The Centre for Engineering Education UTM would like to congratulate Professor Emeritus Dr. Karl A. Smith who was awarded the Honorary Degree of Doctor for Engineering Education during the 51st Convocation Ceremony.
Prof. Karl Smith is an Emeritus Professor of Civil Engineering and Morse-Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Technological Leadership Institute and the STEM Education Centre and the University of Minnesota. He is also the Cooperative Learning Professor of Engineering Education, School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. He was appointed as the Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education and previously the Educational Research and Methods Division Director.
Prof Karl Smith has been actively involved in engineering education research and practice for over forty years. He has worked with thousands of faculty all over the world on pedagogies of engagement, especially cooperative learning, problem-based learning, and constructive controversy. His research and development interests include building rigorous research capabilities in engineering education, the role of cooperation in learning and design; problem formulation, modeling and knowledge engineering; and project and knowledge management and leadership. He serves on the National Advisory Boards for many research projects, including NSF-CLT Centre for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL); and the National Academy of Engineering’s Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship on Engineering Education (CASEE). He is Editor in Chief of the Annals of Research on Engineering Education.
Prof. Karl Smith has written twelve books including How to model it: Problem solving for the computer age (with Anthony Starfield and Andrew Blelach), published in 1990; Cooperative learning: Increasing college faculty instructional productivity (with David and Roger Johnson), published in 1991; Strategies for energising large classes: From small groups to learning communities (with James Cooper and Jean MacGrefor); New Direction for Teaching and Learning Series in 2000; and Teamwork and project management, 3rd Ed. in 2007. Currently he is working on four articles/book chapters and several conference papers, a book chapter on Engineering Errors with Brock Barry and an upcoming book on Teamwork and Project Management, 4th Ed. Updating, expanding and internationalising.
He is currently co-PI on an NSF-CLT – Centre for the Advancement of Engineering Education (CAEE) and co-PI on a NSF-CCLI-ND – Rigorous Research in Engineering Education: Creating a Community of Practice, and the follow up project – Collaborative Research: Expanding and sustaining research capacity in engineering and technology education: Building on successful programmes for faculty and graduate students.
Professor Smith’s first and foremost career objective is and has been to improve the state of the art of engineering education, especially engineering student learning and the engineering student experience. Currently his focus is on bringing a more scholarly approach to engineering education and helping build engineering education research capabilities. Specifically he is working to build systematic engineering education research capability, focused on helping engineering faculty and others formulate engineering education research questions and systematically conduct the research to answer these question for the global benefit.