Engineering Education Commons^™

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 …

Integrating Sociotechnical Issues In The Introduction To Circuits Course, Cynthia Finelli, Susan Lord

Practice Papers

Engineers frequently encounter sociotechnical issues in their work, so it is critical that they are prepared to address complex, real-world issues that require both technical and social expertise. Engineering accreditation criteria further underscore the importance of understanding sociotechnical issues by expecting engineering undergraduate programs to address ethical, global, cultural, social, environmental, and economic considerations in student outcomes. However, most engineering instructors were educated with a deep technical focus, have little experience outside of engineering, and feel ill-equipped to integrate non-technical topics. As a result, engineering is often taught in the undergraduate curricula from a purely technical perspective, with an emphasis …

Improving Communication Procedures By Means Of Videorecorded Proposals, Marta Aguilar, Jordi Olivella

Practice Papers

There is an agreement regarding the importance of communication in the promotion processes of all types of technical or entrepreneurial initiatives. Communication skills have to make it possible to obtain the maximum interaction with the agents involved and facilitate the commitment of these agents to a project. In this context, communicators’ erroneous perception of their own abilities and of how they are transmitting the information is a significant drawback that calls for improvement. Video-recording someone when speaking creates an impact on them given that the possibility of seeing themselves implies a significant change in the learning process. This technique has …

A Survey To Evaluate Laboratory Activities Across An Undergraduate Engineering Degree Programme: Data From Five Years Showing Repeatability And Sensitivity, Peter Johnson

Practice Papers

Laboratory activities are an essential part of an undergraduate engineering education. This paper focuses on evaluating the student experience of laboratory activities. We present a laboratory-specific survey used with large cohorts of students (200) about laboratory activities across an undergraduate Mechanical Engineering degree programme. The key question we try to answer is whether the results of the survey can be used to inform teaching decisions such as which activities need improvement; how to improve them; and to validate these interventions.

We present nine common questions that were used to evaluate activities across a programme. We present five years of data …

Engineering Student Belonging To Prevent Early Leavers Through Curriculum Decolonization, Academic Self-Concept, And Psychologically Safe Teamwork, Neil Cooke, Jacqueline Chetty, Claudia Favero, Zena Green, Neil Drury, Pieter Joubert

Practice Papers

The proportion of early leavers from engineering degrees closely follows the higher education sector throughout Europe; around 10% leave before graduation. Students are more likely to drop-out if they do not feel that they belong in the learning community. While research shows that academic achievement is a primary factor contributing to student drop-out, other student-centric social factors, such as belonging are equally important to student drop-out rates within higher education. The aim of this paper is to present a model constructed on student belonging. The model consists of 3 pillars, namely academic self-concept & professional identity, psychologically safe teamwork, and …

Centering Meaning-Filled Design Within Engineering Education: Recommendations On How To Integrate Interdisciplinary Architectural Design Charrettes, Community Engagement, Sustainability Principles, And Adapted Agile Methodologies Into A Student-Centered, Project-Based Engineering Program, David D Gillette, Michael Haungs, Thomas Fowler

Practice Papers

The Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies program (LAES) is a hybrid engineering and humanities degree housed in both the engineering and liberal arts colleges. LAES requires the same required math and science courses of standard engineering degrees, adding upper-level concentrations split equally between advanced engineering and humanities courses.

LAES was designed for retaining and recruiting a diversity of students in engineering, and to address recent innovations in industrial practice, technology design, and community-centered education. Through fifteen years of trial and error, the LAES program has developed a set of meaning-filled design guidelines for project work, combining engineering and humanistic problem …

Learn And Work: A Hybrid Educational Model For Engineering Education, Katherine A. Looby, Catherine M. Deegan

Practice Papers

Traditional models of education are undergoing significant change in recent times due to evolving graduate attributes, shaped in no small part by the changing demands of modern industrial practices. Technology is one of the key elements of the factory of the future. Advances in manufacturing and digital technologies facilitate automation and offer significant benefits in a variety of areas. Academic programmes that feature industrial work placement have long been a feature of engineering education in TU Dublin. The BSc in Process Instrumentation and Automation is a three-year programme that goes further in that it evenly balances on-campus instruction with work …

Experience With Remote Laboratories For On-Campus Engineering Degrees, David P. Reid, Timothy D. Drysdale

Practice Papers

Remote laboratories extend the teaching and learning opportunities available for oncampus courses, by increasing the overall capacity for practical work and enabling new types of activities. We present three case studies from different types of usage within the School of Engineering at the University of Edinburgh over the last three academic years. Each case study provides an overview of the experimental hardware and user interface, the learning context and reflections on their development from our perspective as providers of the system. The case studies include a pendulum lab that provided large cohorts of students access to lab equipment in a …

Teaching Sustainable Logistics As A Project-Based Learning Course, Carsten Deckert, Ahmed Mohya

Practice Papers

Sustainable logistics combines the task of the 6R of logistics (right product, right place, right time, right condition, right cost) with social and environmental sustainability, especially low emissions and low resource consumption. This means that a problem that is already challenging, namely planning, executing, and controlling logistical processes, gets even more complex and requires aspects of systems thinking to incorporate environmental and social impacts. Classical approaches of teaching, e.g. lectures with presentations and short exercises on closed problems, do not do justice to the complexity and intricacies of the topic sustainability. In such a context, projectbased learning (PBL) where students …

Exploring The Impact Of Problem-Based Learning On Student Learning Outcomes: Findings From The Pbl South Asia Project, Andrius Jurelionis, Gintare Stankeviciute, Avinash Dhital, Ellen Van Andel, Julia Sundman, Laura Stasiuliene, Shakuntala Acharya, Riina Subra

Practice Papers

This paper presents the results of surveys conducted among students and teachers / mentors in Nepal, Bhutan, and India, regarding the impact of implementing Problembased learning (PBL) methodology in engineering and multidisciplinary projects. The surveys were carried out under the Erasmus+ funded project, "Strengthening Problembased learning in South Asian Universities" (PBL South Asia). The project aimed to address the issues of education quality, employability, and sustainable development in the region by enhancing students’ practical experience, communication skills, teamwork abilities, as well as academic knowledge through PBL-adapted courses. As a result, South Asian higher education institutions have implemented PBL courses in …

Discovering Sustainability Practices In Research And Innovation Sites, Robin Ann Downey

Practice Papers

This practice paper is a descriptive account of an experience with a sustainable development learning project for engineering students in a Science, Technology and Society (STS) course at Bilkent University. The students participated in the STS Sustainability Awards competition for two semesters in one academic year, an event that was inspired by Bilkent University’s 2021–2022 Sustainability Year. As part of the project, the students found a company or laboratory, consulted them on their innovation practices and asked questions that were grounded in Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) approaches. RRI can provide an opening for students to explore how various values, …