Transitioning to engineering practice

ABSTRACT

Transition from education to practice can be troublesome for many early-career engineers because expectations, habitual work practices and values tend to conflict with realities of engineering workplaces. Emerging technologies referred to as ‘Industry 4.0’ or the ‘fourth industrial revolution’ have prompted many to argue for students to develop improved socio-technical skills. Understandings of practice emerging from contemporary research could help educators shape a new generation of engineers with more appropriate abilities to restore global productivity growth and transform economies to eliminate greenhouse emissions in a short enough time to limit human-induced global warming. However, so far, explicit curriculum reforms addressing graduate attributes and workplace skills have not resulted in significant employability improvements. This paper argues that assessment practices and curriculum gaps may be acting as an implied or hidden curriculum shaping student expectations and values. This paper proposes ways to overcome these curriculum deficits in higher education institutions and also workplace education interventions. These changes could help educate engineers about productivity improvement, commercial and social value generation, business requirements and entrepreneurship. Changes like these will be needed to achieve sustainable development goals, especially in developing countries.     

从教学管理到课程管理——论我国中小学的教学管理改革

实行国家、地方和学校三级课程管理是我国基础教育课程改革的目标之一。中小学原有的教学管理反映出课程与教学的二元分立关系,表现出对行政手段的过分依赖,其权责分配具有明显的集权倾向,缺乏教师参与决策的机制。以内容上的多层立体、结构上的扁平化、制度上的激励引导为主要取向的课程管理新体制是我国中小学教学管理改革的方向。     

工程伦理教育中案例教学的必要性与改革研究

重视工程伦理教育是当今世界各国工程教育发展的共同趋势。以培养学生工程伦理实践能力为取向的工程伦理案例教学是工程伦理教育的重要方法,工程伦理案例教学适应了工程教育回归实践的需要,也适应了“新工科”人才培养的需要,实现了工程伦理案例的教育学转换。为保证工程伦理案例教学效果,对工程伦理案例的教学设计与学习架构,要体现跨域整合与高阶学习相结合、自我建构与多向互动相结合、循序渐进与典型针对相结合、新型评价与教学分析相结合     

The impact of an integrated approach to science and literacy in elementary school classrooms

This study investigates the efficacy of an integrated science and literacy approach at the upper‐elementary level. Teachers in 94 fourth grade classrooms in one Southern state participated. Half of the teachers taught the treatment unit, an integrated science–literacy unit on light and energy designed using a curriculum model that engages students in reading text, writing notes and reports, conducting firsthand investigations, and frequent discussion of key concepts and processes to acquire inquiry skills and knowledge about science concepts, while the other half of the teachers taught a content‐comparable science‐only unit on light and energy (using materials provided by their districts) and provided their regular literacy instruction. Students in the treatment group made significantly greater gains on measures of science understanding, science vocabulary, and science writing. Students in both groups made comparable gains in science reading comprehension. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 49: 631–658, 2012     

From values to virtues: an investigation into the ethical content of English primary school assemblies

School assemblies are unique and important events in the lives of schools. They are an opportunity for a head teacher to shape and celebrate the ethos and priorities of a school. However, the discussion of assemblies has stagnated because it is mired in the debate about legal compliance to the 1988 Education Reform Act and its interpretation in circular 1/94. This article reports on a research project which investigated the ethical ideas communicated in primary school assemblies. It is found that almost all assemblies sought to communicate a form of virtue ethics. We observed the promotion of courage, kindness, loyalty and responsibility. Further, different virtues were emphasised in different schools depending on their social location. For example, perseverance and resilience were often stressed in a school from a low socio-economic area. The article concludes with an examination of the implications of our findings for the discussion of legal compliance to the 1988 Act.     

Gudaga goes to school study: methods used in understanding school transitions and early education experiences of an urban Aboriginal cohort

The Gudaga Goes to School Study described the transition to school and early education experiences of 117 urban Aboriginal children and their families. This paper outlines the methods and design of the study. A life course approach, employing multidimensional and multi-theoretical frameworks was used to capture the complexity of issues surrounding the transition and early school experiences with multi-methods used to collect data from children, parents and teachers. Quantitative data included questionnaires, checklists and educational assessments to track children’s academic progress, school attendance, and social/emotional/behavioural development. Qualitative data consisted of semi-structured interviews and focus groups to gain the perspective of stakeholders. Children also participated using photography and drawing mediums. The community controlled study was conceived, designed and conducted in close consultation with the local Aboriginal community.     

Making News Today: a tool for adoption of ethics principles using technology‐supported television journalism

There are movements internationally towards curricula that incorporate values and citizenship education. In Australia, this movement has been illustrated with the adoption of a national curriculum in values education. This has arisen from the perceived need for citizens to hold values around the rights and responsibilities of functioning within a democracy. The Making News Today programme has been designed to develop a range of literacies enabling learners, for example, to read the media beyond the interests of the elite. The programme incorporates a journalistic process for television news production for middle school students using laptop and handheld video technologies, with embedded ethics and values education. The article reports on an analysis of the implementation of this programme with middle school students in Australia with reference to student adoption of ethical stances in the journalistic process and the implications for the use of this project in developing ethics, values and citizenship as part of the curriculum process.     

Community-based environmental monitoring goes to school: translations,detours and escapes

Community-school partnerships are an established practice within environmental science education, where a focus on how local phenomena articulate with broader environmental issues and concerns brings potential benefits for schools, community organisations and local communities. This paper contributes to our understanding of such educational practices by tracing the diverse socio-material flows that constitute a community environmental monitoring project, where Australian school students became investigators of and advocates for particular sites in their neighbourhood. The theoretical resources of actor-network theory are drawn upon to describe how the project – as conceptualised by its initiators – was enacted as both human and non-human actors sought to progress their own agendas thus translating the concept-project into multiple project realities. We conclude by identifying implications for sustaining educational innovations of this kind.     

Who goes to school? School enrollment patterns in Somalia

Somalia gained its independence in 1960; however, civil conflict broke out in 1991. The outbreak of civil conflict was the final blow for already collapsed education in Somalia. The civil conflict completely destroyed the remaining educational structure. Despite the protracted nature of the conflict Somalia has slowly been pushed Somalia out of the active international agenda. This paper aims to highlight the state of education in Somalia. The study examines 5969 households and presents the patterns of educational enrollment and attendance in Somalia, and identifies the major challenges of expanding education access in Somalia.     

"情感态度与价值观"课程目标的理解与践行——基于安徽安庆、辽宁鞍山两市的调查分析

安徽安庆和辽宁鞍山两市调查结果显示,新课程标准实施十年来,虽然普遍认为情感态度与价值观这一目标很重要,但相当一部分教师对情感态度与价值观含义及三维目标之间关系的认识比较模糊;课堂教学实践还停留在浅表层次,没有内化为自己的教学行为;部分教师对如何进行情感态度与价值观评价感到困惑。建议完善在职教师培训机制,提高教师情感素质;改革师范院校课程结构,实施情感教师教育;优化教学过程,落实情感态度与价值观目标;建立评价指标体系,促进学生健康发展。     

A transformation model of engineering education

A transformation model of engineering education at the undergraduate level is constructed to define the human and technical resources that contribute to the production of a university-trained engineer. The theory of technical systems is applied in the development of the model to transform a graduating pre-university pupil into a university-trained engineer. Two co-aligned themes are identified as the executive system and the execution system, which dictate who and what will do the work and how the work will be completed, respectively. The model is an extension of an existing model and further depicts the duality of the pre-university pupil as an operator and as the operand as related to engineering education. Consequently, the proposed model details the student perspective from the bottom-up in an implicit manner and the top–down perspective from administrators and professors in an explicit manner. The model's utility is in providing a means by which to coordinate efforts of pre-college and university-level educational sectors in the production of entry-level engineers.     

关于青年道德价值教育的几个问题

随着社会的发展,对青年思想道德素质教育中道德价值教育显得十分重要,在道德价值教育中,导向教育是核心,人生目的和信仰教育是重点,而思辨性、实践性和审美性教育是其基本原则,只有正确把握了道德价值教育的核心、重点和原则,才能使对青年进行的道德价值教育具有实质性的效果。     

Mobile APP for motivation to learning: an engineering case

Synthesis of Materials is regarded as an important core subject in engineering education. However, many concepts and knowledge in the material synthesis can be rather abstract and difficult to understand by the student learners. Experiments are limited in scope due to lack of equipment, control of toxic materials, and risks of chemical reactions, which often restricts student imagination and student involvement in practical training. These reasons often led to poor learning attitude and learning performance among the students. Rapid developments in Cloud technology and mobile devices have provided new opportunities for developing novel learning tools for material synthesis. This study aims to introduce interest factors as a strategy for promoting learning interest and practical skills among the students. Chemical symbols, experimental themes, texts, and interactive elements were utilized to develop a theme-based Mobile Learning APP for teaching the practical techniques of material synthesis. The Mobile Learning APP was then integrated into a problem-based learning activity. A quasi-experimental design was used to investigate the resulting learning effectiveness from using the developed Mobile Learning APP. Results show that the Mobile Learning APP provided a significant positive effect on learning performance and that most students showed favorable attitudes toward the usage of the mobile learning system.     

论隐性课程在理工科学生英语学习中的辅助作用——基于宁波工程学院建工学院07级本科学生的研究

论文以宁波工程学院建工学院07级本科学生对研究对象,讨论了理工科学生在英语学习中存在的问题,希望通过开发隐性课程在大学英语学习中的辅助作用,使之成为显性课程有益的补充和延伸,提高英语学习的趣味性,激发学生的学习动机,培养学生独立学习和运用语言的能力。     

The Children's Television Workshop goes to school

Repackaging existing educational television series to fit the needs of more narrowly defined audiences is a cost-effective way of delivering high-quality educational television into the schools. This article discusses both the technological and program-design barriers to wider use of television in classroom instruction and details the steps that the Children's Television Workshop took to make3-2-1 Contact, its educational television science series, a more effective science teaching tool.     

Preparing university students to lead K-12 engineering outreach programmes: a design experiment

ABSTRACT

This paper describes an engineering outreach programme designed to increase the interest of under-represented youth in engineering and to disseminate pre-engineering design challenge materials to K-12 educators and volunteers. Given university students’ critical role as facilitators of the outreach programme, researchers conducted a two-year design experiment to examine the programme's effectiveness at preparing university students to lead pre-engineering activities. Pre- and post-surveys incorporated items from the Student Engagement sub-scale of the Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale. Surveys were analysed using paired-samples t-test. Interview and open-ended survey data were analysed using discourse analysis and the constant comparative method. As a result of participation in the programme, university students reported a gain in efficacy to lead pre-engineering activities. The paper discusses programme features that supported efficacy gains and concludes with a set of design principles for developing learning environments that effectively prepare university students to facilitate pre-engineering outreach programmes.     

Teaching sustainable entrepreneurship to engineering students: the case of Delft University of Technology

Sustainability, enhancement of personal skills, social aspects of technology, management and entrepreneurship are of increasing concern for engineers and therefore for engineering education. In 1996 at Delft University of Technology this led to the introduction of a subject on sustainable entrepreneurship and technology in the course programmes of Chemical Engineering and Materials Sciences Engineering. This subject combines lectures, project work in which a business plan is written, sustainability and presentation training. This paper shows that it has been possible to combine entrepreneurship, sustainability and project education successfully in a subject for undergraduate engineering students and describes background, assumptions, outline, results and recent adjustments of this subject. It includes a discussion on how to integrate sustainability and entrepreneurship in terms of triple P (People, Profit, Planet) and how to incorporate it pragmatically in the key elements of a business plan: (1) business idea, mission and strategy; (2) context, stakeholder and market analysis; (3) marketing; (4) production; (5) organisation and management; (6) finance and reporting. Attention is paid to results regarding the business plan, spin-off like start-ups and also to the learning results of both students and lecturers. It ends drawing some lessons derived from the subject’s results and the learning experiences of both students and lecturers.