scholarly journals COLLABORATIVE DESIGN PRACTICE INVOLVING PARTNERS FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLLABORATIVE ENGINEERING EDUCATION (PACE)

Author(s):  
J. Mikkelsen ◽  
A. Steeves ◽  
W. L. Cleghorn ◽  
P. Bastani ◽  
R. Pattani ◽  
...  

This paper describes efforts to develop a collaborative design project involving third year mechanical engineering students from the University of British Columbia (UBC) and the University of Toronto (U of T). Selected students enrolled in a core kinematics and dynamics course at U of T were partnered with selected students enrolled in a core machine design course at UBC. These project groups were given the task of designing an automotive product specified by the industrial client, General Motors. The pilot project required students make full use of the advanced design resources provided under the Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering Education (PACE) program. This pilot project was performed as a simulation of real world automotive design where design offices around the globe participate in concurrent design of new automobile components and systems.

Author(s):  
Jasmine Johnston

Earle Birney was a Canadian poet, novelist, dramatist and professor. Born in 1904 in Calgary, Alberta, he spent his childhood in rural Alberta and British Columbia. His adult life was predominately spent in Canada, the USA, and the United Kingdom, although he travelled extensively. He died in Toronto in 1995. While Birney’s poetics were influenced by his academic training in Old English and Middle English, he frequently experimented with the avant-garde use of typography, orthography, dialect, and sound media. Following studies at the University of British Columbia, the University of Toronto, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of London, he accepted a professorship in the Department of English at the University of British Columbia in 1946. His teaching led to the foundation of the Department of Creative Writing at University of British Columbia in 1965. In the same year, however, he departed to the University of Toronto to serve as the school’s first writer-in-residence.


Author(s):  
Stephen Mattucci ◽  
Jim Sibley ◽  
Jonathan Nakane ◽  
Peter Ostafichuk

Abstract – Giving and receiving feedback is a necessary, but often difficult skill for young engineers to acquire. We developed and piloted the delivery of a feedback model as part of the first-year engineering experience at the University of British Columbia. The approach is based on recognizing feedback as a form of professional communication, and that it requires practice to improve. We wove different aspects of communication skill development through two large newly-designed first-year introduction to engineering courses, building towards face-to-face feedback through a staged series of communication experiences. The full feedback model highlighted the nuances of face-to-face communication, and was called the "3×3", since it includes the three components involved in face-to-face feedback (sender, message, and receiver), each with three associated aspects. The sender uses appropriate words and body language, ensures proper interpretation, and is empathetic; the message is objective and non-judgmental, sufficiently detailed, and contains suggestions for improvement; and the receiver remains open and listening, acknowledges to the sender that they are listening, and clarifies to ensure understanding. Students applied what they had learned through an activity reviewing poster presentations from a major course design project. In the activity, they each had an opportunity to craft a feedback message before delivering the message face-to-face to a peer. Students then reflected on the feedback they received by summarizing the message, recognizing how the sender delivered the feedback, and identifying why the feedback was helpful. Student reflections were analyzed for themes from the 3×3 model. Students found feedback from peers particularly helpful when it was delivered in an appropriate and courteous manner, checked for proper interpretation, provided clear suggestions for improvement, and was coupled with praise of something that was done well. Providing students with a structured model allows them to follow a process in both providing effective face-to-face feedback, but also better appreciate why receiving feedback is beneficial in helping them improve.  


2012 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Penney Clark ◽  
Mona Gleason ◽  
Stephen Petrina

Although not entirely neglected, the history of preschool reform and child study in Canada is understudied. Historians have documented the fate of “progressivism” in Canadian schooling through the 1930s along with postwar reforms that shaped the school system through the 1960s. But there are few case studies of child study centers and laboratory schools in Canada, despite their popularity in the latter half of the twentieth century. Histories of child study and child development tend to focus on the well-known Institute of Child Study directed by the renowned William E. Blatz in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto (U of T). Yet there were over twenty other child study centers established in Canadian universities during the 1960s and 1970s directed by little-known figures such as Alice Borden and Grace Bredin at the University of British Columbia (UBC).


Author(s):  
Doug Reeve ◽  
Greg Evans ◽  
Annie Simpson

There is an urgent need for engineers to participate more fully in debate and decision-making to address the many challenges, local, national and global, that society faces. Engineering education provides graduates with technical competence but there are relatively few engineering programs that directly address development of leadership capability. At the University of Toronto, we have been developing leadership education since 2002 and presently offer wide-ranging curricular and co-curricular programming through Engineering Leaders of Tomorrow (LOT). Leadership can be defined as “a relational and ethical process of people together attempting to accomplish positive change”. Adding leadership capability to an engineer creates a powerful combined capability. A leader-engineer has the capability to leverage and empower engineering competence with leadership competence.


Author(s):  
Ken Tallman

The presentation will discuss a third-year engineering elective course, Engineering and Science inthe Arts, offered by the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto. The presentation will detail the unique course deliverables, which require the engineering students to, first, create original works of art, and, secondly, to explain how these works connect to engineering and/or science. A key objective in the course was that the students eradicate the boundaries separating engineers and artists, and this presentation will consider the course’s success in this regard.


Author(s):  
Mark Kuhlberg

Judging from the contrasting state of affairs at the forestry schools at the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia, it is difficult to believe the situation that prevailed roughly eight decades ago. Today, UBC’s program is thriving whereas the forestry school at the University of Toronto is but a shadow of its former self. Exactly the opposite was true in the early twentieth century. Ironically, forestry education at UBC owes its existence to the profound commitment that Herbert Read Christie, a graduate of Toronto’s Faculty, showed to it in the years after the First World War. This article explores Christie’s role in building the UBC forestry school, and sheds light on the development of forestry as an academic discipline in Canada. -- En regard de l’évolution académique des écoles de foresterie de l’Université de Toronto et de l’Université de Colombie Britannique (UBC), il est difficile d’imaginer la situation qui existait il y a environ quatre-vingts ans. Alors que de nos jours, le programme de UBC s’avère florissant, les études en foresterie de l’Université de Toronto font piètre figure en comparaison de ce qu’elles étaient au début du XXe siècle où l’inverse prévalait. Il est ironique de souligner que le programme de foresterie développé à UBC, peu après la fin de la Première Guerre mondiale, est l’oeuvre de Herbert Read Christie, un diplômé de l’Université de Toronto en ce domaine. Cet article explore le rôle marquant joué par Christie dans l’implantation de cette école et de l’essor académique de cette discipline au Canada.


Author(s):  
Peter M. Ostafichuk ◽  
Carol P. Jaeger ◽  
Jonathan Nakane

This paper describes development and deployment of an online interactive ethical decision-making simulation.  This tool was piloted in a first-year introduction to engineering course at the University of British Columbia.  It used a “choose your own adventure” style of decision-making and narrative to add realism and engagement to what was otherwise viewed by students as dry, uninteresting content.  After storyboarding using sticky notes and Visio, the final tool used by students was implemented and deployed using a survey tool (Qualtrics). It featured a scenario with initially incomplete information and the appearance of unethical behaviour by others.  It included decision-based branching, but also randomization such that different groups had the story unfold differently, even if they made the same initial decisions.  Student feedback on this tool was very positive, suggesting this style of interactive online ethics simulation could be an effective tool for enhancing engagement and learning.


Author(s):  
Krishnil R. Ram ◽  
Roneel V. Sharan ◽  
Mohammed Rafiuddin Ahmed

Of late, there is a growing need for quality engineers who have the ability to solve complex engineering problems with reasonable knowledge of ethics and economics. This has led many universities to pursue accreditation by professional engineering bodies. While the accreditation process installs a standardized system of quality teaching, it is important that the engineering entrants have a degree of understanding that allows implementation of quality teaching methods. This study looks at the performance of first year engineering students in a bid to identify major issues that students face in a Bachelor of Engineering program. The learning of students in the School of Engineering and Physics at the University of the South Pacific is influenced by interactions of at least 12 different cultures from the 12 member countries of the university. The study looks at how students perform across cultures in the first year mechanical engineering courses, mainly engineering mechanics and engineering graphics & design. The general trend over the last five years shows that while the student numbers in the program have been increasing, student performance in one course seems to be improving but declining in the other; the two courses differ considerable in contents, required skill sets, and assessment methodologies. The study also presents possible reasons for the varied performance by considering issues such as cultural and academic backgrounds, use of teaching tools and resources, and revisions to the course and program and looks at how multi-cultural engineering education can be improved. The number of female students taking up engineering as their major is also looked at and positive trends are seen with female participation increasing from 7.6% in 2008 to 13.9% in 2013.


2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 48
Author(s):  
Michael Hitch

Mining engineering involves the design, planning and management of operations for the development, production and eventual rehabilitation of resource extraction. These activities draw on a diverse set of skills. University of British Columbia mining engineers have traditionally been highly regarded for their strengths in the technical aspects of mining and mineral process but also for their understanding of the application of principles of sustainability and social responsibility. The current view of the UBC Mining curriculum demands the integration of aspects of environmental and social sciences shaping the future of tertiary engineering education. The solution is developing a curriculum that is focused on key learning objectives that are a reflection of all these external pressures. This paper examines the challenge of curriculum reform and the emergence of learning communities at the Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering at the University of British Columbia, Canada.


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