Training Engineers for Innovation

9 Engaging with Heritage to Promote Innovative Thinking in Engineering Management Education

For those colleagues responsible for educating future engineers and engineering managers, the question of how to promote innovative thinking among engineering students within a rigidly structured curriculum, which is often driven by professional body requirements and built around intended learning outcomes and performance indicators, is difficult to reconcile. In focusing on a new pedagogical approach to teaching engineers, this chapter argues that by “thinking out of the box” and by setting learning outside of the “traditional” classroom and boundaries, engineering educators can both promote innovative thinking and enhance the student experience. This chapter discusses a graduate level management module taught as part of a number of master’s programs in engineering and engineering management. It provides a unique insight into engineering education in the UK and concludes by suggesting that while innovative thinking cannot be directly taught to students, in leading by example, engineering lecturers can act as role models; nurturing and encouraging students step out of their routine “comfort zones” and find new ways of working in which innovation and creative thinking becomes an everyday reality.

9.1. Introduction

Defining innovative thinking in engineering as the “the ability to address challenges and opportunities by the creative application of engineering capital, knowledge and theory”, ...