Engineering graduates for industry - Royal Academy of Engineering

Understanding the needs of industry
An important additional stage in the development of a restructured and re-focused engineering programme has been
the rejuvenation of the Industrial Liaison Committee which had previously been under-utilised. After the Industrial
Liaison Committee has met, follow-up discussions are arranged with the industrial members of the committee to
maintain an active dialogue between the participants and the Department.
Effective practice exemplar 8: Active learning and CDIO at Liverpool
To enhance the student experience, ‘active
learning experiences’ have been incorporated
throughout all the undergraduate programmes.
Active learning occurs whenever a student
actively participates and engages in a learning
opportunity, as opposed to passively receiving
information. It is felt that this type of learning
will allow students to appreciate the qualities of
a contemporary professional engineer and,
ultimately, provide the calibre of graduate in
demand by industry both nationally and
internationally.
To achieve this aim of incorporating active
learning experiences into the courses, factfinding
missions were carried out to observe
and appreciate effective practice from other
countries. In particular, there has been an alignment with the CDIO philosophy. The CDIO standards and syllabus
provide a context in which engineering education is delivered. It does not prescribe syllabus content or teaching
approach, rather it recommends elements of engineering programmes, such as a minimum of two design-build-test
exercises for every student.
The Department believes that staff development is an essential component of the adoption of a CDIO approach. Staff
attend regular away days with learning and teaching themes, many of which have contributors from outside the
Department, and more than a dozen staff have contributed to, and attended, international CDIO conferences and
meetings.
First year active learning experiences
The initial course on entry to the first year is effectively ‘what is engineering?’ and every afternoon of the first week is the
‘icebreaker’ project. The cohort is split into assigned tutor groups of five or six students who can start to get to know their
tutees. The cohort is around 280 students, so there are about 50 teams. The groups compete against each other to produce
the strongest small cardboard bridge structure from a specific design, whilst simultaneously learning much about the
Department itself. The icebreaker project is not assessed but it does seem to increase the confidence of the students.
Spanning the weeks prior to and immediately following the Christmas break are the ‘two week creation’ full-time, total
immersion group projects. These are aligned to disciplines and are designed to assess how much the students have
learned over the first three months of their course. The students are given a design brief and provided with equipment
and materials. Aerospace students have to develop and test a remote-controlled model aircraft; Civil Engineering teams
have to design, build and test a model truss bridge; and Mechanical Engineering students carry out two one-week
projects, firstly to produce a water-powered rocket and secondly to design and make a wind turbine-powered model car.
Second year active learning experiences
The year two Civil Engineering students spend seven days on a ‘Constructionarium’ project. One day is spent on campus
and six days at the National Construction College completing a large scale building project. The Constructionarium
project is run in conjunction with external professional contracting and consultant engineering firms who provide
significant resource input. The students obtain first-hand experience in a number of areas, most notably project
management, time management, teamwork, communication skills and construction methods. They also gain an
appreciation of site safety, good practice and personal risk. Students pay £250 each towards accommodation costs.
28 The Royal Academy of Engineering