Other Engineering Commons^™

A Model For Transforming Engineering Education Through Group Learning, Shannon Chance, Gavin Duffy, Brian Bowe, Mike Murphy, Tony Duggan

Conference papers

Electrical engineering educators at Technological University Dublin (DIT) have successfully implemented pedagogical change. They now use group-based, student-centered and inquiry-driven approaches to teach emerging engineers. The objective of this was to foster students’ personal as well as professional skills (i.e., teamwork, communication, self-directed learning, etc.). This paper explores how such change was achieved and provides graphic models that draw from prior phenomenological studies and incorporates aspects of Rogers’ (1962) product adoption curve and Lowe’s (2012) interpretations of it.

A Meaningful Housing Policy Would Deal With Defautling Landlords And At-Risk Tenants, Lorcan Sirr, Tom Dunne

Media

No abstract provided.

Developing A Collaborative Virtual Learning Environment Between Students In Cross Disciplines In The Built Environment., Fiacra Mcdonnell, Ruairi Hayden

Articles

Integrated Project Delivery is a rapidly developing approach to Design and Construction.This approach uses business structures, new technologies, and newly developing practices to collaboratively utilise the talents and contributions of all participants in the Design and Construction process.This project replicated this approach by creating a collaborative project between the School of Construction and the School of Real Estate and Construction Economics. The term “collaborative learning” refers to a method of delivery in which students at various performance levels work together in small groups towards a common goal. The students were responsible for one another’s learning as well as their own. …

Participants Perspective Of The Fas Redundant Placement Scheme, Maurice Collins, Robert Morris

Conference papers

The aim of this study is to gather and analyze feedback from participants of a scheme which was put in place in the early stages of the Irish economic recession to provide work placements to redundant Apprentices. As part of the research for this paper a series of qualitative interviews were conducted with partipancts of the FAS Redundant Apprentice Placement Scheme (RAPS). FAS is the authoriity which organises and administers the Statutory Apprentice Scheme in Ireland.The scheme detailed in this study was put in place to aid Apprentices who has been made redundant, to complete phases 3,5 and 7 of …

The Quantification Of Wind Turbulence By Means Of The Fourier Dimension, Thomas Woolmington, Keith Sunderland, Jonathan Blackledge, Michael Conlon

Conference papers

Signal Processing within the frequency domain has long been associated with electrical engineering as a means to quantify the characteristics of voltage/current waveforms. Historically, wind speed data (speed/direction) have been captured and stored as statistical markers within a time series description. This form of storage, while cumbersome, is applicable in wind regimes that are relatively laminar. In urban environments, where the associated topographies and building morphologies are heterogeneous, wind speeds are highly turbulent and chaotic. In such environments and with particular reference to wind energy, time series statistics are of limited use, unless the generic probability distribution function (PDF) is …

Professional Skills Portfolio For A Progressive Engineering Education, Dermot Mcgarthy, David Kennedy

Articles

At the 2013 launch of the return to work scheme, “Springboard” in Dublin, it was stated that employers were seeking staff with enhanced language, presentation, communication, coping, and team-working skills. Graduates without these skills were finding it more difficult to gain permanent employment and were more likely to find themselves out of work unless they developed these skills. Enhancing personal development skills in education requires a revision of existing programmes. Not alone will these skills open new doors of opportunity for those who have lost their jobs during the recession, but should help sustain them going forward. The education of …

Estimating The Wind Resource In An Urban Area: A Case Study Of Micro Wind Generation Potential In Dublin, Ireland, Keith Sunderland, Gerald Mills, Michael Conlon

Articles

The micro-turbine wind market in cities faces significant challenges due to the complexities associated with the urban terrain but, if a renewable solution to increasing energy demand is to be achieved, energy conversion systems where populations are concentrated, that is cities, must be considered. This research evaluates the urban wind resource by employing a physically-based empirical model to link wind observations at a conventional meteorological site to those acquired at urban sites. The approach is based on urban climate research that has examined the effects of varying surface roughness on the wind-field between and above buildings. Here, this is applied …

The Integration Of Sustainable Development Competencies In Irish Engineering Education: Findings Of A Curriculum Content Investigation Of Four Engineering Programmes, Iacovos Nicolaou, Eddie Conlon

Conference papers

This paper presents the initial findings of an investigation of the Sustainable Development (SD) content in five professional engineering degree programmes in a large Irish Institute of Technology.

A comprehensive investigation of the modules content was conducted to see to what extent the learning outcomes for SD as set out in the Barcelona Declaration and SD competencies were covered by the modules. It was found that 40% of the 137 modules included SD learning outcomes and/or addressed SD competencies. The modules have a focus on environmental issues and tend to address only one of the three dimensions, environmental, social and …

Recession And Renting: The Future Of The Private Rented Sector In Ireland, Lorcan Sirr

Conference papers

No abstract provided.

Achieving A Holistic View Of The Life Cycle Performance Of Existing Dwellings, Albert Famuyibo, Aidan Duffy, P. Strachan

Articles

Models which fully evaluate the life cycle energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of national housing stocks are not reported in literature. Capturing a holistic view of energy and emissions of the residential sector is an important process that can lead to a more effective policy making. This paper presents a methodology which evaluates the life cycle energy and GHG emissions of retrofitting housing stocks considering all life cycle stages and incorporating, to the greatest extent possible, all upstream inputs.

To achieve this, we developed a hybrid model of the existing Irish housing stock, comprising a process-based approach supplemented by …

Learning From Learning Groups, Mike Murphy, S. M. Chance, Gavin Duffy, Brian Bowe

Articles

Collaborative learning is a key, and complementary, component of student-centred enquiry-based pedagogy. Today, many educators understand that students learn effectively when working together with their peers to construct new knowledge. Many teachers are working to help their students develop such ability. Teachers do this to help students better understand the relevance of new content, connect new ideas into existing frameworks of understanding, and construct new neurological pathways and connect synapses in their brains. In addition, group learning has been shown to increase students’ critical thinking skills, creativity, collaborative behaviours, understanding of ethics, and the like. In the literature, attention has …