Design and Implementation of an Integrated Construction Management Curriculum


Design and Implementation of an Integrated Construction Management Curriculum

Allan J. Hauck, Ph.D., CPC and Barbara J. Jackson, Ph.D., DBIA

California Polytechnic State University

San Luis Obispo, California

This paper describes the design and implementation of an integrated construction management curriculum at an undergraduate construction management program within the Associated Schools of Construction. Traditionally, construction management has been taught as a series of courses delivered as component parts of the whole. Integrated curricula present these discrete topics in a synergistic, project based environment. This integrated curriculum utilizes a series of seven seminars housed in dedicated, industry sector specific labs in which students are engaged in the solution of realistic management problems requiring them to practice the tools of their profession. The literature related to integrated curricula at all levels is reviewed. Finally, implementation issues are discussed as well as the need to recognize the culture, resources, and administrative structures unique to any program trying to introduce an integrated curriculum model.

Key Words: Integrated curriculum, interdisciplinary curriculum, construction management education, curriculum design.



Introduction

The Dictionary of Education (Good, 1973) defines integrated curriculum as “a curriculum organization which cuts across subject-matter lines to focus upon comprehensive life problems or broad based areas of study that brings together various segments of the curriculum into meaningful association.”

A segmented topic-based approach to construction management education has been successful at facilitating the attainment of specialized skills and concepts such as quantity surveying, estimating, or scheduling. However, such isolated delineations are not reflective of the real world outside the boundaries of the classroom. The world does not present problems that are topic specific and solved within regimented time-blocks. Rather, the everyday activities that occur in construction and on the job site draw on principles and tools associated with a variety of integrated disciplines.

In contrast to the segmented disciplinary approach, integrated curriculum emphasizes connections. The goal becomes to arrange content around overlapping concepts and themes, not to help students remember isolated facts.
Bonds, Cox, and Gantt-Bonds, (1993) who identify integrated curriculum as “synergistic teaching” write:

Synergistic teaching goes beyond the blurring of subject area lines to a process of teaching whereby all the school subjects are related and taught in such a manner that they are almost inseparable. What is learned and applied in one area of the curriculum is related and used to reinforce, provide repetition, and expand the knowledge and skills learned in other curriculum areas. This process of synergistic teaching allows the student to quickly perceive the relation-ships between learning in all curriculum areas and its application throughout each of the school subjects….Synergistic teaching does more than integrate; it presents content and skills in such a manner that nearly all learning takes on new dimensions, meaning and relevance because a connection is discerned between skills and content that transcends curriculum lines. In a synergistic classroom, simultaneous teaching of concepts and skills without regard to curriculum areas would have greater effect than the sum of learning skills and concepts in individual subject areas.



Traditional Curriculum Model

Construction management education has traditionally been taught as a series of separate courses, representing the common skills or tools used to perform the construction management function (See Figure 1). In the traditional model, it is difficult for students to get the complete concept of construction management as a comprehensive function until very late in their program of study, if at all, before they graduate. Typically we expect students to make the connection among the component parts of CM on their own. Students often struggle to “connect the dots” and make the associations necessary to grasp the overall process of construction management as a dynamic, synergistic engagement of subject matter and skills until they reach their final term or participate in a single capstone experience at the end of their education. Under this scenario, the notion of relevancy becomes a significant issue as faculty attempt to enroll students in critical thinking exercises within the context of a single subject course.

Contract Docs Fundamentals of CM Methods Materials Mechanical & Electrical Contract Admin. 3rd Year Project Controls Estimating Scheduling Individual courses covering independent CM subject matter Cost Alternatives Contracts Movement through the curriculum 2nd Year 4th Year

Figure 1 – Traditional Construction Management Curriculum Model


AbouRizk and Sawhney (1994) and Bertz and Baker (1996) suggest that the instructional methods used in a majority of construction engineering and management programs rely, for the most part, on unlinked and independent courses that convey knowledge in a fragmented fashion. Often students neither retain nor are able to utilize or synthesize knowledge acquired in previous courses. The traditional teaching methods are often not fully capable of providing students with the skills necessary to solve real world problems encountered in construction.

Regarding the detached nature of teaching independent courses, Humphrey (1981, p. xi) notes “It is taken for granted, apparently, that in time students will see for themselves how things fit together. Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is that they tend to learn what we teach. If we teach separation and discontinuity, that is what they learn. To suppose otherwise would be incongruous.”

Donald Schon (1983 and 1987) and others have argued that the epistemology of the professions is different than the nature of knowledge in other academic fields. Knowledge of a profession can only be demonstrated through practice and, in fact, knowledge and expertise in a profession are only advanced by trying something, receiving criticism about one’s performance, and considering that input the next time a similar challenge is faced – a process Schon calls “reflective practice”. According to Schon (1987):

The problems that professional practitioners--such as doctors, lawyers, or engineers--face are rarely straightforward and clear. They are frequently complex and lack “right answers.” Skillful professional practice often depends less on factual knowledge or rigid decision-making models than on the capacity to reflect before taking action in cases where established theories do not apply…Professional education should be centered on enhancing the practitioner’s ability for “reflection-in-action”--that is, learning by doing and developing the ability for continued learning and problem solving throughout the professional’s career.


He then advocates that, if knowledge in the professions is advanced through this process of reflective practice, successful education of students learning the profession should be centered around opportunities to solve real problems involving multiple approaches and to repeat the process of trial, critique, and reflection often. If knowledge in the professions is different than knowledge in academic disciplines such as history or physics, then education in the professions must, and in fact does, mirror these differences. Thus, case study learning in business management, residencies in medicine, mock trials in the law, and the studio model in architecture have all become standard components of the education of these professionals. Historically, however, many construction management curricula have been modeled more on academic disciplines than on professional ones, dividing knowledge into neat packages to be taught – and mastered – one at a time and only once. This approach may be fine for biology, but is it appropriate for preparing future generations of professional constructors?

Integrated Curriculum Models

The concept of curriculum integration in education is nothing new. Integrated curriculum, also known as interdisciplinary curriculum, or synergistic teaching, has been at the forefront of education discussions for decades, particularly as it applies to K-12 education. The “explosion” of knowledge and technology, the increase of state mandates related to myriad issues, fragmented teaching schedules, concerns about curriculum relevancy, and a lack of connections and relationships among disciplines have all been cited as reasons for a move towards an integrated curriculum (Jacobs 1989). In the K-12 setting, the integrated model combines various general education subjects such as science and social studies in the thematic teaching of concepts such as global warning.

Much of what has been learned regarding the effectiveness of an integrated curriculum comes from the body of research associated with primary and secondary education. However, there is no reason to suspect that the same results would not occur in higher education. According to Lipton et el. (1993) there are numerous positive effects of curriculum integration:

	Integrated curriculum helps students apply skills.
	An integrated knowledge base leads to faster retrieval of information.
	Multiple perspectives lead to a more integrated knowledge base.
	Integrated curriculum encourages depth and breadth in learning.
	Integrated curriculum promotes positive attitudes in students.
	Integrated curriculum provides for more quality time for curriculum exploration.


Although there has been far less discussion and fewer attempts to make use of an integrated curriculum at the university level, several engineering and a few construction management programs have implemented various curriculum integration techniques. Bruck et el. (2004) referenced several resources indicating that the engineering community recognized that engineering students are facing new challenges in the 21st century that may not be met with existing undergraduate engineering curriculum. Bruck noted that these challenges require the development of improved skills in a variety of areas, such as engineering design, problem solving, life-long learning, and multi-disciplinary teamwork---challenges not so different from those faced by construction management students.

These concerns resulted in ABET creating new Engineering Criteria in 2000, which are used to assess engineering programs for re-accreditation. Although these criteria provide a framework for developing 21st century engineering curriculum, implementation of these criteria was left up to the discretion of individual engineering programs. In response, several engineering programs have modified their conventional course offerings into a more integrated curriculum model, especially at the freshmen and sophomore levels, and the results appear to be consistently positive:

	The Departments of Mechanical and Civil Engineering at the University of Maryland have developed an integrated statics and strength of materials curriculum with an emphasis on design. Traditionally, statics and strength of materials has been taught separately. Bruck, et el (2004) notes that although this approach has proven to be effective in providing students’ understanding of basic principles in mechanics, it has been less than effective in providing students with an understanding of the relationship between the two subjects and their importance in designing structures. This observation prompted the two departments to seamlessly integrate the two courses together. Bruck, et el (2004) suggests that this integrated approach better prepares students to apply mechanics principles in the design solutions to engineering problems. The new courses are being delivered in new interactive, multimedia “studios.”
	The College of Engineering and Science at Louisiana Tech University piloted an integrated freshmen engineering program in 1998. In 2000 the integrated curriculum was fully implemented and expanded to include sophomore students. The new curriculum integrates engineering, math, chemistry, and physics, and incorporates an engineering design project. All classes rely heavily on cooperative learning techniques. According to Nelson and Napper (1999), assessment of the program indicates significant improvement in student performance over the traditional program as measured by grades in all courses and by retention.
	The College of Engineering at Auburn University, in close conjunction with the College of Mathematics and Science, began a new integrated curriculum model for a pilot group of incoming freshmen in 1996. The program has continued its offering of integrated curriculum after some initial fine tuning, resulting in improved course syllabi and better coordinated coverage of the desired topics. According to Shumpert and Zenor (19XX) the program met with early success and the results were most encouraging. One of the more pleasant surprises noted was the effective blending of faculty from different departments. Shumpert and Zenor (19XX) reported that the faculty found that teaching together enhanced appreciation by the students for what was being presented and an increased motivation for learning. However, Shumpert and Zenor (19XX) also noted that these enhanced educational activities did come with a variety of challenges.


Although it is apparent that ABET and responding engineering programs have taken steps to address the perceived deficiency in traditional engineering education, there are fewer instances where integrated curriculums have been developed and tested within construction management programs. However, one such example is the vertical and horizontal (service courses integrated into the building construction curriculum) integration model initiated at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, VA. in the mid 1990’s. This model provided vertical integration by way of a common lab for freshmen, sophomore, and junior students and horizontal integration by assuring that all information in service courses (engineering, communications, math, business, etc.) related directly to skills being developed in the construction program’s major courses. Mills, Auchy and Beliveau (1996) identified several opportunities and benefits derived from a fully integrated curriculum:

	Students learn by teaching each other in the team driven integrated lab.
	Conceptual and philosophical reinforcement of technical knowledge is developed in addition to the student improving in leadership, and team building skills.
	More effective utilization of faculty.
	More efficient use of equipment and facilities.
	A higher concentration of student time spent on competency development.
	Continual evaluation of curriculum relevancy.


The literature clearly suggests that a shift from instruction of skills as discrete elements to instruction of processes in which these skills are used would greatly benefit construction management education. Additionally, the teaching strategies associated with such an integrated approach are more closely linked with the way students learn, i.e. through active involvement in the learning process, interaction with other students, and formation of connections to previously learned information. (Felder and Brent, 1994)

Cal Poly State University finds itself in a unique position to initiate a pilot program in the spring of 2005 and begin a sequential two year integrated curriculum model that brings together independent construction management courses into a series of integrated learning laboratories designed to enhance learning and simulate real world construction management.

Integrated Curriculum Rationale and Design at Cal Poly

The immediate impetus of the integrated curriculum proposal at Cal Poly was the prospect of a new facility for the Construction Management Department. This facility is to be built through a combination of state and privately donated funds. The programming for the new Center for Construction Excellence started in earnest in 2001 and the facility is scheduled to open in 2007. As part of the early programming for this building, faculty and industry representatives were encouraged to think about the future of the construction profession and the education required to support it. Academic programs build new buildings perhaps every 50 years, so participants wrestled with the question, “What will the profession of construction be like in 2050?” Only then could they ask, “What is the best curricular model to prepare those professional constructors in 50 years?” Only then could the question be addressed, “What physical spaces are needed to support that curriculum model?”

While the specifics of this industry cannot be discerned 50 years in advance, certain trends can be identified. Constructors will need to be prepared for multiple changes in job assignments and perhaps companies during their careers, so specializing in just one area will not support that flexibility. Collaboration will be the key to successful projects, so future constructors will need to master the ability to solve multiple problems at once that cut across boundaries of expertise and responsibility. (FMI, 2000) Working in a complex profession, constructors will need to realize that, for most of these problems, there will not be a single solution, but instead many possible approaches and strategies – some more applicable than others.

Increasingly, it became clear that current approaches to a segmented curriculum – in which content is divided into relatively small amounts, taught in a format encouraging limited student participation, and then referenced at best tangentially as the student continues to advance through the curriculum – would not support this view of the future of the constructor profession. Just as constructors in practice are called on to deal with methods, contracts, estimating, scheduling, personnel, and subcontractor issues simultaneously and creatively, students preparing to start their own practice of this profession need to learn all of these aspects in an integrated rather than sequential fashion. Traditional curricula tend to concentrate these aspects into separate “subjects” to be taught and mastered one at a time. In fact, numerous curriculum reviews are conducted to minimize “overlap” between the subjects for the sake of “efficiency”. But, this specialization and separation of knowledge does not describe the work of the successful constructor. Just as practitioners must cut across these boundaries, the integrated curriculum proposal seeks to cut through these “silos” of subject areas to expose students to these specialized tools again and again in a project oriented environment.

An Integrated CM Curriculum Model

Under the new model, construction management is taught as a series of labs integrating the various construction management courses into an active, applied learning experience. The integrated curriculum proposal for construction management at Cal Poly is centered on the creation of seven project based seminars as follows:

	Fundamentals of Construction Management
	Residential Construction Management
	Commercial Building Construction Management
	Heavy Civil Construction Management
	Specialty Contracting Construction Management
	Jobsite Construction Management
	Integrated Services Construction Management


Each of these seminars is based on a model of seven quarter-hours of lab and activity credit for a total of 19 contact hours per week. The general distribution of existing course content is presented in Appendix A. Similar to a studio in an architecture curriculum, each seminar will be taught in a dedicated lab filled with models, samples, contracts, marketing documents, specifications, estimating guides, computer references, and other tools appropriate to that market sector and available to students in that seminar all day. Each will be coordinated by a single faculty member, but will employ a team teaching approach to insure that all aspects of a traditional subject area – such as estimating or scheduling – are mastered incrementally throughout the seven seminar sequence. Most labs will be similar in that a real, complex industry based problem will be presented at the beginning of the term – usually by industry representatives – and the students will spend approximately nine weeks developing the budget, schedule, project management plan, and other documents required to present their solution. At the end of the term, industry representatives will return to hear and critique the student presentations. Each cycle in this process will continue to spiral upward through the various content areas of the curriculum at a higher level as the students continue the practice of their profession and apply what worked in the past to new problems. In other words, they will be exposed to estimating, scheduling, contracts, methods, and other areas seven times at an ever increasing level of complexity. Subject areas will be taught in the context of real problem solving rather than as stand alone courses.

The first of these seven seminars is a “tool belt” course covering the fundamentals of contract documents – including drawings, specifications, and computerized document preparation – and an introduction to basic quantity take-off and planning tools. This course lays the groundwork for the series of third year seminars in each of the three major sectors of the construction market: residential, commercial building, and heavy civil. These seminars will begin the project based instruction of the integrated curriculum in which students will deepen their understanding and application of methods, estimating, scheduling, cost control, contracts, and other aspects of the existing curriculum. Each of these aspects will be presented within the context of the industry based problems described above. By the end of their third year of studies, students will have been exposed to these areas of study four times and may have participated in up to six months of industry internships.

In the fourth year of the curriculum, students will repeat a similar process of seminars emphasizing three areas becoming increasingly important to professionals in this industry. The first will emphasize a problem presented by an industry leader in the specialty contracting community. Whether eventually employed by a subcontractor or a general contractor, graduates must be more familiar with methods used in this segment of the industry and the unique personnel and equipment utilization issues faced by specialty contractors. The next seminar will provide an in depth introduction to problems related to jobsite management such as project administration, productivity measurement and improvement, workforce management, subcontractor coordination, safety, jobsite utilization, temporary structures, and project layout. The role of the modern project superintendent is changing rapidly with the need for computer literacy, better communication skills, and understanding of the contemporary workforce. Increasingly, graduates are being asked to apply the principles of lean construction (Howell and Ballard, 1997) by considering a career in jobsite management. The last seminar of the sequence will emphasize the concepts of integrated project services and alternative project delivery systems such as design-build, alliance contracting, collaborative process, job order contracting, lean construction, professional construction management, partnering, and joint ventures. Students will be required to consider the benefits and hurdles associated with each alternative while preparing project proposals. This seminar will provide many opportunities for practicing professionals to present real life examples of these alternatives and how they were applied to actual projects. This subject matter will provide a valuable capstone experience for students completing the seven seminar sequence forming the core of the proposed integrated curriculum.

The seven seminars at the core of this curriculum will be supplemented by two stand alone courses (3 quarter-hours each) in concrete technology and construction finance. Eight quarter hours of advisor-approved technical electives – such as co-operative education or work on one of the available minors offered through the department – complete the 63 quarter-hours for which the department is responsible. From a student or faculty workload perspective, this is exactly equal to the 63 quarter-hours that the department currently teaches. Additional courses taught by other departments complete the American Council for Construction Education (ACCE) accreditation requirements. (See flow chart in Appendix A.)

Industry Involvement

An integrated curriculum encapsulating multiple construction management functions such as estimating, scheduling, project controls, and others, combined with high interaction among students, faculty and experienced industry practitioners provides for a very rich learning environment. Such an environment allows for an opportunity to bring in day to day issues typically associated with the management of a construction project relative to a particular sector of the industry. This hands-on, industry intensive learning experience provides the application based, learn by doing approach suggested by Schon (1987) as most appropriate for educating professional practitioners.

The integrated curriculum model described above opens up tremendous opportunities to engage teaching strategies far beyond the common lecture approach typically utilized in many single subject courses. Various methodologies such as cooperative learning and active learning can easily be utilized in an integrated learning lab environment. The effectiveness of such learning techniques in higher education has been well founded in research and practice (Astin, 1993 and Cooper et al., 1990). Compared to students being taught via the traditional lecture mode, cooperatively taught students tend to exhibit higher academic achievement, greater persistence through graduation, better high-level reasoning and critical thinking skills, deeper understanding of learned material, more on-task and less disruptive behavior in class, lower levels of anxiety and stress, greater intrinsic motivation to learn and achieve, greater ability to view situations from others’ perspectives, more positive and supportive relationships with peers, more positive attitudes toward subject areas, and higher self esteem (Felder and Brent, 1994).
An integrated approach to construction management education requires students to be active participants in their own education and, according to Bonwell and Eison (1991), students learn far more by doing something active than by simply watching and listening. This fact provides further evidence that a team oriented, cooperative learning experience available in an integrated curriculum holds great promise for construction management education.


Implementation Issues – Factors Needed for Successful Transition

There are significant resources needed and conditions that must be present in order to successfully implement this integrated curriculum proposal. Six of these conditions will be reviewed here: space requirements, current curriculum format, nature of the students, support of the faculty, administrative structure of the college, and the use of a pilot program.

Space Requirements

As described above, the proposed curriculum is space intensive. Each seminar will have its own dedicated lab of about 2,000 square feet net that will house a single section of 24 students each quarter. The lab will be available to the students “24/7” and each student will have a designated work station in addition to team preparation and discussion space. On the quarter system, the seven labs will support a graduation rate of around 72 students per year or up to 96 students per year with a full summer school program. In addition to these seven labs, there also will be three general assignment classrooms used for faculty lectures during the assigned lab times, classes not taught in the seminar format, and additional flexible labs when student demand requires a double section of a lab during one quarter. Finally, the department will continue to support a general use computer lab for a total of 11 spaces of about 2,000 square feet each plus department administrative and faculty office areas. This is more assignable area than the state will build, so the department has successfully identified industry sponsors to build the additional labs needed with private funds.

Current Curriculum Format

The proposed integrated curriculum is also time intensive. With each of the seminars - which make up just half of a typical student’s load during any one quarter - meeting 19 hours per week, student-faculty contact time will be considerably higher than at many other institutions. However, this quantity of contact time is not unusual at Cal Poly now where the “polytechnic model” emphasizes hands-on learning primarily at the undergraduate level. This emphasis results in generally smaller classes, a more informal relationship with the faculty, and intense project based instruction in nearly all courses. For example, a typical three quarter-hour course currently meets in a lab format for eight hours per week. A detailed analysis of workload revealed virtually no change in teaching load and an average increase of about one hour per week in contact time. Given the current culture at the university and present teaching formats, the transition to a time intensive integrated curriculum was not viewed as a major detriment to implementation.

Nature of the Students

The seminar format, with its high contact hours and team based problem solving, could not be supported in an environment comprised mainly of part time or transient students. In addition, the format requires a significant commitment from self-motivated students who are comfortable with independent and group activities that are not directly supervised every step of the way. The faculty believes that the quality of undergraduate students in our department will greatly enhance the transition to the new curriculum format and that these students will thrive in this environment. The department directly controls the quality and number of incoming students and annually rejects about two-thirds of all applicants. As a predominantly residential campus far from large urban areas, students typically pursue their studies on a full time basis and building a cohort of students to proceed through the seven seminar sequence should be possible each quarter. The quality and nature of the students attracted to the department should facilitate the implementation of this curriculum.

Support of the Faculty

In any faculty governance model, curriculum is the purview of the academic faculty and any curriculum change requires their full support. Faculty in this department always have been on the forefront of applying new technology and ideas to enhance the quality of undergraduate instruction. Recent retirements and consequent recruitments have brought to the department a dynamic group of well experienced and new faculty members who are interested in trying new approaches to professional curricula. Consequently, the department enjoys considerable support among the faculty for trying this new approach to integrated curriculum and they currently are reviewing options for how they can support these new approaches.

For some, daily teaching routines may not change much as they instruct traditional subject areas in team teaching formats in several seminars each quarter. For others, the nature of their student interaction will be altered drastically as they move into central coordination roles in one of the new seminars.

Administrative Structure of the College

A change this fundamental to the way a department teaches all their courses needs to be successfully coordinated with and supported by the college administrative structure. At Cal Poly, Construction Management is administered by the College of Architecture which is beneficial for a transition to this integrated format. Architecture education has long been dominated by the studio model in which design students study in a dedicated space for an entire term working on complex design solutions to problems presented and then critiqued by outside groups of practicing professionals. The proposed integrated curriculum places construction management students into a similar environment solving complex management problems presented and critiqued by outside practitioners. In many respects, the implementation of this new curriculum can be viewed as an alignment of departmental practices with the scheduling and instructional models already in place in the rest of the college administrative units.

Pilot Program

Lastly, departmental faculty looked for the opportunity to try this new curricular concept with a smaller group before implementation with all students. That opportunity presented itself this year when it was realized that a large number of students were currently completing second year courses and that there would be student demand for double sections of third year courses by the end of the academic year. The decision was made to offer a sequence of the new third year seminars – focusing on Residential, Commercial, and Heavy Civil Construction Management – to a select group of students starting in the spring quarter and continuing through fall and winter quarters of next academic year. Students and faculty would be required to commit to all three seminars offered in the pilot program. Over the course of the three quarters, the selected cohort of 24 students will register for existing courses in residential methods, commercial building methods, heavy civil methods, construction accounting, construction contracts, project scheduling, and building estimating. However, the content of these existing courses will be taught in an integrated format using the project based seminars for each of the three major market sectors. Selection of the cohort will be based on applications from students currently completing the second year prerequisites. The industry sponsors of these three labs have committed to helping with the problem selection, presentation, and critique. Finally, an appropriate teaching space will be identified – perhaps off campus – in which this pilot program will be housed for the next year. At the end of the initial pilot, the success of the first three seminars will be evaluated through a formal outcomes assessment process involving students, faculty, and the industry advisory committee while the students are offered the chance to participate in six-month internships. Depending on the successful result of this assessment, the final three seminars may be offered in a similar format to this cohort when they return to complete their senior year. This pilot program will greatly enhance the final implementation of the new curriculum starting in 2007.


Conclusions

In recent years, there has been increasing consideration given to integrated curricula by construction engineering and management faculty and industry advisors. Each proposal tries to address the core problems associated with an overly segmented curriculum and the lack of project based learning in different ways. Ultimately, the only way to implement a more integrated approach to subject mastery is to utilize the unique aspects of each program to address these issues in a unique way. What can work at a polytechnic university probably cannot be employed by a department at a research-based, largely graduate level university. Each program can learn from attempts at other institutions, but ultimately must design curricular approaches appropriate to the culture and the history of the department and the college administrative structure in which it operates.

The proposal outlined above works within one context given the physical, student, faculty, college, and financial resources available at this time. As representatives of a field of academic study, construction management faculty need to insure that flexibility is provided to create new approaches to instructional design. For instance, the curriculum matrix now used by ACCE to document the inclusion of all required topics in the accreditation standards is an important step forward in enhancing this flexibility. Simply requiring that a certain number of credit hours be offered in estimating, scheduling, or any other subject neither assures that the topic will be adequately covered nor provides the flexibility required to implement integrated curricula. The proper use of the curriculum matrix, along with an effective program of outcomes assessment, will help a program guarantee that all essential content is still included in any integrated format.

Lastly, dissemination and discussion of integrated and project based approaches to curriculum need to continue at the regional and national levels. This discussion should be based on the theoretical underpinnings of curriculum design and the understanding of the unique epistemology of the professions. Viewing construction as a profession leads to the need to consider other approaches successfully used to prepare other professionals. These approaches include professional residencies, internships, case studies, role playing in mock scenarios, field trips, and studio or seminar based instruction. As a profession, academics need to acknowledge that most of the really interesting problems do not have just one “right answer”, but instead can be approached with multiple solutions. The goal of the instruction is not simply to master one right answer, but to master the process by which successful answers are discovered. Practicing that process numerous times while still in an academic setting seems an appropriate approach to preparing future generations of construction professionals.


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