Engineering Education Commons^™

Sustainable Energy-Efficient Living – A First-Year Project-Based Workshop For Energy Engineers, Melanie Kitzig, Martin Lang, Alexandra Dorschu

Practice Papers

For many engineering students a lack of study motivation plays a significant role in their drop-out process (Heublein 2014). Therefore, students’ motivation to study should be encouraged as early as possible. A proven strategy for increasing the study motivation is the integration of project-based learning (PjBL) in the course of studies (Kokotsaki et al. 2016).

This paper introduces a PjBL-workshop concept which was developed for first-year energy engineering students at a university of applied sciences in Germany. During this one-semester workshop, the students are working weekly as student trainees in a fictitious engineering office. Guided by the teacher as the …

How Does Involvement In Student Associations Contribute To The Development Of An Engineer's Skills? Example Of Magiepoly: Raising Awareness Of Gender Equality Through Games., Vinciane Lamy, Sarah El Addouli, Cathel Zitzmann

Practice Papers

Some engineering students get involved in student associations during their studies. They develop multiple skills such as: leadership and management, communication, project management, supervision and transmission of knowledge, service to others, etc. However, they are not always aware of it. Helphi, a student association of EPF Engineering School, was responsible for organising an afterwork event to be held on International Women's Rights Day. As student members were brainstorming, the idea of a board game, both informative and entertaining came up: MagiePoly was born. MagiePoly is a game, inspired by a wellknown board game, which aims to raise awareness of gender …

Moving Constructive Alignment Beyond The Curriculum: Embedding Mental Health And Wellbeing Into The Uk Engineering Student Experience, India Palmer, Nicky Knowles, Jane Andrews, Robin Clark, Gill Cooke, Graeme Knowles

Practice Papers

This paper addresses the tricky question of how the Engineering Curriculum can be better designed so as to nurture and improve the mental health of university engineering students. Since the end of the Pandemic, the UK has seen an increase in the numbers of young people aged 18-25 self-reporting mental health problems (Young Minds, 2023). Taking a wider perspective, there has been a rise of 450% in the numbers of young people informing UCAS that they have a mental health problem over the last decade (NUS, 2022). Yet, Engineering Education has the lowest rate of self-declared mental health problems on …

Eng+ | Ethics For Sustainable Development In Engineering Programmes A Praxis Report Of Tu Berlin’S Think Tank Technology Reflection, Sabine Ammon, Mareen Derda, Tim Hildebrandt, Stefan Kühne, Nadine Klein

Practice Papers

Many technical universities alike, TU Berlin is in a future-oriented process of programme transformation to invite a holistic perspective on technology which includes critical thinking and ethical reflection. To this end, TU Berlin recently issued a general study guideline calling for an orientation of all programmes toward sustainable development. Accordingly, students should know about the historical, social and cultural contexts of science and technology and learn to reflect on the ethical consequences of their actions. Together with training in good scientific practice, this content should comprise 12 ECTS in each respective BA and MA programme. With only minor integration of …

Nine Years Of Systematic Cad Course Development: What Did We Learn?, Kaur Jaakma, Panu Kiviluoma

Practice Papers

Computer-Aided Design (CAD) plays a vital role in the curriculums of mechanical engineering degree programs, empowering students to conceptualize and visualize their designs, thus enhancing their abilities as engineers. This abstract presents the implementation of a multi-CAD course conducted between 2014 and 2022, catering to hundreds of students from diverse disciplines, including mechanical and civil engineering. Throughout the course, student feedback was systematically collected to assess learning outcomes and measure the effectiveness of different learning tools and methods.

The course employed a range of tools, including automatically graded quizzes and a dedicated CAD model assessment system, which not only lightened …

Improving Motivation And Continuous Assessment In Engineering Classrooms Through Student Response Systems, María Dolores Merchán Moreno, Elena Pascual Corral, Cristina Prieto Calvo, Mario Miguel Hernández, María Jesús Santos Sánchez

Practice Papers

The use of Student Response Systems (SRS) is highly recommended to encourage the active and meaningful learning of students in each lecture. SRS promotes the motivation of students and improves the system of continuous assessment. One of the most popular applications designed for SRS is Socrative (Socrative n.d.). The use of Socrative gives real meaning to continuous assessment, since the teacher has an easily manageable record of the evolution of their students‘learning and will help the teacher to schedule both formative and summative assessment. The application allows the detection of topics that each student may not have understood and determines …

Comparing The Meaning Of ‘Thesis’ And ‘Final Year Project’ In Architecture And Engineering Education, Rahman Tafahomi, Shannon Chance

Articles

Architectural education shares much in common with engineering, including the use of a culminating capstone experience in the final year. The form of this experience varies, with the research-based thesis and final-year project being most common. This paper explores the literature on traditions of enquiry and the meaning of research in various fields and the evolution of the ‘thesis’ and ‘final year project’ approaches over time. It then briefly summarises empirical research conducted on a case study institution struggling to bridge gaps in understandings of these distinct forms of learning and teaching. Throughout, the paper presents a comprehensive set of …

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, …

Can Designing For Mars Stimulate Our Thinking About Designing More Sustainably For Earth?, Lucy Berthoud, James Norman, Ella Good, Nicola Kent

Practice Papers

This work describes the use of an arts-based project to stimulate creative thinking about design and sustainability for engineering students of all disciplines and years. ‘Building a Martian House’ was a public art project where a house designed for Mars was built in the centre of the city of Bristol, UK. It was conceived by artists, designed by the public, architects and engineers and built by construction companies. In this work, a workshop for students was developed and run based on this art project. Its aim was to use the challenge of designing for Mars as a provocation to thinking …

Problem Solving Skills Deconstructed And Implemented In An Adaptive Learning Tool, Arne Duyver, Jozefien De Keyzer, Els Wieers, Kris Henrioulle, Kris Aerts

Practice Papers

The development of problem-solving skills is an important subject in engineering curricula. Helping novice students develop such skills can be challenging because problem solving is a complex skill in the sense that it is accompanied with an internal thinking process that many experts are even unaware of doing. From a combination of literature and a thinking-aloud exercise with the entire teaching team, a scheme with building blocks and strategies that are commonly used by engineers was constructed. In addition to commonly named steps such as Identify/Define, Plan/Choose, Carry Out/Do and Look back/Inspect the scheme refines the first step into multiple …

Exploring The Application Of Chatgpt In Mechanical Engineering Education, Joan Puig-Ortiz, Rosa Pàmies-Vilà, Lluïsa Jordi Nebot

Practice Papers

The use of language models such as ChatGPT in the field of engineering has gained popularity in recent years due to their ability to assist engineers in their projects and tasks. In this study, we evaluated the effectiveness of ChatGPT in supporting students' learning in the Mechanism and Machine Theory (MMT) subject. The study involved participants who were asked to interact with ChatGPT to obtain concept clarification and factual information related to MMT.

Our results show that the majority of participants were familiar with ChatGPT and had used it for academic or technical questions. They also found it easy to …

Enhancing Quality Teaching Through Informal Community Learning In Knowledge Centres, Sonia M. Gomez-Puente, Esther Ventura Medina

Practice Papers

Teaching and learning have always been at the heart of the missions of universities. The growing interest nowadays to pay attention to the quality of higher education teaching results in initiatives such as the establishment of Teaching and Learning Centres (TLCs). The Academy for Learning and Teaching (ALT) at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) has recently been created, and it is still under construction, with the purpose of promoting quality of teaching through engaging staff in interaction and in learning lessons from evidence-based educational practices and innovation in engineering education. Furthermore, ALT supports the professional development of faculty teaching staff …

A Critical Approach To Engineering Mathematics Activities For Sustainable Development, Matheus Oliveira De Andrade, Mariam Makramalla

Practice Papers

Engineering projects are frequently experienced through the complexity of knowledge co-production between experts and local communities. This involves an ability to work critically and creatively within unfamiliar epistemologies, drawing from quantitative, social and scientific methods to realise high-impact solutions. In this work-in-progress paper, we put forward a prototype for a case-control study aiming to evaluate student buy-in and learning outcomes for a cross-cultural implementation of critical mathematics approaches contextualised by sustainability challenges. We outline and discuss aspects of mathematical modelling activities that can scaffold an environment where human subjectivity amplifies the quality and relevance of quantitative arguments. As proof-of-concept, we …

Reflections On Engineering Home Lab Kit Use In A Post Pandemic Environment, Joel Ross, Sean Lancastle, Becky Selwyn, Greg Richards, Sarah Jones, Dominic Hardman, James Saunders

Practice Papers

Laboratory experience in engineering significantly impacts upon how students view their courses. Whilst there may be nostalgic memories of what this offered the educator on their own route through further education, it is often far from the modern reality: time bound, pre-configured, minimal student agency over input variables, and something of a data grab and dash.

Home Lab Kits (HLK), one of the innovations whose use was accelerated as a COVID-19 mitigation, have provided some long-term improvements in the educational lab experience of undergraduate engineering students in the School Civil, Aerospace, and Mechanical Engineering (CAME) at the University of Bristol. …

The “Eagle” Approach To Train Electrical Engineers With Collaborative Problem-Solving Skills, Fereshteh Poormohammadi, Merijn Van Deyck, Martijn Deckers, Abdul Saboor, Bowen Wang, Pouya Mehrjouseresht, Zhenda Zhang, Arne Symons, Pieter Pas, Alexander Bodard, Hans Van Rooij, Marian Verhelst, Alexander Bertrand, Ruth Vazquez Sabariego, Panagiotis Patrinos, Peter Coppens

Practice Papers

Engineering education plays a critical role in addressing the ever-increasing environmental and societal challenges, and collaborative problem solving (CPS) is a vital skill for engineers to tackle such complex multidisciplinary challenges and develop high-quality solutions. The EAGLE project at KU Leuven exemplifies CPS implementation in electrical engineering education, providing students with real-world connections and deep learning opportunities to develop teamwork, problem-solving, and negotiation skills.

This paper presents the development and implementation of EAGLE, a year-long hands-on, multidisciplinary challenge in which teams of 10-12 students design and develop an autonomous drone capable of flying to a remote landing station. It focuses …

The Effect Of Campus Praktikum On The Choice Of University Studies, Ester Gimenez-Carbo, M.Francisca Collado López, M.Asunción Torralba Navarro, M. Esther Gómez-Martín

Practice Papers

In some Spanish universities in recent years, there has been a decrease in the number of students, mainly due to the drop in the birth rate and the increase in the number of universities throughout the country. In addition, the number of (unknown)bachelor's degrees that can be studied at university has also increased.

For these reasons, since 2010, an activity called Campus Praktikum has been carried out at the Universitat Politècnica de València to bring the university studies taught at this centre closer to secondary school students. The aim is to show the studies taught at the UPV (mainly engineering …

Shaping A Sustainable Future Through Integrating Sustainability, Creativity And Entrepreneurship In Engineering Education At Aalto University, Paulo Roberto Nicoletti Dziobczenski, Elina Kähkönen, Håkan Mitts

Practice Papers

This paper reports the authors’ experiences integrating sustainability, creativity, and entrepreneurship in engineering education at Aalto University under the project called the Aalto Co-Educator team. The Aalto Co-Educator team was formed to support the university strategy application into education through three main actions: course development, curriculum development and competence development. The goal of this paper is to share engineering educators' experiences in providing sustainability, creativity and entrepreneurship education to engineering students in a rapidly changing nature of work.

A Way To Get Students Consider Ethics And Sustainability In Iot Projects, Jean-Luc Sarrade, Isabelle Lermigeaux-Sarrade

Practice Papers

Sustainability and ethical topics can be embedded and assessed in existing technical courses within an engineering curriculum. This article describes how we integrated a reflection on the importance of ethical and environmental aspects of connected objects through team-based project learning with computer science students in the second semester of their Bachelor degree. Small groups of three were given different projects, in which they had to implement the technical concepts learned in class using both virtual and physical components. The projects followed realistic scenarios chosen at random, each of them using a specific set of sensors and built to question either …

A Framework For Teaching Machine Learning For Engineers, Lauren Singelmann, Jacob Covarrubias

Practice Papers

As machine learning and artificial intelligence become increasingly prevalent in our day-to-day lives, there becomes an even greater need for literacy in machine learning for those outside of the computer science domain. This work proposes a conceptual framework for teaching machine learning to engineering students with the goal of developing the knowledge and skills needed to apply machine learning techniques to engineering problems.

Many machine learning courses in computer science, math, and statistics focus on the theoretical basis of machine learning algorithms and assessment. This framework takes a fundamentally different approach by creating a course structure for machine learning practitioners …

Ethical Concerns And Responsible Use Of Generative Artificial Intelligence In Engineering Education, Aditya Johri, Euan Lindsay, Junaid Qadir

Practice Papers

The use of educational technologies that use elements of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) are becoming common across the engineering education terrain. With the wide adoption of generative AI based applications, this trend is only going to grow. Not only is the use of these technologies going to impact teaching, but engineering education research practices are as likely to be affected as well. From data generation and analysis, to writing and presentation, all aspects of research will potentially be shaped. In this practice paper we discuss the ethical implications of the use of generative AI technologies on engineering …

A New Approach To Encourage The Next Generation Of Female Engineers In Spain: A Young And Fresh Podcast To Attract More Girls To The Field: “Clau, Quiero Ser Ingeniera”, Marta Olea, Francisco Javier Jiménez Leube, Claudia Rebollo

Practice Papers

The underrepresentation of women in STEM fields is a complex issue with multiple factors that remain unclear. At Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), we have dedicated years to devising strategies aimed at attracting more girls to this domain. As the coordinating institution of the EELISA alliance, where we endeavor to define the European engineer, we confront gender inequality as one of the foremost challenges. To address this need, a 4th year student at UPM conceived an initiative: a podcast with three primary objectives. Firstly, it aims to highlight the accomplishments of female engineers who can serve as role models for …

Designing A Curriculum For A Sustainable Entrepreneurship Major: A Case Study, Meri Kuikka

Practice Papers

This practice paper explores the process of developing a curriculum for a sustainable entrepreneurship major program in a higher education institution. The paper aims to address the need for embedding sustainability and entrepreneurship into higher education, considering global challenges such as climate change, social inequality, and unsustainable consumption and production. The paper fills a gap in the existing body of knowledge by providing a case example of a curriculum development process that can be adapted to integrate sustainable entrepreneurship into curricula at other universities.

The paper outlines a three-part curriculum development process which involves identifying stakeholders and clarifying the program's …

Sustainability Leadership For The Energy Transition: A Case Study Of Role-Playing To Enhance Authentic Learning, Anthony Paul Heynen, Elliot J Tonkes

Practice Papers

To lead the energy transition, effective sustainability leadership requires a spectrum of skills, knowledge and understanding across technical, financial and even political disciplines. An innovative, authentic learning initiative has been designed and implemented in which Master of Sustainable Energy students conducted team-based role-playing activities, responding to a realistic, hypothetical energy policy scenario in the form of a government announcement and other mock collateral. Groups were assigned the personas of a range of industry stakeholders and prepared presentations (and accompanying media statements and position papers) for a mock online media conference. The initiative leveraged the diversity of the cohort, enabling constructive …

Use Of The Triple-Bottom Line Framework To Examine The Design Tendencies Of First Year Engineering Students, Kimia Moozeh, Josh Zacks, Michael Chabot, Paul Hungler

Practice Papers

Engineering design often requires the examination of multiple different factors and a design selection based on compromise between these factors. An engineer's preexisting values and experiences can influence design decisions. Therefore, knowing and understanding these design tendencies can prove valuable in guiding engineering students with their future design selections. The purpose of the project is to examine the design tendencies of first year engineering students using an interactive web-based virtual reality (VR) module focused on the triple-bottom line framework. The triple bottom line sustainability framework measures design in three key areas: people, profit and planet. The course for which the …

Realising A Centre For Educational Development: Experiences, Challenges, Lessons Learnt, And Future Ambitions, Reidar Lyng, Guri Sivertsen Korpås, Gabrielle Hansen, Geir Egil Dahle Øien

Practice Papers

In order to develop high-quality engineering education with a focus on students’ learning, academic staff must themselves develop new skills, with a lifelong learning perspective to their own teaching. This requires coordination and support. For this purpose, three faculties at our university decided to jointly fund a Centre for Science and Engineering Education Development. Among the aims were to boost educational quality, strengthen educational competence among academic staff, and build educational quality culture on the institutional level. The faculties also recognized a need to establish a stronger and more focused didactic perspective for the university’s programme STEM portfolio, beyond and …

On A Computer Science Master Program For Sustainable Development, Daniel Einarson

Practice Papers

Sustainable development and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals have been pointed out as crucial for our common future, addressing several aspects of a world to be considered as sustainable. From a university perspective it is certainly interesting, and important, to see how research and education contribute to that context, which may be seen from both disciplinary, and multi-disciplinary perspectives.

A one-year Master Program in Computer Science for Sustainable Development, at Kristianstad University (HKR), Sweden, has a background in the UN’s Agenda 2030, and in statements, claiming that ‘at the edge’-techniques, from areas such as Artificial Intelligence, and Datamining are crucial …

Supporting Teaching Staff: A Phenomenological Study Of The Innovation Readiness Of Teacher Support Staff, Leonie Chapel, Adina Imanbayeva, Nikola Petrova, Sonja Borst

Practice Papers

Educational institutions that want to successfully innovate regarding the education they provide must synchronise organisational growth with educational growth. To support such innovation, a maturity model can help identify successful teaching and learning practices by encouraging experimentation, collaboration and alignment with strategic goals. Although maturity models that support staff in the process of innovating education are valuable, they are scarce. This phenomenological study explored the views of staff from the Centre for Expertise in Learning and Teaching (CELT) on readiness for innovation at the University of Twente (UT). We surveyed staff members who were actively involved in projects or teacher …

Communicating Complexity To Prepare For Complexity, Magnus Lilledahl

Practice Papers

A trend in higher education is a stronger focus on the content of a study program as a whole rather than the individual courses that make up the program. The Norwegian university of science and technology (NTNU) has recently completed a large project, The future of technology studies (FTS), that attempt to describe how study programs should prepare students for a technological career in a rapidly evolving society. A central recommendation from the project is the necessity of an integrated, programdriven curriculum. Hence, there is a need for a useful description of the content at the program level. However, a …

Towards Perceiving Teaching As A Joint Task In An Individualized Teaching Qualification Program For Mid-Level Academics At A German University Of Technology, Ulrike Bulmann, Nicole Podleschny

Practice Papers

Empowering teachers for facilitating modern engineering education is essential. Thus, universities put much effort in qualifying teachers in didactic training programs. Especially individualized programs have been positively evaluated in the Covid-19- year 2020 by participated teachers. However, participants missed (informal) networking opportunities. Two questions arise: How do participants perceive their qualification program in the coming years? And second, how can we design a program that balances the participants’ thirst for an individual program compilation while establishing university-wide networking opportunities among teachers? This paper presents participants’ perceptions on a qualification program at a German University of Technology for the years 2021 …

Returning To On-Campus Activities For First-Year Engineering Skills Development - A Comparative Study, Gavin Buskes, Huey Yee Chan

Practice Papers

Prior work by the authors on student skills development detailed the implementation of a suite of skills modules in a first-year engineering course. These modules were instrumental components in supporting the course’s project-based framework that offered flexibility of choice and timing in a low-risk setting. It was found that, while receiving overall favourable student feedback, most students only completed the minimum requirements and largely chose technical modules according to the relevance to their project topic. Due to the cessation of on-campus teaching activities caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, these modules were delivered wholly online. With the lifting of restrictions the …