Engineering Commons^™

Instructors' Expectations And Objectives For Integrating Sustainable Development And Ethical Issues Into The Curriculum, Tauno Aki Tepsa, Juhani Angelva, Maisa Tuulikki Mielikäinen

Practice Papers

The integration of sustainable development and ethical issues into the curriculum is increasingly important in higher education. The study surveyed 17 instructors in ICT engineering education at Lapland University of Applied Sciences who were involved in curriculum development to explore their expectations and objectives in integrating sustainable development and ethical issues into their courses. Although most instructors had a good understanding of sustainable development and ethical issues, not all saw them as relevant to their courses. Those who did incorporate these themes focused on topics such as energy conservation, social sustainability, and sustainability and ethics in solutions. However, almost half …

Engineering Curriculum Redesign: Is My School Ready For This?, Aikaterini Bagiati, Julia Reynolds-Cuéllar

Practice Papers

As humanity keeps facing grand challenges engineers are expected to be at the forefront and keep providing sustainable solutions to extremely complex problems. In the meantime, we have reached an era where technological advancement moves at a very rapid speed. That poses a big question to academia. “How should we educate engineers to ensure that they are best prepared for a complex world?” For an engineering curriculum to remain effective and relevant frequent redesign is critical. Despite this generally agreed upon understanding, universities sometimes operate under great pressure and move into initiating curricular change without having considered how multifactorial this …

Flash Observations For Improved Teaching Quality Among Graduate Teaching Assistants In Engineering Education, Sarah Plumb, Joanna Bates, Panos Lazari, Matteo Di Benedetti

Practice Papers

To maintain high quality, when teaching practical activities at scale, sufficient Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) must be employed. However, their pedagogical skills are inconsistent. This research is a pilot study to test the reliability and validity of research methods which will be scaled up in their application to the primary research to identify GTA pedagogical skills requiring further training. In the primary study, staff and GTA perspectives will be collected using surveys, and the emerging deficient skills will be further investigated using novel twenty-minute “flash” skills-based teaching observations of GTAs. Observation time will be split among the GTAs, and the …

Bachelor's Thesis Seminar In Computer Sciences And Information Technology, Matti Haavisto, Hannu-Matti Järvinen, Terhi Kilamo, Saila Ovaska, Timo Poranen

Practice Papers

A Bachelor’s thesis is typically an individually written literature review on a scientifically relevant topic. Additionally, some theses also describe empirical work or report an experiment. Firstly, we introduce how Bachelor’s theses are supervised in a joint thesis seminar for Computer Sciences and Information Technology at our university. The thesis seminar is organized three times a year. It consists of six small group meetings led by a supervisor and contains compulsory pre- and post-assignments and active peer discussions. In 2022, there were in total of 187 students participating in the spring, summer and autumn seminars. Secondly, we give an overview …

Setting Up An Engineering "Pilot Study Program" In E-Mobility" For International Students: Issues And Solutions, Meike Herbert, Alexander Nasarow, Oliver Kreis

Practice Papers

This practice paper presents the issues and solutions in introducing a new international engineering study program at a German university that attracts especially non-European students. The master’s program electromobility with the four majors Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Driving, Connectivity, EPowertrain and Sustainable Mobility & Production Technology was newly introduced in the winter semester 2022/23. It combines the expertise of all engineering departments like mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer science and artificial intelligence, materials science and chemical engineering to offer a modern and attractive engineering education for sustainability in an ecologic and economic important field. The high amount of applications with …

(Re)Defining Engineers’ Resilience: Part Ii Reflexive Accounts Of Doing Reflexive Thematic Analysis, Natalie Wint

Practice Papers

This work accompanies another paper which describes interpretivist qualitative research that made use of data from semi-structured interviews pertaining to how engineering educators conceptualize resilience and support students in its development. In that work, we utilized reflexive thematic analysis (RTA) for several reasons. Firstly, it is considered a useful method for under-researched areas. Secondly, its flexibility allows for inductive and deductive theme generation. Finally, it is considered a reasonably accessible method which we believe is important when considering 1.) the varied audience of engineering education research (EER) and 2.) the relative lack of consensus as to acceptable theoretical frameworks or …

Educating Future Robotics Engineers In Multidisciplinary Approaches In Robot Software Design, Astrid Van Der Niet, Cilia Claij, Gillian Saunders-Smits

Practice Papers

In 2020, a new two-year MSc programme in robotics was launched. Unlike most existing robotics programmes, which approach robotics from a specific discipline, this programme aims to train multi-deployable robot generalists using a cognitive approach (no hardware creation). The field of robotics is multidisciplinary by nature and educating students on how to approach projects with a multidisciplinary mindset is at the forefront of the programme. Hence, at the end of the first year, students are thrust into experiencing the true multi-disciplinarity of the robotics field in a synthesizing, multidisciplinary project-based course. In this 5 EC course, students work together in …

The Power Of Perspective Dialogue: Unlocking Transformative Reflection In Engineering Education (Practice), Pleun Hermsen, Sjoerd Van Dommelen, Paula Hueso Espinosa, Maartje Van Den Bogaard

Practice Papers

Engineers need to be socially responsible, ethically aware and deliver positive contributions to the wicked problems2 of today's global challenges. In navigating these challenges, being able to reflect is a necessary prerequisite. But if we simply ask students reflective questions, they tend to give us mostly socially desirable answers. Our university initiated an institute-wide program focused on creating learning experiences and environments for transformative reflection instead of superficial reflection. In this paper we present design principles for transformative reflection based on a literature overview and the program's accumulated experience. The principles are I) Six domains for reflection on engineering issues, …

What Do We Know About Our First-Year Engineering Students' Backgrounds And Experiences?, Gavin Buskes, Shannon Rios

Practice Papers

Students entering university come from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences, with differing levels of knowledge and exposure to professional skills. However, university entry criteria typically focus on academic ability in particular subject areas such as maths and physics, but little information is known about students’ attitudes and abilities in a variety of other, important domains such as attitude towards engineering, communication skills and level of interaction with peers. Self-concept, a cognitive evaluation that an individual makes and customarily maintains with respect to themselves concerning their ability in a general or a specific area of knowledge, can be used …

Integration Of Agile Development In Standard Labs, Felix Huening, Cindy Mund

Practice Papers

In addition to the technical content, modern courses at university should also teach professional skills to enhance the competencies of students towards their future work. The competency driven approach including technical as well as professional skills makes it necessary to find a suitable way for the integration into the corresponding module in a scalable and flexible manner. Agile development, for example, is essential for the development of modern systems and applications and makes use of dedicated professional skills of the team members, like structured group dynamics and communication, to enable the fast and reliable development. This paper presents an easy …

Inclusive Design In Action – A Case Study Describing The Design Of Social Area Seating In A University, Mary Nolan, Eva Murphy, Mary Carden

Practice Papers

This practice paper outlines the inclusive design process used in the redesign of communal/social seating in an Engineering faculty in a University in Ireland. The old seating was not being utilised by the students. Engineering courses often present challenging assignments to students; literature shows that access to information, knowledge exchanges and opportunities for learning through social interaction can be crucial to student success.

Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) has grown as an important agenda item across society. Therefore, the methodology used in this redesign was inclusive design. Inclusive design is a design framework that takes into account the diversity of …

Drawing From Sefi Ethics Knowledge To Support Eco-Ethics Education Within The European University Of Technology, Jye Benjamin O'Sullivan, Shannon Chance

Practice Papers

We are leading a project called Ethico within the European University of Technology (EUt). Ethico aims to design and promote the uptake of innovative, ecological ethics for technological education.

This practice paper briefly summarizes the aims and structure of the Ethico project, and then focuses on the work completed as part of the teacher training module developed in Cluj, 7-9th March, 2023. This workshop drew its conceptual framework from the short abstracts currently available for the Engineering Ethics Education Handbook. The structure developed was then implemented in a student facing workshop in Troyes between the 10-14th July 2023. The handbook …

Digital Learning Resources, Hybrid Teaching And Remote Students - Are Our Students Actively Engaged?, Thea Bjørnland

Practice Papers

At the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, a new cross-campus statistics course for approximately 1000 engineering students was planned for the fall of 2020. Due to the pandemic, digital learning resources were developed to allow students to work from home or campus, individually or collaboratively. These resources include short learning videos, automatically graded exercise sets, and Jupyter Notebooks for Python coding. Since 2020, digital learning resources have been essential for teaching statistics to engineering students across three campuses, and remotely. To help students navigate digital resources, on-campus activities, and assessments, each week of the semester was structured according to …

Digital Ethics Canvas: A Guide For Ethical Risk Assessment And Mitigation In The Digital Domain, Cécile Hardebolle, Vladimir Macko, Vivek Ramachandran, Adrian Holzer, Patrick Jermann

Practice Papers

Ethical concerns in the digital domain are growing with the extremely fast evolution of technology and the increasing scale at which software is deployed, potentially affecting our societies globally. It is crucial that engineers evaluate more systematically the impacts their solutions can have on individuals, groups, societies and the environment. Ethical risk analysis is one of the approaches that can help reduce “ethical debt”, the unpaid cost generated by ethically problematic technical solutions. However, previous research has identified that novices struggle with the identification of risks and their mitigation. Our contribution is a visual tool, the Digital Ethics Canvas, specifically …

Multicultural Online Collaborative Learning: Students’ Engagement In Design Thinking Framework, Shizuyo Asai, Yuli Rahmawati, Fauzan Khairi Che Harun, Tula Jutarosaga

Practice Papers

This paper presents a collaborative learning course in which students from four universities in different Asian countries work in mixed teams to learn how to develop user-centered products and solve problems in a hands-on way using the Design Thinking framework. For the past three years, the courses were conducted entirely online. Cooperation and collaboration among diverse people from different backgrounds are essential to solving the social problems facing the world today. Like many universities, we have been actively sending our students abroad to provide opportunities to experience diverse cultures and values, but the pandemic has made it very difficult to …

Teaching Ethics As Practical Reflection In A Project-Based Engineering Course, Marcel Krüger, Michael Jäckle, Felix Pfaff

Practice Papers

The implementation of ethics in engineering courses often faces several intertwined problems. For example, there is widespread moral relativism, ethics is often confused with moralism on the one hand and with pro-contra discussions on the other, there are difficulties with the degree of abstraction being too high, or ethics is relativised as one method for decision-making among many others. Furthermore, in many cases, ethics is suspected of being artificially introduced into engineering. In the context of a project-based course at a German university, we took up these challenges and developed an innovative teaching format whose focus is not on theories …

“Keep It Simple: Optimized Student Evaluations With Moodle”, Marius Mailänder, Edward Rullmann, Felix Di Lenarda, Christian Forbrig, Juri Rappsilber

Practice Papers

Acquiring representative feedback from students is a common problem for universities. To address the often low response rates and participation bias, we focussed on a simplified evaluation process and improved user convenience. We developed and implemented a new tool for collecting feedback by sharing an accessible short survey on our Moodle-based e-learning platform. This new Moodle evaluation tool allows surveys to pop up visibly but non-invasively within every Moodle course offered by our university for the duration of the valuation period. After voting, the survey does not show up again. By condensing a questionnaire to three main queries using a …

Instructional Considerations For Virtual Reality In Engineering Training And Education: Preliminary Research Results, Haider Al-Juboori, Gina Noonan, Vincent O Brien, Dorel Picovici

Practice Papers

Digital reality has been gradually introduced into all parts of human society, and the field of education is no exception due to the potential of technology and related tools to enhance the teaching and learning process. However, there is still a paucity of research in this area within an Irish higher education context. The research explores how to best employ virtual reality (VR), using the Oculus Quest 2 system, to improve and develop the level of contemporary training, as well as to enhance the educational experience. Both the technical and educational perspectives will be considered. The researched sample consists of …

Exercising Unesco Competencies In Students Through Research-Based Education For Sustainable Development, Scott Strachan, Claire Crichton-Allen, Louise Logan, Stephen Marshall

Practice Papers

Today’s complex global challenges call upon a different pedagogical approach to Higher Education (HE) that is fit for the purpose of preparing our students – to paraphrase the words of Sir Jonathan Porritt - not only for the world of work, but the work of the world. Indeed, we can and should be preparing students for both, as it is through their professional lives and activities that they will arguably be able to have the most positive impact on these global challenges. Consequently, re-focusing teaching on ways of thinking, being and practicing, the so-called ‘head, heart and hands’ framework, should …

Engaging Students Through Innovation In Computer Science Education, Kamilla Klonowska, Marijana Teljega, Fredrik Frisk

Practice Papers

This contribution addresses how the innovation activities have been implemented in two bachelor programmes in computer science at Kristianstad University in Sweden. The goal of the innovation activities is to equip students with essential skills and abilities like developing technical and analytical skills, communication, collaboration, problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity to prepare them in their professional role, to actively contribute to their workplace and work to identify and find innovative solutions to societal challenges. To achieve this goal, the programmes provide project-based learning to enhance the learning experience for students and, additionally, include the events like Imagine or Hackathon, where …

International Cooperation Framework For Next Generation Engineering Students, Anneli Kakko

Practice Papers

International Cooperation Framework for Next Generation Engineering Students (NextGEng) is an Erasmus+ Cooperation partnership in higher education project which started at the beginning of October 2022 and will end at the end of September 2025. In this project, there are six full partners who are participating in all project’s activities: Technical University of Cluj Napoca (main partner) and Robert Bosch SRL from Romania; Jamk University of Applied Sciences and Valmet Technologies Oyj from Finland; University of Jaen and Sensory Integration and Robotics from Spain. This project aims to develop an international cooperation framework that promotes international team-teaching aligned with the …

First Steps Towards Gamification Of Online Physics And Mathematics Assignments, Paula Immonen, Juho Ratava, Johanna K Naukkarinen, Ayesha Sadiqa, Jukka V Paatero, Markku Kuosa, Aleksi Mankonen, Barkat Bhayo, Mikko Äijälä

Practice Papers

The objective of this practice paper is to describe and analyse the use of online learning tasks on engineering mathematics and physics courses. The development of learning tasks was inspired by the promising effects of gamification techniques in higher education. Hence, some gamification elements, such as bonus points and immediate feedback were integrated into the learning tasks. Course results and student feedback demonstrate the positive impact of gamification of online learning tasks on students’ motivation and learning. In the end, further possibilities of increasing the number and repertoire of gamification techniques in engineering mathematics and physics courses are discussed.

Formulation Of The Firis-P Professional Core-Competency Framework For Flexible Academic Curricula: The Biomedical Engineering Program, Jan R. Buitenweg

Practice Papers

Introduction – How to formulate the goals of an academic educational program in such a way that they reflect the identity of the profession, but at the same time allow the flexibility required for self-responsible and self-directed individual study paths that can initiate lifelong learning and successful interdisciplinary collaboration after graduation? Here, we present a novel competency framework that (1) reflects the identity and academic level of the interdisciplinary Biomedical Engineering (BME) profession, (2) permits the alignment of program intended learning outcomes that accommodate the content of the different specialisation tracks of the BME program and (3) guides students and …

Conceptual Modelling As An Overarching Research Skill In Engineering Education, Mieke Boon

Practice Papers

Today’s society is impacted by complex, fast and continuously changing problems. These need to be tackled inter-, multi and transdisciplinary. At the University of Twente, we have developed a new CBL minor Intelligence, creativity, and responsible technological innovation in societal transformations, (ICR&TIST), which focuses on research skills in complex socio-technological problem-solving contexts. The design of this minor has been guided by new insights from long-running research aimed at developing a Philosophy of Science for the Engineering Sciences and extensive experiences with engineering education in project-based learning (PjBL). Education in scientific research tends to focus on academic contexts, while scientific research …

A Digital Learning Environment Twin Of A Lab On Prototyping To Give Engineering Students Digital Access 24/7, Christian Riess, Michael S. J. Walter, Maria Tyroller, Robert Nierlich

Practice Papers

Students do not always enjoy an in-depth practical learning experience with adequate hands-on activities during their academic education. In many fields, traditional laboratories are common learning spaces that are, however, not accessible 24/7 and the students’ task is mostly pre-defined, resulting in a short and very “passive” active learning. To overcome this limitation and to provide a broader availability and to foster individual learning experience, we transformed a lab from this analog world into a digital learning and teaching environment twin. The laboratory on product design with an extensive machine park (3D-printers, CNCcarving machines, laser cutter, hand tools, etc.) is …

Establishing A Timber-Focused Competency Framework To Up- And Re-Skill Built Environment Professionals To Meet Sustainability Goals, Sarah Jayne Hitt, Robert Hairstans, Kirsty Connell-Skinner, Tabitha Binding, Gabriele Tamagnone

Practice Papers

Engineers equipped with skills for a sustainable built environment have never been more critical, as government and industry sustainability goals such as the 2050 net zero target have significant implications for the construction sector. Concurrently, the UK’s Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) has estimated that over 250,000 new workers will be needed by 2027 to meet demand. Besides this need for green skills, the sector is also looking towards more sustainable building materials, methods, and technologies, such as homegrown biogenic offsite manufactured (bioOSM) timber: an innovative technology requiring additional engineering and manufacturing expertise.

To address this critical skills gap, the …

The ‘Engineering First Year’: "Step Up" To Success, Nicola Knowles, Jane Andrews, Gill Cooke, Lauren Schrock, Robin Clark, Graeme Knowles

Practice Papers

The nuanced nature of engineering as a profession is highlighted in a recent statement by the EPC (2023) in response to the UCAS publication ‘The Future of Undergraduate Admissions’ (2023). Focusing on the value of Personal Statements within the University Selection System, the EPC asks UCAS to provide more practical information to prospective students about the nature of engineering and what prerequisite qualifications are needed to study engineering. Such clarity is particularly important when considering Engineering Degree Apprentices. Starting with the research question “How can the gap between school and university be bridged in engineering education?” the paper critically discusses …

Entrepreneurship Education: Creating A Positive Adrenaline, Josep Bordonau, Oier Bolibar, Alber Filba-Martinez, Joan Nicolás-Apruzzese, Sergio Busquets-Monge

Practice Papers

A method to develop Entrepreneurship Education in any regular Engineering course is presented. The method is based in a team of students working on the description of the idea for the development of a real start-up using a structured approach trained by a business advisor and by the teacher. The team analyses the problem, the potential market, the solution, the development and the financing challenges of the start-up. The team works the Case development along an Engineering Course related with the technology of the start-up. The dedication of each student to the Case development is 25 hours, working along the …

Delivery Of Mental Health Training Across A College Of Engineering, Sarah Wilson, Isabelle Blaber, Joshua Hancock, Gabriella Pitcher, Joseph Hammer

Practice Papers

Mental health is of significant concern across College and University campuses. Within engineering, students have identified that they would be more likely to seek mental healthcare if referred by a student or faculty member. Therefore, this research to practice study aimed to encourage students to become advocates and referral agents for students in mental health distress. To accomplish this, engineering-specific mental health and wellness training was developed through the integration of quotes and data from engineering students, personalizing the training to the engineering experience. To reach nearly all engineering students (over 2,500 students), the 15-minute training was delivered in over …

Customising Best Practice In Studies Advice For Undergraduate Engineering Students, Margaret Morgan, Clare Mahon, Robert Mcmurray, Alan Brown, Pearse O'Gorman, George Burke, Ruth Holman, Michaela Keenan

Practice Papers

The attrition rates from undergraduate engineering programmes in the UK remains stubbornly high, despite the best efforts of course teams to engage and support students on their learning journeys. It is generally accepted that there is no single reason for attrition rates from engineering programmes being higher than from other vocational-type university programmes, but many academics believe that an effective Studies Advice system that works for students and staff, could lead to reduced numbers of disengaging and/or failing students. Much has been written on effective approaches to the provision of Studies Advice at University, but it is not clear if …