Current and future teaching of engineering mathematics to civil engineering students : issues relating to empowering and enhancing critical and creative thinking skills

Abstract

The future engineering curriculum should be built around developing skills with much focus on shaping analytic skills, problem-solving skills, and design skills. Future engineers must be educated and prepared to be creative and flexible, to be curious and imaginative. Substantially, surveys and findings have also revealed that most employers and educational institutions recognize the importance of effective critical and creative thinking skills, especially among engineers. Despite the current demands, there have been some marked significant complaints relating to the capability among engineering graduates and young engineers to transfer methods and knowledge from one discipline to another. This ability forms an essential and necessary condition for pushing the boundaries of engineers’ thinking. Mathematics being integral to engineering, is becoming ever more indispensable as the complexity of engineering tasks grows and abstract information processes start playing an essential role in technology. This is a strong indication that fluency with mathematics is an essential weapon in the modern graduate engineer’s armory. Hence the teaching of mathematics to the engineering undergraduates too is never spared from the current requirements and demands. This paper seeks to explore and examine the current and future teaching of engineering mathematics to undergraduate civil engineering students at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) pertaining to the empowerment and enhancement of critical and creative thinking skills.