In my entire career as an engineering educator, I’ve only once observed engineering students acting professionally in the classroom.

Once you see it, you know that’s the point of what we’re supposed to be doing in academia, and every educational fiber of your being will want to recreate it.

But our systems are structured in ways that make these occurrences so incredibly rare that I’d argue most faculty have never witnessed such an event to know what is possible in a classroom.

Defining Professionalism

Many of you have had experiences that you’d classify as professional. What made those situations and people act or behave as professionals? How do you define professionalism?

The Attributes of a Profession:

  1. Work that requires sophisticated skills, the autonomous use of judgment, and the exercise of discretion. Also, the work is not routine or capable of being mechanized.
  2. Membership in the profession requires extensive formal education, not simply practical training or an apprenticeship.
  3. The public allows special societies or organizations that are controlled by members of the profession to set standards for admission to the profession, to set standards of conduct for members, and to enforce these standards.
  4. Significant public good results from the practice of the profession.

Notice the emphasis on judgment and discretion above as being core features of a professional. Unpack each of those for a moment and ask yourself if these qualities are increasing or decreasing in our society.

Also, notice the use of autonomous and mechanized relative to judgment and discretion. Can AI ever fully replace the engineering profession?

Reconsider your examples of people and situations you previously listed as ‘professional’ — would you change those stories now?

Is it possible for students to behave as professionals in a classroom with an instructor? Yes, but it’s unlikely for several reasons.

Professionalism in the Classroom

“Students will always disappoint you because they are not professionals yet.”

The very act of calling someone a student or kid takes them away from acting like professionals. This doesn’t mean that they can’t be professionals — they will often surprise you if you let them. Having an authority in a classroom also takes them away from acting like professionals as this deprives them of exercising autonomous judgment and discretion on key decisions.

So what did I have to do to promote truly professional behavior from a class? A couple of steps:

  1. Give them a real challenge and real resources that require them to work together for a solution. In my case, the students were constructing an entire kinematic art installation for a faculty member. The installation had 5+ separate features that each required a team of engineers to realize.
  2. Hand over the reins/marker/pointer/mouse to the students to empower them to present, be empathetic to, and address the needs between eachother (analogous to a flipped course). I love the jigsaw classroom technique for defining autonomous roles. In our case, each team had defined roles and had to get the separate features working together in a complex system.
  3. Test the system by giving them real and impromptu opportunities to perform and thereby increase their confidence. In our case, a news crew from the UW was on campus filming acts of flipped educational experiences in engineering. My teams delivered an impromptu performance of their design review for the news crew and rocked it!
  4. Record/tell the story so that it can be repeated by them and others.

You’ll know when something is wrong (when the students look to you) and when it’s working (you’re not needed). In my case, the students new where they wanted to be come the finish line and didn’t want to be the one letting everyone (or the client down). Leaders emerged to help coordinate the respective tasks and teams. It was fun for me to watch and experience.

When I told my mentors PK and Dan about this experience, they called it “professionalism.” I could have asked Dan how he knows when he’s effective in teaching professionalism, but I knew what the answer would be: “the number of empty seats.”

Dan and PK also added, “you’re finally teaching.” Indeed. Thank you. Finally.