Reggio Emilia engineering education

How do we prepare future engineers to face 21th century challenges? This paper confronts the issue of what it really means to be an engineer and how to design a learning experience that influence the process of formation of one s identity, as a professional and as a human being. In this effort we have been deeply inspired by a pedagogy directed to preschool and primary education of Reggio Emilia (Italy): Reggio Emilia Approach. Starting from 2010, Project-based Learning was introduced in a MS&E capstone master degree class. New practices inspired by Reggio Emilia Approach were progressively implemented from 2011 to 2013. Every year, students completed a formal evaluation survey and answered to semi-structured interviews. The study reveals that there has been a significant increase of student interest toward the discipline. Students also showed to consider themselves more creative and confident about their capabilities. This experience shows that it is not enough to design the education of the engineer, but we must consider as equally important the education of the human being and of the citizen, by focussing on relations, on collectivity and on participation.