CDIO Initiative

CDIO are trademarked initials for Conceive Design Implement Operate. The CDIO Initiative is an educational framework that stresses engineering fundamentals set in the context of conceiving, designing, implementing and operating real-world systems and products. Throughout the world, CDIO Initiative collaborators have adopted CDIO as the framework of their curricular planning and outcome-based assessment. The CDIO approach uses active learning tools, such as group projects and problem-based learning, to better equip engineering students with technical knowledge as well as communication and professional skills. Additionally, the CDIO Initiative provides resources for instructors of member universities to improve their teaching abilities.^[1]

The CDIO concept was originally conceived at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the late 1990s.^[1] In 2000, MIT in collaboration with three Swedish universities — Chalmers University of Technology, Linköping University and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology — formally founded the CDIO Initiative.^[2] It became an international collaboration, with universities around the world adopting the same framework.^[3]

CDIO collaborators recognize that an engineering education is acquired over a long period and in a variety of institutions, and that educators in all parts of this spectrum can learn from practice elsewhere. The CDIO network therefore welcomes members in a diverse range of institutions ranging from research-led internationally acclaimed universities to local colleges dedicated to providing students with their initial grounding in engineering.

The collaborators maintain a dialogue about what works and what does not and continue to refine the project. Determining additional members of the collaboration is a selective process managed by a Council comprising original members and early adopters.^[4]

The CDIO revised syllabus consists of four parts:^{[5] [6]}

1. Disciplinary knowledge and reasoning
2. Personal and professional skills and attributes
3. Interpersonal skills: teamwork and communication
4. Conceiving, designing, implementing, and operating systems in the enterprise, societal, and environmental context

The following institutions collaborate in the CDIO initiative:^[7]

CDIO currently has two guide books: Rethinking Engineering Education and Think Like an Engineer.

• Edward Crawley; Johan Malmqvist; Sören Östlund; Doris Brodeur (2007). Rethinking Engineering Education, The CDIO Approach. Springer. ISBN 978-0-387-38287-6.

• Technology enhanced active learning

• Official site

• Philosophy of education
• International college and university associations and consortia

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata