Impact of change on Attitudes, Skills and Professional Learning Requirements: Survey of secondary teachers of Craft, Design, Engineering and Graphics

This is an independent report based on a national survey. It forms part of a funded project with Education Scotland. It is designed to capture the attitudes and thoughts of teachers currently involved in the implementation of the new curriculum arrangements and the teaching, learning and assessment inherent in delivery. The purpose of this report is to guide and inform future support, advice and guidance for professional learning and further research enquiry. Critically, it offers an overview of current thoughts, as a snap shot of time, set in the context of the roll out of the senior phase of DET

Failure is an option:an innovative engineering curriculum

PurposeAdvancements and innovation in engineering design are based on learning from previous failures but students are encouraged to ‘succeed’ first time and hence can avoid learning from failure in practice. The purpose of the study was to design and evaluate a curriculum to help engineering design students to learn from failure.Design/Methodology/ApproachA new curriculum design provided a case study for evaluating the effects of incorporating learning from failure within a civil engineering course. An analysis of the changes in course output was undertaken in relation to graduate destination data covering 2006 to 2016 and student satisfaction from 2012 to 2017 and a number of challenges and solutions for curriculum designers were identified.FindingsThe design and delivery of an innovative curriculum, within typical constraints, can provide opportunities for students to develop resilience to failure as an integral part of their learning in order to think creatively and develop novel engineering solutions. The key issues identified were: the selection of appropriate teaching methods, creating an environment for exploratory learning, group and team assessments with competitive elements where practicable, and providing students with many different pedagogical approaches to produce a quality learning experience.OriginalityThis case study demonstrates how to design and implement an innovative curriculum that can produce positive benefits of learning from failure. This model can be applied to other disciplines such as building surveying and construction management. This approach underpins the development of skills necessary in the educational experience to develop as a professional building pathologist

An interprofessional, intercultural, immersive short-term study abroad program: public health and service systems in rome

The purpose of this paper is to describe a short-term study abroad program that exposes engineering and nursing undergraduate students from the United States and Italy to an intercultural and interprofessional immersion experience. Faculty from Purdue University and Sapienza Università di Roma collaborated to design a technical program that demonstrates the complementary nature of engineering and public health in the service sector, with Rome as an integral component of the program. Specifically, the intersection of topics including systems, reliability, process flow, maintenance management, and public health are covered through online lectures, in-class activities and case study discussions, field experiences, and assessments. Herein, administrative issues such as student recruitment, selection, and preparation are elucidated. Additionally, the pedagogical approach used to ensure constructive alignment among the program goals, the intended learning outcomes, and the teaching and learning activities is described. Finally, examples of learning outcomes resulting from this alignment are provided

Student-Centered Learning: Functional Requirements for Integrated Systems to Optimize Learning

The realities of the 21st-century learner require that schools and educators fundamentally change their practice. "Educators must produce college- and career-ready graduates that reflect the future these students will face. And, they must facilitate learning through means that align with the defining attributes of this generation of learners."Today, we know more than ever about how students learn, acknowledging that the process isn't the same for every student and doesn't remain the same for each individual, depending upon maturation and the content being learned. We know that students want to progress at a pace that allows them to master new concepts and skills, to access a variety of resources, to receive timely feedback on their progress, to demonstrate their knowledge in multiple ways and to get direction, support and feedback from—as well as collaborate with—experts, teachers, tutors and other students.The result is a growing demand for student-centered, transformative digital learning using competency education as an underpinning.iNACOL released this paper to illustrate the technical requirements and functionalities that learning management systems need to shift toward student-centered instructional models. This comprehensive framework will help districts and schools determine what systems to use and integrate as they being their journey toward student-centered learning, as well as how systems integration aligns with their organizational vision, educational goals and strategic plans.Educators can use this report to optimize student learning and promote innovation in their own student-centered learning environments. The report will help school leaders understand the complex technologies needed to optimize personalized learning and how to use data and analytics to improve practices, and can assist technology leaders in re-engineering systems to support the key nuances of student-centered learning

Preparing the Future Workforce: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Policy in K12 Education in Wisconsin

Last December, the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education Coalition - a national organization of more than 600 groups representing knowledge workers, educators, scientists, engineers, and technicians wrote to President-elect Obama urging him to "not lose sight of the critical role that STEM education plays in enabling the United States to remain the economic and technological leader of the 21st century global marketplace." While that imperative appears to have resonated in Washington, has it and should it resonate in Madison? This report attempts to answer that question by examining the extent to which STEM skills are a necessity for tomorrow's Wisconsin workforce, whether our schools are preparing students to be STEM-savvy workers, and where STEM falls in the state's list of educational priorities

Assessment of work-based reports: an analysis of assessment frameworks

In Britain engineering professional development has traditionally been seen as a three phase process consisting of a period of engineering formation, a period of training and a period during which engineering responsibilities are demonstrated. An individual could submit evidence of these activities and become registered as a Professional Engineer. Increasing numbers of people employed in the role of engineer do not have formal engineering qualifications and a part or all their engineering formation is carried out within engineering companies or organizations. These people therefore do not have the academically authenticated credentials to register as professional engineers but if they are ignored then the pool of registered engineers will cease to be representative of the profession. The Engineering Council, the body responsible for registering engineers in the UK, has acknowledged the changes in the structure of the profession and has introduced an alternative route for assessing the knowledge and understanding that underpins the competence of a professional engineer. Individual engineers can demonstrate that they have an adequate engineering formation through any combination of academic qualifications and a technical report on some aspect of their professional engineering work. The introduction of the technical report requires the Professional Engineering Bodies to carry out an assessment outside the traditional assessment framework of the Universities. This paper reviews and analyses the requirements of assessment systems and derives the components of such a system that will ensure that the results of the assessment of a work-based technical report will be respected and be seen as assuring comparable standards to the academic routes to engineering formation. By examining assessment separately from the processes of teaching and learning, the paper also reveals the extent of an assessment process and its costs

Experimenting with Realism in Software Engineering Team Projects: An Experience Report

Over Several years, we observed that our students were sceptical of Software Engineering practices, because we did not convey the experience and demands of production quality software development. Assessment focused on features delivered, rather than imposing responsibility for longer term `technical debt'. Academics acting as 'uncertain' customers were rejected as malevolent and implausible. Student teams composed of novices lacked the benefits of leadership provided by more experienced engineers. To address these shortcomings, real customers were introduced, exposing students to real requirements uncertainty. Flipped classroom teaching was adopted, giving teams one day each week to work on their project in a redesigned laboratory. Software process and quality were emphasised in the course assessment, imposing technical debt. Finally, we introduced a leadership course for senior students, who acted as mentors to the project team students. This paper reports on the experience of these changes, from the perspective of different stakeholders

Time to Act: An Agenda for Advancing Adolescent Literacy for College and Career Success

Presents a vision for literacy instruction from fourth through twelfth grade; examines the challenges; outlines the elements of success, including professional development and use of data; and lays out a national agenda for change based on case studies

Recruiter Perceptions of Applicant Fit: Commonalities and Differences

To date, normative selection models have focused primarily on matching individual knowledges, skills, and abilities to job requirements. However, it has increasingly been argued that people should also be selected for fit to broader organizational characteristics such as strategy, culture and values. Despite the apparent reasonableness of these claims, there has been little research on how employers actually go about the task of screening or selecting for broader organizational fit. Accordingly, the present study examined how organizational recruiters assess applicant fit. Fifty-four campus recruiters in four colleges provided examples of best-fitting and worst-fitting applicants from just-completed interview schedules, along with specific descriptions of what it was that made each applicant fit or not fit . Examination of interview transcripts suggested that despite the recent emphasis on unique organizational values, strategies, or cultures in discussions of fit, by far the most frequently-mentioned determinants of fit were either (1) job-related coursework or experience, or (2) generally (rather than uniquely) desirable personal characteristics such as articulateness, positive personal appearance, and good general communication skills. However, some systematic differences were detected in the extent to which particular characteristics were sought by recruiters in different colleges or by those recruiting for different types of vacancies. Findings are related to previous research, and implications for applicants, employers, and future researchers are offered