Education Commons^™

Informal Learning As Opportunity For Competency Development And Broadened Engagement In Engineering, Madeline Polmear, Shannon Chance, Roger Hadgraft, Corrinne Shaw

Books/Book chapters

Informal learning is increasingly being recognized as a way to complement the formal curriculum within engineering and provide additional opportunities for competency development while engaging diverse students. Learning about engineering occurs throughout life, via experiential and spontaneous opportunities that inform our understandings of the world. Learning is not confined to the engineering curriculum and class time but, rather, continues informally and implicitly throughout the daily lives and activities of university students. Often framed in contrast to formal learning, informal learning is more as it represents a significant portion of students’ time and effort and contributes to their persistence, competence development, …

Could The Inclusion Of Certain Building Information And Modelling Aspects Into The Leaving Certificate Engineering Syllabus, Aid The Transition Of Students Into Third Level Education, When Choosing A Course Within The Construction Industry, Joseph Boyle, Deborah M. Brennan

Capstone Reports

The paper investigates the effects of implementing several Building Information and Modelling (BIM) aspects into the Leaving Certificate Engineering Syllabus and examines the impact this has on students choosing third level Architectural Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry courses with the desire of improving the shortage in the sector. The method and content of the study was based on academic research on second level education in other European countries through the lens of a Literature Review. A sixteen-week pilot program was trialed with over one hundred students at Senior Cycle. The outcomes of the study were critically evaluated through stakeholder interviews …

Interpreting Multi-Stage Teaching And Learning Initiatives For Mechanical Engineering Students - A Knowledge Management Perspective For Students, Kevin Delaney, Ger Nagle, Mingzhu Chen

Conference papers

Encouraging students to “think differently”, to “think like an engineer”, to “just solve the problem” is challenging and depends upon many factors such as the prior learning and experiences of the particular students involved. Sometimes it is difficult to convince students to really engage with activities outside their own comfort zones if they cannot see the potential benefits that might accrue through such engagement.

This paper describes a paradigm, inspired by knowledge management, which the authors have used to explain the importance of engaging with teaching and learning activities to undergraduate students. More importantly it helps these students to understand …

Opportunities And Barriers Faced By Early-Career Civil Engineers Enacting Global Responsibility, Shannon Chance, Inês Direito, John Mitchell

Articles

The term ‘global responsibility’ projects a holistic sense of ethics, sustainability, and obligation. To achieve the long-term viability of human life on Earth, civil engineering must be conducted in increasingly responsible ways, and civil engineers must value and enact global responsibility in their work. Interviews conducted with nine civil engineers in London provide insight regarding engineers’ familiarity with the term, how they learned about it, what opportunities and barriers they face, and what might be done by professional and educational institutions to help them practice more responsibly. Results indicate: the term itself is novel but underlying concepts are not; continuing …

The Identification Of Future Professional Skills For The Graduate Structural Engineer And The Co-Creation Of Their Definitions., Aimee Byrne, Una Beagon, Darren Carthy, Patrick Crean, Caitriona Depaor, Louise Lynch, Dervilla Niall

Conference Papers

Employers recognise that the future is changing and as such the structural engineer’s role is changing along with the skill set required. The skills gap has been acknowledged yet there is no consensus on which skills are most important for these engineers. This research presents the outcome of a project which proposes future professional skills needs for the structural engineer and the co-creation of their definitions. A review of the most recent relevant literature alongside chartership requirements of the Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE) and Engineers Ireland (EI), as well as consideration of three seminal consultation and analysis reports on …

A Phenomenographic Study Of Academics Teaching In Engineering Programmes In Ireland: Conceptions Of Professional Skills And Approaches To Teaching Professional Skills, Una Beagon

Doctoral

Engineers play a central role in addressing the challenges which face society. However, the influence of globalisation, disruptive technological change and socially complex problems will greatly affect the way engineers work in the future.

As a result, there have been calls to embrace transformational change in engineering education, yet the literature reveals that many reform efforts have fallen short. Industry and society will therefore continue to look to Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to better prepare engineering graduates with the new skills needed to face the challenges of the future. Notwithstanding the critical and valued role that technical engineering subjects have …

An Examination Of The Role Of Spatial Ability In The Process Of Problem Solving In Chemical Engineering, Sheryl Sorby, Gavin Duffy, Norman Loney

Articles

Engineers often communicate with one another through drawings or sketches and understanding technical information through graphical representations is a skill necessary for engineering practice. Well-developed spatial skills are known to be important to understanding technical drawings and are therefore, important to success in engineering. Unfortunately, of all cognitive processes, spatial skills show robust gender differences, favouring males, which could contribute to the underrepresentation of women in engineering. In this research, we administered a test of spatial cognition to students enrolled in a common 3rd year course in chemical engineering . In a second session, students were given a set of …

Developing Appropriate Educational Modules Aimed At Industry - An Example From Surveying At Masters Level, Audrey Martin

Articles

This paper describes the process from inception to completion of developing academic modules appropriate for upgrading survey professionals engaged in the public sector. It focuses on one such module continuing professional development module in ‘Gravity and Height’ for National Mapping, developed by the Technological University Dublin Spatial Information Sciences Group for the National Mapping Agency, Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSi) and staff from similar organisations.

Online Resource Aiding Students To Practice And Perfect Manufacturing Based Skills, Robert Martin Morris, Frank Dunne, Maurice Collins

Conference papers

As part of our teaching in the Departments of Fabrication and Transport Engineering in the Technological University Dublin we use industrial metal folding machines to help students to learn the sequencing of folds on manufactured sheet metal components. Many students have difficulty visualising the folding sequences required to complete practical manufacturing assignments. This paper details the digital media resource which was developed to provide students with the opportunity to offer a proposed solution to questions which relate to the folding sequence required for these components. Feedback is provided through the medium of pre recorded videos which show the component being …

Rubric For Assessing Epistemological Understanding Of Students Who Are Learning Design., Shannon Chance

Conference papers

There is an extensive base of literature that attempts to describe how college students understand “knowledge” and their role in generating it. Educators draw from this literature to help students develop increasingly sophisticated ways of using knowledge. Although existing research aims for broad generalizability, it is clear that various disciplines have developed their own unique value systems. Scholars of “hard,” physical science are likely to hold very different ideas about the nature of “fact” and “inevitability” than those in the “softer,” social sciences [1]. Various disciplines conceptualize, use, and generate new knowledge in ways that differ dramatically, yet little research …

A Teaching Practice Review Of The Use Of Multiple-Choice Questions For Formative And Summative Assessment Of Student Work On Advanced Undergraduate And Postgraduate Modules In Engineering, Aidan O'Dwyer

Articles

This paper reflects on, reports on and evaluates the use of multiple-choice questions, in both formative and summative assessment modes, on control engineering modules taken by advanced undergraduate and postgraduate engineering students, over four academic years. The material covered by the modules is analytical in nature. The rationale for examining the assessment strategy was the poor performance by students in a closed book traditional terminal examination on one of the advanced undergraduate modules over some years. The change in assessment strategy has improved student learning, as measured by assessment data; student feedback on the assessment methods is broadly positive. The …

Exploring The Barriers To Independent Study And Learning In First Year Undergraduate Engineering Students?, Robert Martin Morris

Conference papers

This mixed method case study was carried out in the Technological University Dublin, Ireland and was conducted with the co-operation of four experienced lecturers of engineering and three groups of first year undergraduate engineering students.

The main aim of the research was to identify factors which represent barriers to the independent study and learning of first year engineering students.

Many first year engineering students do not return to college for the second year of their programmes. Many reasons for this are identified in the research, including the failure of students to pass assessments and exams as a result of the …

Formative Assessment Practices In Built Environment Higher Education Programmes And The Enhancement Of The Student Learning Experience, Lloyd Scott, Chrisopher Fortune

Conference papers

It is widely accepted across Higher Education (HE) that assessment has a strong link with learning and a key factor in this link is formative assessment. Formative assessment is generally defined as an activity taking place during a programme or unit of learning with the express purpose of improving and enhancing student learning. However, there is still considerable disagreement over the roles of lecturers and students in this process. It is therefore very important to understand how lecturers in built environment (BE) undergraduate education perceive their own roles and the role of their students in using assessment strategy to deliver …

Building A Successful Transatlantic Collaboration In Engineering/Technological Education; Lessons From A Six Year Journey, Donal Mchale, Mark Mcgrath, John Lawlor

Conference Papers

This paper reflects on key learning’s from the first six-years (2004-2010) of the development of a collaborative journey of two trans-Atlantic higher-educational institutions. It describes the progress towards building a sustainable and innovative international educational partnership in Engineering/Technological education between the Technological University Dublin,DublinIrelandandPurdue University,Indiana,USA.

In particular, the paper provides insight into the iterative stages of development of this relationship. It reflects on some of the key challenges and it recognises the critical enablers of success. It focuses on challenges and solutions in the following six important areas

(i) The partnership initiation stage. Key considerations and important enablers of future …