics Toolkit in her presentation “Layouts of pedestrian crossings for inclusive and age friendly society”.
July 2024
As academics know, it’s been “conference season” recently, with the usual rush of meetings and symposia and events that mark the beginning of summer. We’re pleased that the Engineering Ethics Toolkit has been featured at several of these, both home and abroad:
At the SEFI Spring School, held at TU Berlin the 10th – 12th April, the SEFI Ethics and Sustainability Special Interest Groups convened to consider “Democracy in Engineering Education”, and the Ethics Toolkit was featured in a workshop on the knowledge, skills, and mindsets of engineering educators.
At the EPC Annual Congress, held at Cardiff University the 9th-11th June, the Facial Recognition case study was mentioned during conversations about AI Ethics, and the Constructive Alignment tool was showcased as a way to plan for weaving ethics into almost any learning outcome.
At the UK and Ireland Engineering Education Research Network Annual Symposium, held at Ulster University in Belfast the 17th – 18th June, the Guidance Articles were presented as a great place to get started in learning more about teaching engineering ethics.
At the American Society of Engineering Education conference, held in Portland, Oregon the 23rd-27th June, Sarah Jayne Hitt presented an impact study that she and Sarah Junaid conducted on use of the Ethics Toolkit, featuring both website data analytics as well as information from user interviews.
Between January and April 2024 the Ethics Toolkit had just shy of 10,000 views, so we know you’re looking at it, but we also want to know where you’re talking about the Ethics Toolkit! Have you featured a resource in a conference presentation or meeting? Tell us about how the resources have helped you over the past year—we’d love to feature your story.
We’re excited to share with you that we are starting work on a Complex Systems Toolkit, aimed at supporting educators in their teaching of the subject. Toolkit development will start in early 2025. The Complex Systems Toolkit is supported by Quanser. Read on to learn more and find out how you can get involved.
WHY is the EPC developing a Complex Systems Toolkit?
Complex systems shape our lives and day-to-day realities more than most people realise. At the intersection of computing, robotics, and engineering, ever more technology is dependent on complex systems, from AI to biomedical devices to infrastructure.
Understanding both complexity and systems is critical to today’s engineering graduates, especially as the UK seeks to position itself as a leader in areas like advanced manufacturing and autonomous systems.
Engineers increasingly work in environments where they are required to connect different disciplines, perspectives, and skills, to understand and navigate sociotechnical systems, and to communicate complexity to diverse audiences.
Employers today seek graduates who understand not just interdisciplinary engineering work, can work with teams, and understand complexity from different fields and specialisations, but also who can work with non-engineers on products and projects and translate that complexity effectively.
Systems thinking competency is seen as critical to education for sustainable development, and when integrated holistically, complex systems in engineering teaching can align with national and international initiatives that promote social and environmental responsibility.
Accreditation frameworks increasingly refer to complex problems and systems thinking in outcomes for engineering programmes.
Learning approaches for integrating complex systems knowledge, skills, and mindsets in engineering supports educators in their own professional development, since many may have not learned about this topic that they are now expected to teach.
WHAT is a Complex Systems Toolkit?
The Complex Systems Toolkit will be a suite of teaching resources, which may include a scaffolded framework of learning objectives, lesson plans, guidance, case studies, project ideas, and assessment models. These are intended to help educators integrate complex systems concepts into any engineering module or course.
The Toolkit’s ready-to-use classroom resources will be suitable for those who are new to teaching complex systems, as well as those who are more experienced.
Teaching materials will focus on the development of relevant knowledge, skills, and mindsets around complex systems and contain a variety of suggestions for implementation rooted in educational best practice.
Toolkit resources will help educators to understand, plan for, and implement complex systems learning across engineering curricula and demonstrate alignment with AHEP criteria and / or graduate attributes.
Guidance articles will explain key topics in complex systems education, highlighting existing resources and solutions and promoting engagement with a network of academic and industry experts.
HOW will the Toolkit be developed?
The Toolkit materials will be created and developed by diverse contributors from academia and industry, representing a variety of fields and coming from multiple continents.
The resources will be presented so that they can be used in many different settings such as online and hybrid teaching, lecture sessions, and problem-based learning scenarios.
The Toolkit will be a community-owned project, and anyone can suggest or submit a new resource or get involved.
The Toolkit will be developed by the Engineering Professors’ Council and is supported by Quanser.
WHO is involved in Toolkit development?
The development of the Toolkit will be managed by a Working Group of subject experts from academia and industry, put together by the EPC and Quanser.
At the Engineering Professors Council (EPC), we believe that inclusivity should be embedded into the heart of engineering education . One of the key areas where this is essential is supporting individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing. We are proud to be a supporter of the The Engineering Deaf Awareness Project (E-DAP), a pioneering initiative established by Dr. Emma Taylor, focused on making Deaf Awareness a standard practice within engineering, both in academia and industry.
Why This Matters in Engineering Education and Workplace Settings.
A recent study by the University of Manchester and University of Nottingham, published in the International Journal of Audiology revealed that deafness and hearing loss affects 18 million people in the UK—around one-third of adults. Despite its prevalence, many educational institutions and industries, including engineering, face challenges in making environments fully accessible to deaf or hard of hearing individuals. The E-DAP project highlights a crucial issue: without deaf awareness, talented engineering students and professionals face significant barriers that limit their ability to contribute fully in all aspects of their daily personal, academic and professional lives.
Gaining Momentum
The E-DAP has gained significant momentum through increased collaboration and has expanded its reach, engaging a wider audience in conversations about accessibility in engineering. This growth culminated in a recent visit to Google’s Accessibility Discovery Centre (ADC) in London, where next generation Engineering Leaders Scholarship (ELS) awardees from the Royal Academy of Engineering joined forces with a diverse community to explore how technology can drive meaningful change.
Hackathon Innovating for Deaf Awareness at Google’s ADC
At the ADC, the team toured the latest tech and heard a keynote presentation by award-winning EDI lead Maria Grazia Zedda, followed by a hackathon focused on developing new ideas for accessible tech in engineering.
The hackathon hosted by Ellie Hayward (leading in implementing deaf awareness in start-up environments) and judged by Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor Dr. Emma Taylor, brought together the best next generation engineering minds to tackle real-life deaf accessibility challenges. Working in pairs, they focused on how they could develop technologies to break down barriers and develop integrated technology support for deaf individuals, in both academic and professional environments. The hackathon participants came from diverse engineering disciplines (biomedical, aerospace, software, manufacturing, mechanical, structural and spacecraft) and included;
The team was supported by Stella Fowler and Professor Sarah Hitt of the Engineering Professors Council. Stella is also an Honorary Research Fellow at UCL and Sarah is Professor of Liberal Studies at NMITE, which focuses on a real-world, holistic and contextual approach to engineering.
The team also benefited from valuable advice and sustained support provided by RNID, a Google ADC partner, whose expertise supported the accessibility focus of the hackathon. For further insights on fostering inclusive environments, RNID’s guidelines on accessible meetings are an essential resource.
The hackathon sparked a wide range of innovative ideas, inspired by the ADC visit and Maria’s keynote speech, and these will be further refined in a future hackathon later this year.
Voice isolation technology for hearing aids
Projected real time captioning onto a wearable device
Real-time sign language translation that integrates with existing meeting tools
An AI assistant and digital hub for best use of accessibility settings
Looking Forward
In the coming months, the E-DAP will collaborate on a series of outputs including hackathons, a webinar and the development of a manifesto for change outlining key recommendations for integrating deaf awareness into education and industry. It’s evident that the momentum of the E-DAP will continue to build, with a strong focus on two key areas;
Increased focus on enabling deaf awareness to ensure better engineering life long education delivery for all using current tech: By integrating the latest accessibility technologies, the project aims to create more inclusive learning environments, ensuring those who are deaf or have hearing loss have equal opportunities to participate and thrive in engineering education and industry across all modes of learning, from apprenticeships to workplace based learning.
Developing future concepts and tools through direct, engineering-led design hackathon activities and more: These events and collaborations will empower engineers to innovate and develop cutting-edge solutions, focusing on real-world applications that address accessibility challenges.
A Shared Vision for Change
At the EPC, we recognise inclusivity benefits everyone. By supporting the E-DAP, we aim to create an environment where all can thrive and contribute to the future of engineering. Together, we can ensure that deaf awareness is not just an initiative but a standard practice in our field. We look forward to bringing more updates to the EPC community over the coming months.
We want to see ethics embedded in all engineering modules and courses, across all higher education institutions. But to see this achieved we need your help. There are many ways that you can promote the teaching of ethics within your institution and department, and we’ve listed just a few here to get you started.
Talk to your colleagues about the Engineering Ethics Toolkit.
Download our posters and put them up on staff noticeboards in your department. We have a poster for the Ethics Toolkit, the Ethics Explorer interactive tool, and our Ethics Ambassadors community. Spread the word!
Add a link to your department website’s resources.
The Engineering Ethics Toolkit is open access, and its teaching resources can be adapted to suit individual needs. We’d love for you to add us to your list of go-to resources.
Share our classroom materials and guidance on your social media.
Run a collaborative learning session with a few colleagues on how to use one of our case studies in the classroom.
Often, all it takes is a bit of encouragement to give someone the confidence to start adding ethics to their teaching. We have advice on organising class sessions using our case studies; why not sit down with a couple of colleagues, get to grips with it, and make a plan?
Run a training session for your department on integrating ethics into a class or curriculum.
Once you’ve got to grips with teaching ethics, you’re perfectly placed to teach your colleagues how to go about it. Tell them about your own experiences, what was easy, what was difficult, and where to find the resources they need!
Give us your feedback about teaching or promoting ethics within your institution.
Whether you feel like a seasoned pro or are still struggling to say ‘deontology debate’, we want to hear your experiences. You can submit a blog to the Toolkit, or complete our feedback form.
Adapt one of our case studies and publish it on your institution website.
Our case studies are published with a CC-BY-SA Creative Commons 4.0 license, meaning that you can (and are encouraged to!) share and adapt them, making them appropriate to your specific context. If you would like to send us a link to any adapted materials that you have published, we’ll add it to our resources.
Give a talk to your institution’s Student Union Engineering Society on Engineering Ethics.
Hopefully all of your institution’s engineering students will come across engineering ethics during their course. But if there are some modules or courses that don’t currently embed ethics, you could reach out to your institution’s SU Engineering Society and offer to give a brief talk with Q&A to discuss issues such as what ethics is, why it’s important in engineering, and how engineers can make ethical decisions. This way you are introducing keen engineers to a vital subject that they might miss out on elsewhere.
Talk to academic leadership about integrating ethics into your institution’s engineering curricula.
Engineering curricula can do more to help students effectively develop ethical awareness, reasoning, or motivation in future engineering professionals. Whilst individual educators can (and do) make a vast difference by embedding ethics across their own engineering modules, a top down approach from the institution making ethics integration mandatory across curricula would mean that all engineering teaching staff would have to embed ethics in their courses and modules. You could make ethical practice a unique selling point of your programme!
Use our open access and free to adapt teaching materials when planning your class, semester or year.
Become a reviewer for new Toolkit content and encourage colleagues to sign up.
We are seeking academics to review the various resources that are submitted to us for publication within the Engineering Ethics Toolkit. Our expectation is that we may ask you to review two or three pieces of content per year. You can apply to be a reviewer here.
Write or co-write a guidance article, case study, or other teaching material for the Toolkit.
We encourage academics to submit advice and guidance, personal blogs, case studies, enhancements and other teaching materials to us for publication in the Engineering Ethics Toolkit. Working with colleagues on this content spreads the word and doubles the expert value. You can find out more about submitting content for the Toolkit here.
Organise or take part in an event.
Ready to talk ethics? Organise an informal lunch or coffee meet up with department colleagues to share experiences and good practice in teaching engineering ethics. Going to a conference? Get ready to talk ethics to anyone who will listen! We’ve got some handy talking points for you to use. Keep an eye out for opportunities to share resources and expertise.
Tell us your ideas for promoting ethics within your institution or workplace. Email w.attwell@epc.ac.uk.
Have YOU used the Engineering Ethics Toolkit? We’re trying to understand the impact that this educational resource has had since its launch in 2022. Understanding impact is key to our ability to further develop and expand the Toolkit’s reach.
You can help us by answering a few questions (below) and by forwarding this questionnaire to anyone you know who might also have used the Ethics Toolkit. There is no deadline for submitting this form; we are interested in your ongoing experiences.
If you would like to submit a blog post on your experience of teaching ethics or using the Engineering Ethics Toolkit, you can do so here.
James, where did your passion for this issue originate and how can the resources available for information literacy be put to use both by faculty and students?
We live in a time marked by an unprecedented deluge of information, where distinguishing reliable and valuable content has become increasingly difficult. My concern was to help engineering educators meet the critical challenge of fostering ethical behaviour in their students in this complex world. Students are in real need of an ethical compass to navigate this information overload, and the digital landscape in particular. They need to acquire what we call ‘information and digital literacy’, specifically, learning how to research, select and critically assess reliable data. This is both a skill and a practice.
For students, how does this skill relate to the engineering workplace?
From observing professional engineers, it’s clear they require comprehensive insights and data to resolve problems, complete projects, and foster innovation. This necessitates extensive research, encompassing case studies, standards, best practices, and examples to validate or refute their strategies. Engineering is a profession deeply rooted in the analysis of failures in order to prevent avoidable mistakes. As a result, critical and unbiased thinking is essential and all the more so in the current state of the information landscape. This is something Knovel specifically strives to improve for the communities we serve.
Knovel – a reference platform I’ve significantly contributed to – was initially built for practising engineers. Our early realisation was that the biggest obstacle for engineers in accessing the best available information wasn’t a lack of resources, but barriers such as insufficient digitalisation, technological hurdles, and ambiguous usage rights. Nowadays, the challenge has evolved: there’s an overload of online information, emerging yet unreliable sources like certain chatbots, and a persistently fragmented information landscape.
How is Knovel used in engineering education? Can you share some insights on how to make the most of it?
Knovel is distinguished by its extensive network of over 165 content partners worldwide, offering a breadth of trusted perspectives to meet the needs of a range of engineering information challenges. It’s an invaluable tool for students, especially those in project-based learning programs during their Undergraduate and Master’s studies. These students are on the cusp of facing real-world engineering challenges, and Knovel exposes them to the information practices of professional engineers.
The platform is adept at introducing students to the research methodologies and information sources that a practising engineer would utilise. It helps them understand how professionals in their field gather insights, evaluate information, and engage in the creative process of problem-solving. While Knovel includes accessible introductory content, it progressively delves into more advanced topics, helping students grasp the complexities of decision-making in engineering. This approach makes Knovel an ideal companion for students transitioning from academic study to professional engineering practice.
How is the tool used by educators?
For educators, the tool offers support starting in the foundational years of teaching, covering all aspects of project-based learning and beyond. It is also an efficient way for faculty to remain up-to-date with the latest information and data on key issues. Ultimately, it is educators who have the challenge of guiding students towards reputable, suitable, traceable information. In doing so, educators are helping students to understand that where they gather information, and how they use it, is in itself an ethical issue.
Knovel for Higher Education is an Elsevier product. As a publisher-neutral platform, Knovel helps engineering students explore foundational literature with interactive tools and data.
46% of EPC members already have access to Knovel. To brainstorm how you can make the best use of Knovel in your classroom, please contact: Susan Watson, susan.watson@elsevier.com.
Faculty and students can check their access to Knovel using their university email address at the following link: Account Verification – Knovel
Get Knovel to accelerate R&D, validate designs and prepare technical professionals. Innovate in record time with multidisciplinary knowledge you can trust: Knovel: Engineering innovation in record time
Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.
Keywords:Information literacy; digital literacy; misleading information; source and data reliability; ethical behaviour; sustainability.
Who is this article for?: This article should be read by educators at all levels in higher education who wish to integrate technical information literacy into the engineering and design curriculum or module design. It will also help to provide students, particularly those embarking on Bachelor’s or Master’s research projects, with the integrated skill sets that employers are looking for, in particular, the ability to critically evaluate information.
Introduction:
In an era dominated by digital information, engineering educators face the critical challenge of preparing students not just in technical skills, but in navigating the complex digital landscape with an ethical compass. This article explores how integrating information and digital literacy into engineering education is not only essential for fostering ethical behaviour but also crucial for ensuring sustainability in engineering practices.
The intertwined nature of information and digital literacy in engineering is undeniable. Engineering practitioners need to be able to select and critically assess the reliability of the information sources they use to ensure they comply with ethical practice. The Engineering Council and Royal Academy of Engineering’s Joint Statement of Ethical Principles underscores the need for accuracy and rigour, a core component of these literacies. Faculty members play a pivotal role in cultivating these skills, empowering students and practitioners to responsibly source and utilise information.
The challenge of information overload:
One of the challenges facing trained engineers, engineering faculty and students alike is that of accessing, critically evaluating, and using accurate and reliable information.
A professional engineer needs to gather insights and information to solve problems, deliver projects, and drive innovation. This involves undertaking as much research as possible: looking at case-studies, standards, best practices, and examples that will support or disprove what they think is the best approach. In a profession where the analysis of failures is a core competence, critical, dispassionate thinking is vital. In fact, to be digitally literate, an ethically responsible engineer must know how to access, evaluate, utilise, manage, analyse, create, and interact using digital resources (Martin, 2008).
Students, while adept at online searching, often struggle with assessing the credibility of sources, particularly information gleaned on social media, especially in their early academic years. This scenario necessitates faculty guidance in discerning reputable and ethical information sources, thereby embedding an ethical approach to information use early in their professional development.
Accuracy and rigour:
Acquisition of ‘information literacy’ contributes to compliance with the Statement of Ethical Principles in several ways. It promotes the ‘accuracy and rigour’ essential to engineering. It guarantees the basis and scope of engineering expertise and reliability so that engineers effectively contribute to the well-being of society and its safety and understand the limits of their expertise. It also contributes to promoting ‘respect for the environment and public good’, not just by ensuring safety in design, drawing up safety standards and complying with them, but also by integrating the concept of social responsibility and sustainability into all projects and work practices. In addition, developing students’ capacity to analyse and assess the accuracy and reliability of environmental data enables them to recognise and avoid ‘green-washing’, a growing concern for many of them.
Employability:
In the workplace, the ability to efficiently seek out relevant information is invaluable. In a project-based, problem-solving learning environment students are often confronted with the dilemma of how to refine their search to look for the right level of information from the very beginning of an experiment or research project. By acquiring this ‘information literacy’ competence early on in their studies they find themselves equipped with skills that are ‘workplace-ready’. For employers this represents a valuable competence and for students it constitutes an asset for their future employability.
Tapping into specialised platforms:
In 2006 the then-CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt famously said “Google is not a truth machine”, and the recent wave of AI-powered chatbots all come with a stark disclaimer that they “may display incorrect or harmful information”, and “can make mistakes. Consider checking important information.” Confronted with information overload and the difficulty of sifting through non-specialised and potentially unreliable material provided by major search engines, students and educators need to be aware of the wealth of reliable resources available on specialised platforms. For example, Elsevier’s engineering-focused, purpose-built platform, Knovel, offers trustworthy, curated engineering content from a large variety of providers. By giving students access to the same engineering resources and tools as professionals in the field it enables them to incorporate technical information into their work and provides them with early exposure to the industry standard. For educators, it offers support for the foundational years of teaching, covering all aspects of problem-based learning and beyond. It is also an efficient way of remaining up-to-date with the latest information and data on key issues. The extensive range of information and data available equips students and engineers with the ability to form well-rounded, critical perspectives on the various interests and power dynamics that play a role in the technical engineering challenges they endeavour to address.
Conclusion:
By embedding information and digital literacy into the fabric of engineering education (such as by using this case study), we not only promote ethical behaviour but also prepare students for the challenges of modern engineering practice. These skills are fundamental to the ethical and sustainable advancement of the engineering profession.
Knovel for Higher Education is an Elsevier product. As a publisher-neutral platform, Knovel helps engineering students explore foundational literature with interactive tools and data.
46% of EPC members already have access to Knovel. If you don’t currently have access but would like to try Knovel in your teaching or to brainstorm how you can make the best use of Knovel in your classroom, please contact: Susan Watson, susan.watson@elsevier.com. Check out this useful blog post from James Harper on exactly that topic here.
Faculty and students can check their access to Knovel using their university email address at the following link: Account Verification – Knovel
References:
Martin, A. (2008). Digital Literacy and the “Digital Society”. In C. Lankshear, & M. Knobel (Eds.), Digital Literacies: Concepts, Policies, and Practices (pp. 151-176). New York: Peter Lang.
Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.
What are the top ethical issues in engineering today, and how can you incorporate these in your teaching?
In our Engineering Ethics workshop at the 2023 SEFI Conference at TU Dublin, we asked participants what they felt were the top ethical issues in engineering today. This word cloud captured their responses, and the results reveal concerns ranging from AI and sustainability to business and policy and beyond.
When incorporating ethics into a lesson or module, educators might want to find teaching resources that address a topic that’s recently been in the news or something of particular relevance to a group of students or to a project brief. But how can this be done efficiently when there are now so many teaching materials available in our Toolkits?
Fortunately, sifting through available resources in the Ethics Toolkit is now easier than ever, with the release of the new Toolkit search function. The Toolkit search allows users to:
Choose from a list of suggested keyword tags;
Search by multiple keyword tags or their own search terms;
Refine the search results by one of more of the following filters: engineering discipline; educational level; type of content.
It even pulls resources from across different toolkits, if so desired.
Not only will this help you discover and find materials that are right for your educational context, but the search function could even become a teaching tool in itself. For instance, you could poll students with the same question we used in the SEFI Workshop, asking them what they think the top ethical issues are in engineering today, and then design (or co-design) a lesson or activity based on their responses and supported by resources in the Toolkit. If you don’t find resources for a particular issue, that could be a great learning opportunity to0 – why might these topics not be addressed? Of course, you can always create a resource that fills a gap and submit it to be a part of the Toolkit: we would love to see a student-developed case study or activity.
Let us know how you have used the Toolkit search function, and if there are ways we could improve it. Happy searching!
Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.
Dr Emma A Taylor, Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor, Cranfield University and Professor Sarah Jayne Hitt, PhD SFHEA, NMITE, Edinburgh Napier University, discusses embedding ethics in engineering education through wide use of deaf awareness: a gateway to a more inclusive practice.
“An ethical society is an inclusive society”. This is a statement that most people would find it hard to disagree strongly with. As users of the EPC’s Engineering Ethics Toolkit and readers of this blog we hope our message is being heard loud and clear.
But hearing is a problem:
One in five adults in the UK are deaf, have hearing loss or tinnitus. That is 12 million adults or 20% of the population. In the broader context of‘ ‘communication exclusion’ (practices that exclude or inhibit communication), this population figure may be even larger, when including comprehension issues experienced by non-native speakers and poor communication issues such as people talking over one another in group settings such as during meetings.
This ‘communication exclusion’ gap is also visible in an education context, where many educators have observed group discussion and group project dynamics develop around those who are the most dominant (read: loudest) communicators. This creates an imbalanced learning environment with the increased potential for unequal outcomes. Even though this ‘communication exclusion’ and lack of skills is such a huge problem, you could say it’s hidden in plain sight. Identification of this imbalance is an example of ethics in action in the classroom.
Across all spheres, we suggest that becoming deaf aware is one way to begin to address communication exclusion issues. Simple and practical effective tips are already widely disseminated by expert organisations with deep in the field experience (see list of resources below from RNID). Our collective pandemic experience took us all a great step forward in seeing the benefits of technology, but also in understanding the challenges of communicating through the barriers of technology. As engineering educators we can choose to become more proactive in using tools that are already available, an action that supports a wider range of learners beyond those who choose to disclose hearing or understanding related needs. This approach is inclusive; it is ethical.
And as educators we propose that there is an even greater pressing need to amplify the issue and promote practical techniques towards improving communication. Many surveys and reports from industry have indicated that preparing students for real world work environments needs improving. Although they often become proficient in technical skills, unless they get an internship, students may not develop the business skills needed for the workplace. Communication in all its forms is rightly embedded in professional qualifications for engineers, whether EngTech, IEng, CEng or other from organisations such as the UK’s Engineering Council.
And even when skills are explicitly articulated in the syllabus and the students are assessed, much of what is already being taught is not actually being embedded into transferable skills that are effectively deployed in the workplace. As education is a training ground for professional skills, a patchy implementation of effective and active practice of communication skills in the education arena leads to variable skill levels professionally.
As engineers we are problem solvers, so we seek clarification of issues and derivation of potential solutions through identification and optimisation of requirements. The problem-solving lens we apply to technology can also be applied to finding ways to educate better communicators. The “what” is spoken about in generic terms but the “how”, how to fix and examine root causes, is less often articulated.
So what can be done? What is the practical framework that can be applied by both academics and students and embedded in daily life? And how can deaf awareness help get us there?
Our proposal is to work to embed and deploy deaf awareness in all aspects of engineering education. Not only because it is just and ethical to do so, but because it can help us see (and resolve) other issues. But this won’t, and can’t, be done in one step. Our experience in the field shows that even the simplest measures aren’t broadly used despite their clear potential for benefit. This is one reason why blogs and toolkits like this one exist: to help educators embed resources and processes into their teaching practice.
It’s important to note that this proposal goes beyond deaf awareness and is really about reducing or removing invisible barriers that exist in communication and education, and addressing the communication problem through an engineering lens. Only when one takes a step back with a deaf awareness filter and gets the relevant training, do your eyes (and ears) open and see how it helps others. It is about improving the effectiveness of teaching and communication.
This approach goes beyond EDI principles and is about breaking barriers and being part of a broader student development approach, such as intellectual, emotional, social, and personal growth. The aim is to get students present and to be in the room with you, during the process of knowledge transfer.
As we work on making our engineering classrooms better for everyone, we are focusing on understanding and supporting students with hearing impairments. We are taking a step back and getting re-trained to have a fresh perspective. This helps us see things we might have missed before. The goal is not just to be aware but to actually improve how we teach and communicate.
We want our classrooms to be inclusive, where everyone’s needs are considered and met. It is about creating an environment where all our students, including those with hearing impairments, feel supported and included in the learning process. And stepping back and taking a whole human (“humanist”) view, we can define education as an endeavour that develops human potential—not just an activity that produces nameless faceless quantifiable outcomes or products. As such, initiatives such as bringing forward deaf awareness to benefit broader communication and engagement provide a measurable step forward into bringing a more humanistic approach to Engineering Education.
So what can you do?
The first step is always awareness. Inform yourself, raise awareness amongst yourself and your colleagues, and make improvements where you can in your daily education practice
Consider how you might incorporate deaf awareness in your teaching case studies, and consider how deaf awareness can improve the quality of your group work discussions
We’re pleased to report that we are aiming to launch an EDI Toolkit project soon, building on the work that we’ve begun on neurodiversity. Soon we’ll be seeking people to get involved and contribute resources, so stay tuned! (i.e. “If you have a process or resource that helped your teaching become more inclusive, please share it with us!”).
Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.
In developing the resources for the EPC’s Sustainability Toolkit, we took into account recent scholarship and best practices and reviewed existing material available on sustainability in engineering. You can find links to these online resources in our ever-growing library of engineering education resources on sustainability below. Please note, the resources linked below are all open-source. If you want to suggest a resource that has helped you, find out how on ourGet Involved page.
To view a page that only lists library links from a specific category type:
Listed below are links to resources that support educators’ awareness and understanding of sustainability topics in general as well as their connection to engineering education in particular. These have been grouped according to topic. You can also find our suite of knowledge tools, here.
Engineering Futures – Sustainability in Engineering 2023 webinars (You will need to create an account on the Engineering Futures website. Once you have created your account, navigate back to this link, scroll down to ”Sustainability in Engineering Webinars” and enter your account details. Click on the webinar recordings you wish to access. You will then be redirected to the Crowdcast website, where you will need to create an account to view the recordings.)
Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.
Author: The Sustainability Resources Library was produced by Crystal Nwagboso (Engineering Professors Council).If you want to suggest a resource that has helped you, find out how on our Get Involved page.
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