A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Enhancing academic and Practice

Engineering
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The curriculum is organised around the problems. So problems have to be carefully
matched to the desired learning outcomes. Where PBL has been fully taken on board
there are no lectures; instead students, usually working in groups, engage in self-directed
learning and the tutor acts as a facilitator, mentor or guide (see also Chapter 26).
There are some disadvantages to using a wholly PBL approach. The content covered
in this way is reduced, compared to the amount that can be covered in lecture-based
courses. In addition, many institutions may be short of the sort of space that helps PBL
to work well (see Learning spaces, p. 272 below). It also requires considerable investment
of staff time to manage the groups and to develop effective problems, but many academics
think the initial investment is worth the effort.
The CDIO Initiative is an innovative educational framework for producing the next
generation of engineers. In the education of student engineers it stresses engineering
fundamentals set in the context of Conceiving – Designing – Implementing – Operating
real-world systems and products. It was designed as a framework for curricular planning
and outcome-based assessment that is universally adaptable for all engineering schools.
The framework was initially developed in the USA and has been adopted by a number
of universities around the world either as part of a complete redesign of the curriculum
or as new elements in a modified curriculum (CDIO Initiative, 2007).
Practical work
Laboratory classes have always been an integral part of the curriculum, reflecting again
that engineering is a practical subject. Lab sessions range through simple routine testing
to give hands-on experience of how materials behave, to tests that prove the validity and
limitations of theoretical concepts and culminate in research projects where students are
devising their own laboratory testing programmes to determine new knowledge.
Laboratory sessions are by their very nature student centred and deliver a wide range of
learning outcomes that may include:
• gaining practical skills
• gaining experience of particular pieces of equipment/tools
• planning a testing programme
• making links between theory and practice
• gathering data
• analysis of data
• making observations
• forming and testing hypotheses
• using judgement
• developing problem-solving skills
• communicating data and concepts
• developing personal skills
• developing ICT skills