Visual Tools for Analyzing and Organizing Engineering Data and Information

The chapter examines the use of visual tools in inquiry-based learning in engineering education. Engineering information has traditionally been communicated using engineering drawings. The advancement of technology has empowered engineers to work with data to generate graphics where visual tools have been successfully employed in the industry. However, many educational institutions still rely on text-based learning, which rely on linguistic abilities to convey complex concepts. Using program logic theory, the authors evaluate how a poster can help learners acquire knowledge and know-how to represent complex ideas in a logical and consistent manner. Students reported benefits in poster exercise compared with a written assignment. This chapter also discusses the educational and managerial significance of using visual tools to greater effectiveness and the importance of communicating technical information.

Climate Change in the Built Environment

Despite a growing awareness of climate change, there is little evidence that this is being addressed in cities and built environments. Events such as flooding in Houston, USA; landslides in Free Town, Sierra Leone; and water shortages in La Paz, Bolivia and Cape Town in South Africa demonstrate that it is increasingly important that climate change is understood and addressed in built environments to ensure that they become more resilient. This chapter introduces climate change and outlines the implications of this for built environments. It describes measures that can be incorporated into built environments to enable them to adapt to projected climate changes. Understanding climate change and preparing for this by developing built environments that are more resilient will be an increasingly valuable and important skill. Reading this chapter will support the development and refinement of skills and knowledge in this area and it is an essential reference for built environment students and practitioners.

Engaging Students' Learning in the Built Environment Through Active Learning

This chapter addresses the position of learning, teaching, and assessment in education with the particular emphasis on higher education (HE) in the built environment (BE) but also embeds the context of the contemporary approaches that have emerged in the BE which are built on a solid educational underpinning. The conceptions of “active learning” are addressed from the perspective of what the literature refers to but also some significant reference to action research adopted, rolled out, and evaluated in undergraduate built environment education by the author. The “learning by doing” mantra of among the BE educational community has begun to make inroads. There is a more engaging approach from academics to support learners. An identification of the areas where improvement may be achieved into the future and the possible areas where research might be explored to address and solve some of these pertinent issues.

Strategies for Effective Teaching in Project Management

Preparing project management students for their future life and work requires actively developing and evidencing a suite of transferable skills and attributes. This chapter reports on how a student-centered pedagogy, which included the use of guided sequential exercises, and the collection of instantaneous student responses through a personal response system (PRS), was implemented in a large first year undergraduate Project Management course. The students' perceptions of this pedagogy demonstrate that they found the pedagogical approach supported their learning and fostered deeper engagement in the course, with the most useful aspect of the course perceived to be its interactive nature. The chapter affirms the importance of giving life to a learning orientation conception of learning. The chapter has implications for ensuring learner engagement in the particular discipline of project management and for good practice in large class context in higher education.

Learning Through Successful Digital Opportunities for Effective Competition Preparations

Education of the built environment is moving towards more collaborative practices. The intent behind the collaborative approach of teaching is to encourage students to explore the unknowns and unravel the problems themselves with the professor acting as the facilitator. This chapter presents the case for collaborative pedagogical approaches that was adopted to teach students from two geographically distant universities. The occasion used was preparation of student teams for Associated Schools of Construction (ASC) student competitions. The underlying philosophy behind this initiative is to provide the context for the future leaders in the AEC to learn by doing in a safer and potentially rewarding environment.

Sustainable Practices for Built Environment

This chapter is aimed at appraising the reader with the course delivery methodology/teaching pedagogy practiced at School of Construction at RICS School of Built Environment, Amity University. The chapter highlights the innovative tools and techniques devised by the school for enhancing a students' learning process and ingraining the thoughts for sustainability in construction at nascent stages of construction management. The course is designed to provide the student with an understanding of sustainable construction principles and communicating current sustainability practice to various stakeholder groups.

Group Dynamics in Higher Education

Although group work has been proven to be an effective method for enhancing active learning in the higher education, optimum planning is crucial for successful implementation. A deep understanding of teamwork dynamics and creation of inclusive environments helps groups to demonstrate their optimum performance and output. On this basis, the current research focuses on the important challenge of gender inclusiveness and required teacher interventions to encourage that. Towards this aim, three research hypotheses are developed and tested using student performance data in a series of individual, group, and hybrid assessment. Findings show the significantly different performance of female and male students in group activities. It is also found that instructor interventions to form gender-inclusive groups significantly improve group performance and output. This works contributes to the higher education literature by exploring dynamics of collaborative learning and interfaces with gender inclusiveness. Educators can utilize the findings to better design and implement team activities.

Integrated BIM Education in Construction Project Management Program

The construction industry is currently struggling due to the ever-increasing complexity of a building and the highly fragmented nature of the construction industry. In response to the current problems, building information modelling (BIM) has been adopted to improve productivity and deliver a quality building to a client. The academia also has been striving to embed BIM education into the exiting curriculum to accommodate the needs of the construction industry. However, BIM is currently taught as a simple design tool rather than a methodology to improve productivity in construction projects. Although there have been various attempts to integrate BIM courses into the existing curriculum, a lack of research has been conducted regarding how BIM adoption and implementation strategy should be utilized for a BIM integrated curriculum. Thus, this chapter will provide insights for updating and developing BIM courses.

Re-Purposing Summative Assessment as Formative

Students often feel that assessments are used primarily for grading purposes only. There is anecdotal evidence too that students are being over assessed in UK Higher Education (HE) given that it is common place for the curricula to be designed with formative and summative assessments in mind. This reflective case study aims to establish the link between the attainment of independent learning outcome and a new form of assessment that is based on three years of teaching a Project Management unit in two internationally leading Schools of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Civil Engineering in England and Singapore. Data from the observation of an operational unit specification reveals that depending on the timing within the schedule of the unit, summative assessment with appropriate feedback can be re-purposed as formative and summative. The implication being a paradigm shift in the design of unit specification for the purpose of attaining Intended Learning Outcomes (ILO) that enhance deep learning.

A Construction Management Education Focus and Process Direction

This chapter outlines culminates experience and thinking from two environments: 1) the construction contracting industry and 2) the built environment classroom – undergraduate and graduate. The authors' combined teaching experience covers more than two decades, but they do not pretend their knowledge is exhaustive. Others know more. Their desire is to add to their thoughts. They first address what the contractor desires of construction graduates. From there, they proceed to list focuses they believe important in sequential order for the teaching and learning process: 1) vocabulary, 2) conceptual frameworks, 3) iterative problem solving, 4) writing. After that, they describe their preferred delivery method: formative teaching, learning, and assessment.