scholarly journals PROMOTING COLLABORATIVE, SELF-DIRECTED, HANDS-ON LEARNING IN ENGINEERING DESIGN IN UNDERGRADUATE AND GRADUATE TEACHING

Author(s):  
Khosrow Farahbakhsh

The face of engineering education is rapidly changing as more emphasis is placed on a self-directed, problem-based and design-driven approach. The School of Engineering at the University of Guelph has recognized the importance of engineering design education by introducing capstone design courses and encouraging incorporation of design in many senior-level courses. Two recent initiatives include inclusion of a student-led laboratory design project in the Mass Transfer Operations course (ENGG*3470) and a self-directed, problem-based approach to teaching a new graduate course in Pollution Prevention Engineering (ENGG*6790). Both courses placed a significant emphasis on “learning by doing” and importance of “self-directed learning”. Both courses also encouraged the development of various design skills such as problem definition, information collection, collaboration, innovation, communication, life-cycle costing, etc. This paper provides insights on these two courses and the approaches used to ensure a collaborative, hands-on and self-directed learning experience for students.

Author(s):  
Kezheng Huang

As science and technology develops faster and faster, the accumulation of knowledge is exponential over time. Engineering education must keep up with the changing environment including engineering practice. As each individual’s capability is limited, engineering students need choosing right stuff to learn so that they can graduate as qualified engineers with both broad knowledge and practical skills as required in industry. In this paper, the current engineering education is discussed with some trends, such as creativity training as most have insisted in project-based hands-on design education, broad knowledge including essential engineering science knowledge. As a comprehensive discipline, design engineering courses exist to teach engineering design fundamental. Due to immature design theory and methodology, the “learning by doing” approach is widely accepted to complement current engineering design education. In this paper, an integrated effort is introduced which combines together the two basic aspects, knowledge and skill, in order to increase the half-life of engineering knowledge and enhance the hands-on skills at the same time. Based on new development in design research, an experimental design education using Product Reverse Engineering (PRE) as education tool, is introduced with initial evaluation for suitability in design education.


Author(s):  
Marcos Levano

The following chapter shows the development of a learning methodology used to validate self-directed learning generic competences and knowledge management in a competence-based model in the engineering computer science program of the Universidad Católica Temuco (UCT). The design of the methodology shows the steps and activities of the learning-by-doing process, as shown gradually in the learning results of the competence. The designed methodological process allows creating working schemes for theory-based teaching and learning, and also for practicing and experimenting. The problematology as controlled scenarios is integrated in order to answer problems in engineering, allowing the process of validation in the self-learning and knowledge management competences. Thus, the achievements in the results have allowed helping the teachers to use their learning instruments.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 351-380
Author(s):  
Phiona Stanley

This paper presents a multi-media textual collage that shows rather than tells the lived experiences of my conversion of a DIY campervan over several months in a diesel mechanic workshop in Sydney, Australia. This is a “small culture,” (Holliday, 1999) to which I gained limited access as I developed craft skills and the confidence to speak back to relative, milieu-specific, gendered power. I use autoethnographic textual fragments written shortly after the moment to depict the struggle to acquire skills, build confidence, and cross “small” cultures in an unusual crafting context. Grounded theoretical insights are suggested as they relate to three things. First, I examine the nature of individual, self-directed learning as engendered by the non-expert, hands-on doing of craft supported by YouTube instructional videos. Second, I consider positive and negative affective identity factors, particularly feelings of competence or incompetence and challenges to my own (female, middle-aged, injured, and non-expert) embodiment. Third, I consider the collaborative, discursive ways in which hegemonic and non-hegemonic masculinities were talked into being as contingent, relational identities against the foil of a constructed “other.”


2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-85
Author(s):  
Nida Kvedaraitė ◽  
Rima Jasnauskaitė ◽  
Renata Geležinienė ◽  
Gražina Strazdienė

The research examines self-directed learning as the formation of new educational culture in the contexts of learning theories such as: constructive learning, social constructivism, experiential learning and action science . The key educational activities supporting and enabling the learning processes are distinguished and substantiated: learning by doing, learning through collaboration, learning through experience, which give new experiences to the learner as well as status, competences of educational and managerial field, and values. A qualitative approach was applied in the research and as a research strategy of a semi-structured interview was carried out, which allowed to characterize the experiences and individual meanings of research participants while they take part in non-formal educational activities that enhance their self-directed learning. The results obtained in the course of empirical research allow stating that self-directed learners broaden the variety of learning settings, shift the learning beyond the boundaries of a formal education institution and consciously learn through job-related and life activities in various groups, communicating and collaborating with colleagues. This enables the learners to reflect upon the experience gained in job-related and life activities, and shift from the formal learning to non-formal. Key words: educational activities enhancing self-directed learning, learning by doing, learning through collaboration, learning through experience, self-directed learning.


Author(s):  
Gu¨l E. Okudan ◽  
Susan Mohammed

Disassemble/Analyze/Assemble (DAA) activities involve the disassembly, analysis, and assembly of an artifact. Such activities are frequently made a part of the undergraduate engineering curricula in the United States (and elsewhere) as they provide useful ‘hands-on’ active learning components that can be easily integrated into various courses. DAA activities are central to product dissection and reverse engineering, terms which have been used interchangeably in the engineering design education literature and course titles. In some cases these activities are coupled with redesign activities, paving the way for a good context and providing a background for a meaningful engineering design. Despite this fact, however, based on our review of the literature it is not clear how do these DAA activities help with the redesign activity, if at all. Accordingly, in this paper we present results of our data collection that aimed at uncovering students’ perception regarding if DAA activities help with redesign (e.g., is it easier to redesign after dissection?). Overall, students had positive perceptions toward dissection, specifically with regards to its impact on redesign. We also report on the relation of student perceptions to design task, team functioning, and tolerance for ambiguity.


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