The need for alternative paradigms in science and engineering education

There are two main claims in this article. First, that the classic pillars of engineering education, namely, traditional mathematics and differential equations, are merely a particular, if not old-fashioned, representation of a broader mathematical vision, which spans from Turing machine programming and symbolic productions sets to sub-symbolic orderings such as artificial neural nets. Second, that the paradigm of equivalence ought to be extended to those non-traditional engineering disciplines that require at least the same dedication, such as music and its science, musicology, because they broaden the search and identification of structures, one of the most important tasks of creative engineering. Furthermore, an example of contemporary advanced technology will be given that favours these very claims.     

The pedagogical balancing act: teaching reflection in higher education

Despite the common use of the term reflection in higher education assessment tasks, learners are not often taught how to communicate their disciplinary knowledge through reflection. This paper argues that students can and should be taught how to reflect in deep and transformative ways. It highlights the reflexive pedagogical balancing act of attending to different levels of reflection as a way to stimulate focused, thoughtful and reasoned reflections that show evidence of new ways of thinking and doing. The paper uses data from a current project to illustrate the effects of focusing on particular levels of reflection in the pedagogical strategies used, and argues that while the goal of academic or professional reflection is generally to move students to the highest level of reflection to transform their learning/practice, unless higher education teachers attend to every level of reflection, there are specific, observable gaps in the reflections that students produce.     

Policy scripts and students' realities regarding sexuality education in secondary schools in Kenya

This paper explores the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) policy context and the realities facing in-school young people in Kenya. It is based on a review of the health and education sector policy documents as well as data from self-administered questionnaires with 3624 male and female students from eight secondary schools in Nairobi. Findings show that although the policies emphasise the right to access accurate SRH information, there are restrictions on the content of messages that can be provided to in-school young people. At the same time, students continue to be exposed to the risks of undesired SRH outcomes and quest for comprehensive SRH information. The findings suggest that as policy-makers, parents, teachers, civil and faith-based organisations debate about the value and content of sexuality education in schools, it is important to consider the views and experiences of students who are the intended beneficiaries of such education.     

Influence of gender in choosing a career amongst engineering fields: a survey study from Turkey

The aim of this study is to understand the motivating factors behind students’ choices in their decision-making process and also get an insight on their perception of different engineering branches. A survey was prepared and the results were evaluated amongst 1163 answers. Two major influences on student's decision in their professional choices are shown to be career services and family members. Generally, students have claimed to choose a profession based on ‘finding a job’ and ‘being happy’. Some engineering branches such as Genetic and Bioengineering, Chemical Engineering, Environmental Engineering and Industrial Engineering, are shown to be distinctly preferred by female students, whereas mechanical, civil and electronic engineering are favourites for male students. The survey results were also compared with the distribution of male and female students in various engineering departments. This study clearly shows that certain engineering branches are perceived as more appropriate for women and are thus favoured by female students, while those perceived as more appropriate for men are favoured by male students.     

Reception of Arthur Sutherland Neill＇s pedagogical concept and his Summerhill School in Hungarian and German pedagogical literature and press

Arthur Sutherland Neill is one of the most debated personalities among the representatives of the classic reform pedagogy, due to his pedagogical concept and its practical realization, and his Summerhill School, equally. He is often mentioned during public debates, where mostly the ＂three S＂--＂sex, swearing and smoking＂, are existing as subject of the debates. While analyzing publications about Summerhill School appearing in Hungarian and German pedagogical special literature and press, a kind of polarized attitude has been realized towards the conceptions and school： Some talk about him admiringly; others criticize him while emphasizing the concept＇s drawbacks and unique features.     

我国高等工程教育转型:历史变迁与当代实践逻辑

纵观历史,我国高等工程教育经历了三次大的重要转型:清朝末期至民国时期层次化和制度化的工程教育转型,中华人民共和国成立初期国家化和工具化的工程教育转型以及改革开放以来以“一体两翼”为核心的工程教育转型。当代我国高等工程教育探索主要体现在工程教育理念、人才培养模式和工程教育目标三个方面,表现为国家、市场和院校之间非线性变迁的发展逻辑,政府规制与高校自治相统一的治理逻辑,国际化与本土化共振的行动逻辑,目标与需求一致的人才培养逻辑。这些转型逻辑对于新工科建设具有重要的理论价值和实践指导意义。     

Perspectives on pedagogical change: instructor and student experiences of a newly implemented undergraduate engineering dynamics curriculum*

Engineering education has been slow to adopt research-based educational innovations. Few prior works on such adoption have investigated the combined classroom experiences of instructors and students when such innovations are being implemented. Therefore, this work focuses on the lived experiences of an instructor and her students when adopting an active, blended, and collaborative learning environment, known as Freeform, in a second-year dynamics course. Weekly reflections from the instructor were processed alongside student interviews using Thematic Analysis to discern prominent themes in their perspectives for comparison and discussion. The results indicate that the instructor navigated internal tensions between her previous instructional preferences and the philosophy and resources of Freeform. Similarly, students had to adapt to this new philosophy and suite of resources that were uncommon for their institution. Ultimately, this work highlights the contextual natures of teaching and learning, and how situational factors can influence educational innovation.     

Recent changes to students' perceptions of their key skills on entry to higher education

Students arrive in higher education (HE) with a range of generic and subject‐specific skills which they are expected to use and build upon during their degree courses. In order to ensure that undergraduates are able to make a successful transition to HE, it is important that teachers and course designers understand the level and range of skills with which they arrive, and where support and remediation may be required.

For the last nine years, 2065 first‐year undergraduates entering Leeds medical school have completed a questionnaire asking them to self‐assess the number of opportunities to practise a range of 31 generic skills experienced in the previous year, and how confident they feel about their ability to perform these skills. Over this period, a number of trends have become evident. Increased reported practice in a range of information technology (IT) skills might have been expected as a result of improved availability of technology. However, a significant decrease in both practice and confidence in laboratory, data handling and numeracy skills would suggest that changes to post‐16 education are adversely affecting the skills with which undergraduates arrive at university. Other skills, particularly those which relate to students' experience in managing their own learning, have shown no consistent change in reported levels of practice during the period of study, despite increased emphasis on these skills within post‐16 qualifications since the introduction of Curriculum 2000. These observations have implications for course design across a range of courses, particularly in science programmes with significant practical and numerical components.     

从工科毕业生现状及企业需求看工程教育改革的必要性

该文通过对工科毕业生及企业进行的调查了解，统计分析了目前企业对工程人才的需求状况及工程教育中普遍存在的问题，并就实践教学等方面的问题进行了重点剖析，提出了改进的合理化建议。     

The effects of self-efficacy,hope, and engagement on the academic achievement of secondary education in the Dominican Republic

Achievement in the academic settings has long lasting positive outcomes. In this study, hope, self-efficacy, and engagement are linked to academic success. The aims of this study were to test a model which predicts academic success in the Dominican Republic while testing for the mediator role of engagement. The sample was composed of 614 middle-school students. Scales of Dispositional Hope, Academic Self-Efficacy, Academic Self-concept, and Engagement were used. Academic performance was measured with students' grades in Spanish and Mathematics. Three structural equation models were tested. The retained model stated hope and self-efficacy as antecedents, engagement dimensions as mediators and grades and academic self-concept as final outcomes. There were significant effects of hope and self-efficacy on engagement, and behavioral engagement was the best predictor of academic success. These results point out that interventions should target variables, such as hope or engagement to increase academic success.     

The effects of sex education on psychological counselling students in Turkey

Sex education is not included in Turkey’s national curriculum and is rarely referenced in school and university curricula. This is even true for those undertaking training in psychological counselling where the need may be great. Only a very few university schools of education offer an elective sex education course. A group of 64 guidance and psychological counselling students in ?stanbul Maltepe University was formed and provided with a 13-week sex education course. Before and after this course, the Sexual Attitudes Scale (SAS) was used for data collection using a semi-experimental design. Significant differences were detected between pretest and post-test SAS scores and on all SAS subscales. Results show that comprehensive sex education is effective in positively changing the sexual attitudes of PC students, challenging homophobic responses and displacing patriarchal attitudes. Based on these findings, the provision of sex education courses more generally in university schools of education is recommended, especially in conservative countries such as Turkey.     

我国高等工程实践教育的历史回顾与展望

从我国高等工程实践教育的重要性出发,简单回顾了我国工程实践教育发展的历史,提出了工程实践教育的主要内涵和存在的主要问题,并对我国工程实践教育的未来发展进行了展望。     

Working towards a scalable model of problem-based learning instruction in undergraduate engineering education

The intent of the study presented in this paper is to show that the model of problem-based learning (PBL) can be made scalable by designing curriculum around a set of open-ended problems (OEPs). The detailed statistical analysis of the data collected to measure the effects of traditional and PBL instructions for three courses in Electronics and Communication Engineering, namely Analog Electronics, Digital Electronics and Pulse, Digital & Switching Circuits is presented here. It measures the effects of pedagogy, gender and cognitive styles on the knowledge, skill and attitude of the students. The study was conducted two times with content designed around same set of OEPs but with two different trained facilitators for all the three courses. The repeatability of results for effects of the independent parameters on dependent parameters is studied and inferences are drawn.     

理工科高校人文教育课程的构建

长期以来,我国理工科大学生人文教育的状况不尽人意。许多高校尤其是理工科高校的人文教育课程在总体上受到轻视,由此制约了大学生人文素质的培养,制约了大学生综合素质的提高。本文分析了大部分理工科高校的人文教育课程设置的现状,分析对比了国外人文教育课程设置特点,尝试性的对建立适合我国理工科高校的人文教育课程体系提出了一些建议。     

新时期高校土木工程专业教学中出现的问题与对策研究

本文论述了新时期高等教育的特点,并分析了这些特点在土木工程专业课程教学中反映出来的具体问题。结合本校的教改实践,介绍了从教材建设、教学内容、关键教学环节、教学方式以及技术手段等方面解决这些问题的经验。     

电子信息工程专业认识实习教学改革与实践

本文从电子信息工程专业自身特点出发,对传统认识实习存在的问题进行了深入分析。针对实习时间安排、实习基地建设、实习内容、实习形式、实习成绩评定等方面存在的问题提出了具体的改革举措。本文所探讨的认识实习教学模式已应用于教学实践,取得了较好的效果。     

Religiosity,the headscarf,and education in Turkey: an analysis of 1988 data and current implications

Previous research highlights the continuing relevance of family culture in explaining educational inequalities in Turkey, especially patriarchal beliefs and practices that discourage investment in the education of girls. We extend that research by introducing two much‐debated, but empirically untested, aspects of family culture – parental religiosity and headscarf preferences. An analysis of a nationally representative sample of 15–19 year olds in 1988 shows that while religiosity had no significant effect on educational attainment, children who lived in families whose fathers expected them to wear a headscarf in public had lower educational attainment, especially girls. The large negative headscarf effect suggests that the government ban on headscarves in schools may be an obstacle to eliminating gender inequality in education. The results are discussed in light of recent trends in Turkish society.     

An evaluation of industrial placement in engineering programmes: a case in Turkey

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between the university and industry in the scope of engineering education depending on the views of supervisors of the Engineering Faculty as well as the heads of the practical training committees of the departments. In this qualitative study, semi-structured interviews were used to gather the views of supervisors and heads of the practical training committees. The poor legal substructure of industrial education, the insufficient of communication between the university and industry, problems resulting from the diversity of enterprises, inefficient control of industrial education, the insufficient of preparation for industrial education, and limited time-period of industrial education were some of the problems stated by participants. In line with the higher education strategies, what types of structuring required to increase the effectiveness of education structures between the university and industry were extensively discussed.     

The role of design ethics in maintaining students' privacy: A call to action to learning designers in higher education

Maintaining students' privacy in higher education, an integral aspect of learning design and technology integration, is not only a matter of policy and law but also a matter of design ethics. Similar to faculty educators, learning designers in higher education play a vital role in maintaining students' privacy by designing learning experiences that rely on online technology integration. Like other professional designers, they need to care for the humans they design for by not producing designs that infringe on their privacy, thus, not causing harm. Recognizing that widely used instructional design models are silent on the topic and do not address ethical considerations such as privacy, we focus this paper on how design ethics can be leveraged by learning designers in higher education in a practical manner, illustrated through authentic examples. We highlight where the ethical responsibility of learning designers comes into the foreground when maintaining students' privacy and well-being, especially in online settings. We outline an existing ethical decision-making framework and show how learning designers can use it as a call to action to protect the students they design for, strengthening their ethical design capacity.

Practitioner notes

What is already known about this topic

• Existing codes of ethical standards from well-known learning design organizations call upon learning designers to protect students' privacy without clear guidance on how to do so.
• Design ethics within learning design is often discussed in abstract ways with principles that are difficult to apply.
• Most, if not all, design models that learning design professionals have learned are either silent on design ethics and/or do not consider ethics as a valid dimension, thus, making design ethics mostly excluded from learning design graduate programs.
• Practical means for engaging in ethical design practice are scarce in the field.

What this paper adds

• A call for learning designers in higher education to maintain and protect students' privacy and well-being, strengthening their ethical design capacity.
• A demonstration of how to use a practical ethical decision-making framework as a designerly tool in designing for learning to maintain and protect students' privacy and well-being.
• Authentic examples—in the form of vignettes—of ethical dilemmas/issues that learning designers in higher education could face, focused on students' privacy.
• Methods—using a practical ethical decision-making framework—for learning design professionals in higher education, grounded in the philosophy of designers as the guarantors of designs, to be employed to detect situations where students' privacy and best interests are at risk.
• A demonstration of how learning designers could make stellar design decisions in service to the students they design for and not to the priorities of other design stakeholders.

Implications for practice and/or policy

• Higher education programs/institutions that prepare/employ learning designers ought to treat the topics of the designer's responsibility and design ethics more explicitly and practically as one of the means to maintain and protect students' privacy, in addition to law and policies.
• Learning designers in higher education ought to hold a powerful position in their professional practice to maintain and protect students' privacy and well-being, as an important aspect of their ethical design responsibilities.
• Learning designers in higher education ought to adopt a design thinking mindset in order to protect students' privacy by (1) challenging ideas and assumptions regarding technology integration in general and (2) detecting what is known in User Experience (UX) design as “dark patterns” in online course design.