2/20/03

AUBURN TO HOST NATIONAL ENGINEERING CONFERENCE

AUBURN -- Engineering faculty from across the nation will gather on the Auburn University campus on Monday and Tuesday (Feb. 24-25) to discuss more effective ways to prepare students for the workplace.

The two-day workshop, sponsored by the AU-based Laboratory for Innovative Technology and Engineering Education, will be at the AU Hotel and Dixon Conference Center.

Also sponsored by AU and the National Science Foundation, the conference will teach participants how to meld theory, design and practice in the classroom.

LITEE is a cooperative effort that develops innovative instructional materials, using multimedia technologies and cross-disciplinary teams to bring the real world into the classroom. The effort includes faculty and staff from Auburn's colleges of Business, Education and Engineering.

Early LITEE efforts involved a review of commonly used instructional methodologies coupled with a study of alternative teaching methods. Those initiatives identified the case study method of instruction as the most promising learning tool.

At the upcoming workshop, participants will prepare draft proposals outlining ways to integrate case studies -- which bring together fundamental engineering principals with design constraints such as safety, cost, manpower and politics -- into their curricula.

In addition to hands-on workshops, attendees will also hear several speakers, including keynote speaker Nam Suh, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Manufacturing Institute and former head of its School of Engineering. Suh will address the recent transformation of mechanical engineering at the MIT school.

Other speakers will include Pat Mead, program officer for the National Academy of Engineering; Jeff Freud, project director for Texas A&M University's Foundation coalition; and Roger Salters, program director for the National Science Foundation.

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feb03-AU-litee

CONTACT: P.K. Raju, 334/844-3301.