Digital Dissemination Platform of Transportation Engineering Education Materials Founded in Adoption Research

INE/AUTC 14.0

Running an open MOOC on learning in laboratories

CONTEXT Teaching in laboratories plays an integral role in education. This includes both proximal as well as remote laboratories. In many instances, learning activities are designed around equipment and traditional laboratory activities. Pedagogical aspects and instructional design are often not considered or are an afterthought. PURPOSE The aim of this project was to help to address this gap by designing, implementing and facilitating an open online course on the pedagogy of using laboratory experiences in the curriculum. APPROACH The MOOC for Enhancing Laboratory Learning Outcomes (MELLO) has been designed to assist educators at all levels, from schools to universities, to improve the quality of laboratory experiences in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education. Experienced educators seeking to review and revise current practices or beginning educators were all welcome to participate. Based on learning theory and research literature, online course has been developed that covers constructive alignment of practical activities with the wider curriculum, learning objectives, pedagogical approaches to laboratory learning, laboratory modalities and session planning. RESULTS 120 participants from Australia and around the world took part in the course. While the participants did not work on their own laboratory activity throughout the courses (as envisaged when designing the course), participants who actively took part in the course were positive about the value of the course. CONCLUSIONS The MOOC has been capable of supporting a large number of participants including university educators around the world who use laboratory experiences and will continue to do so through future iterations of the course. Moving forward, there is scope to adapt the pedagogical approach of the course to cater for the way the participants have engaged with the material

Engineering education down under : distance teaching at Deakin University, Australia

Deakin University in Australia is one of the leading providers of distance education in the South Pacific region. The School of Engineering offers four-year professional engineering-degree programs and three-year technologist programs. The over 600 total students studying engineering at Deakin fall into four categories:&bull; 18-19 year-old students fresh from high school, who largely study on-campus,&bull; older students in the technical workforce, seeking a university degree to upgrade their qualifications,&bull; industry-based students studying in university-industry partnership programs,&bull; overseas students studying either on-campus, or off-campus through education partners in Malaysia and Singapore.Geographically these students form a very wide student base. The study programs are designed to produce multi-skilled, broadly focused engineers and technologists with multi-disciplinary technical competence, and the ability to take a systems approach to design and operational performance. A team of around 25 academic staff deliver courses in seven different majors in the general fields of manufacturing, environmental engineering, mechatronics, and computer systems. We discuss here the history of the School, its teaching philosophy, and its unique methods in delivering engineering education to a widely scattered student body.<br /

Integrating mobile robotics and vision with undergraduate computer science

This paper describes the integration of robotics education into an undergraduate Computer Science curriculum. The proposed approach delivers mobile robotics as well as covering the closely related field of Computer Vision, and is directly linked to the research conducted at the authors’ institution. The paper describes the most relevant details of the module content and assessment strategy, paying particular attention to the practical sessions using Rovio mobile robots. The specific choices are discussed that were made with regard to the mobile platform, software libraries and lab environment. The paper also presents a detailed qualitative and quantitative analysis of student results, including the correlation between student engagement and performance, and discusses the outcomes of this experience

Introducing industrial computer networks into the curriculum through a partner informed case study

Today an increasing number of systems and devices are being interconnected. The popular perception of this Internet of Things is of domestic appliances existing in comfortable or air conditioned environments connected to the Internet. However many systems that need to be interconnected exist in harsh environments such as extremes of temperature or in hostile environmental conditions, for example railway trackside equipment, utility plants or even at the bottom of an ocean. The network devices employed in these systems must operate in such harsh conditions. Westermo Data Communications manufactures networking equipment of this nature, for what we might refer to as the field of Industrial Networking. There is increasing demand for personnel with the experience and expertise in the design, implementation and management of these industrial networking systems. This represents an opportunity for the future employability of students enrolled on the computer networking degree programme at Southampton Solent University. Westermo has partnered with the University to help develop the unique industrial networking skills required by this sector through means of a case study based on a real world industrial networking scenario. This paper discusses how students developed solutions to the case study based on research supported by practical experience with Westermo equipment and informed by supporting material from their own teaching programme. Students also have the opportunity to gain Westermo certification to provide supporting evidence of expertise in this area

Learning objects and learning designs: an integrated system for reusable, adaptive and shareable learning content

This paper proposes a system, the Smart Learning Design Framework, designed to support the development of pedagogically sound learning material within an integrated, platform-independent data structure. The system supports sharing, reuse and adaptation of learning material via a metadata-driven philosophy that enables the technicalities of the system to be imperceptible to the author and consumer. The system proposes the use of pedagogically focused metadata to support and guide the author and to adapt and deliver the content to the targeted consumer. A prototype of the proposed system, which provides proof of concept for the novel processes involved, has been developed. The paper describes the Smart Learning Design Framework and places it within the context of alternative learning object models and frameworks to highlight similarities, differences and advantages of the proposed system