The Engineer as Teacher

An important element in the professional development of younger engineers is the mentoring role of the experienced engineering practitioner. The experienced engineer or manager typically plays the role of mentor, tutor, and/or coach during the early professional years of an engineer. The most common utilized term is one of mentor - - which means a wise and trusted counselor or teacher. Fundamentally the roles are one of teacher and student – a professional partnership of experiential learning viewed as an extension of the cognitive development begun in universities.

What makes a great mentor – which is basically asking what makes a great teacher (what makes a great student is a topic for further discussions!!)? It is probably the skills and attitudes that all great teachers have acquired with time and effort. First, great teachers tend to set big goals for their students. They see their students as the next owners and maybe president of their company. Or they see the bright engineer with an interest in public policy and affairs running for city council and state senate one day. Great teachers and mentors don’t think in terms of a “regression to the mean” for their students - - they think in terms of outliers and superior performance.

Great teachers are perpetually looking for ways to improve their effectiveness. They experiment, they change, they adapt - - if it isn’t working, they see and understand the need to try something else. This is especially important given the diversity found in engineers and engineering organizations. Great teachers are constantly re-evaluating what they are doing and why.

Great teachers maintain focus. It is critical that the professional interface time between teacher and student contributes to student learning. This requires planning exhaustively and with purpose – by working backwards from a desired outcome. Great teachers are strong practitioners of “I do, we do, you do” - - where the theory of design slowly over time becomes the reality of design.

Great mentoring and teaching efforts are neither mysterious nor magical. It is neither a function of dynamic personality nor dramatic performance - - it is working relentlessly in the areas that I have outlined. Most importantly, great teachers and mentors have grit - - defined as perseverance and a passion for achieving the long-term goals of the professional partnership between mentor and student.