Educating a creative engineer: learning from engineering professionals

The rapid growth of engineering knowledge has resulted in continuous expansion of novel technologies and materials that can be used in designing new products and processed. Computer- and web-based technologies allowed engineers to significantly shorten the development of novel artefacts. These advances intensified the competition between engineering companies and shortened the lifespans of the majority of engineering products. As a result, practicing engineers are now expected to deliver creative designs to markets much more swiftly than ever before. This paper presents the results of a survey that intended to establish the ways and the means of enhancing engineering creativity that suit the engineering industry of the 21st Century. This study engaged 46 engineering experts from the major international corporations who utilised numerous creativity techniques including TRIZ in their day-to-day engineering work. It had been found that the surveyed engineering experts think that in the current Information age (i) knowledge beyond engineering profession is more important for creativity than the discipline knowledge; (ii) learning creativity methods and problem solving heuristics is more important than acquiring additional discipline knowledge; (iii) the problem solving stage of identifying and understanding a problem is the key to a creative solution

Dietary intake of professional Australian football athletes surrounding body composition assessment

© 2018 The Author(s). Background: Sports Dietitians aim to assist in improving performance by developing nutrition knowledge (NK), enhancing dietary intake and optimising body composition of athletes. In a high-pressure environment, it is important to identify factors that may compromise an athlete's nutrition status. Body composition assessments are regularly undertaken in sport to provide feedback on training adaptions; however, no research has explored the impact of these assessments on the dietary intake of professional athletes. Methods: This cross-sectional study assessed dietary intake (7-day food diary), nutrition knowledge (Nutrition for Sport Knowledge Questionnaire) and body composition (Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry) of 46 professional male Australian football (AFL) athletes during a 2017 pre-season training week (7days) where body composition assessments were undertaken. Dietary intake was assessed against International Olympic Committee recommendations for professional athletes. Results: Overall, no athlete met dietary their recommended energy intake (15±1.1 vs. 9.1±1.8MJ, respectively) or carbohydrate recommendations (6-10 vs. 2.4±0.9g.kg-1.day-1). Only 54% met protein recommendations. Secondary analyses demonstrated significant associations between education status and energy intake (P<0.04) and vegetable intake (P<0.03), with higher levels of education being associated with higher intakes. A moderately positive association was observed between NK scores and meeting estimated energy requirements (r=0.33, P=0.03). NK scores were also positively associated with protein (r=0.35, P=0.02), fibre (r=0.51, P=0.001) and calcium intakes (r=0.43, P=0.004). Conclusions: This research identified that the dietary intake of professional AFL athletes during a pre-season training week where body composition assessments were undertaken did not meet current recommendations. Several factors may influence the dietary intake of AFL athletes, including lower education levels, poor NK and dietary intake restriction surrounding body composition assessment. Athletes may require support to continue with performance-based nutrition plans in periods surrounding body composition assessment

Analysis of conglutin seed storage proteins across lupin species using transcriptomic, protein and comparative genomic approaches

Background - The major proteins in lupin seeds are conglutins that have primary roles in supplying carbon, sulphur and nitrogen and energy for the germinating seedling. They fall into four families; α, β, γ and δ. Interest in these conglutins is growing as family members have been shown to have beneficial nutritional and pharmaceutical properties. Results - An in-depth transcriptome and draft genome from the narrow-leafed lupin (NLL; Lupinus angustifolius) variety, Tanjil, were examined and 16 conglutin genes were identified. Using RNAseq data sets, the structure and expression of these 16 conglutin genes were analysed across eight lupin varieties from five lupin species. Phylogenic analysis suggest that the α and γ conglutins diverged prior to lupin speciation while β and δ members diverged both prior and after speciation. A comparison of the expression of the 16 conglutin genes was performed, and in general the conglutin genes showed similar levels of RNA expression among varieties within species, but quite distinct expression patterns between lupin species. Antibodies were generated against the specific conglutin families and immunoblot analyses were used to compare the levels of conglutin proteins in various tissues and during different stages of seed development in NLL, Tanjil, confirming the expression in the seed. This analysis showed that the conglutins were expressed highly at the mature seed stage, in all lupin species, and a range of polypeptide sizes were observed for each conglutin family. Conclusions - This study has provided substantial information on the complexity of the four conglutin families in a range of lupin species in terms of their gene structure, phylogenetic relationships as well as their relative RNA and protein abundance during seed development. The results demonstrate that the majority of the heterogeneity of conglutin polypeptides is likely to arise from post-translational modification from a limited number of precursor polypeptides rather than a large number of different genes. Overall, the results demonstrate a high degree of plasticity for conglutin expression during seed development in different lupin species

Can students predict their grade accurately in order to self-regulate?

Students&#039; skills in self-regulation are critical for achieving sound learning outcomes. They are also important for effective life-long learning. It has been found that learners who actively self-regulate achieve higher grades and are more confident than their peers (Pintrich, 1995; Zimmerman &amp; Schunk, 2001). Moreover, educational scholars are convinced that nurturing students&#039; skills in self-regulation entails engaging them in structured, regular diagnostic assessment and self-monitoring, which leads to metacognitive reflection on their learning (Crisp, 2012; Nicol &amp; Macfarlane-Dick, 2006). PURPOSE This paper investigates whether on-campus students possess adequate skills to self-regulate their learning and tries to establish the means by which we can nurture students&#039; capacity for self-regulation. DESIGN/METHOD Seventy one student enrolled in a third year unit on electrical engineering were asked to predict their grades for two class tests that were conducted in weeks 6 and 9 of a 12-week semester. They evaluated the expected marks three times: (i) directly after the reading time, (ii) straight after they had completed the test and (iii) after the test solutions were presented to them. These predictions were compared with each other and with the actual test grades obtained by the students. In order to gain further insight into the results of student predictions, their Task Evaluation and Reflection Instrument for Student Self-Assessment (TERISSA) (Belski, 2007) responses were also analysed. RESULTS As it had been anticipated, most students were unable to make accurate predictions of their test results after reading the task. On average students over estimated their grades by nearly 26% in test 1 and by 11% in test 2. High performing students were better able to accurately predict their actual marks, then the rest of the class

Cultivating Student Skills in Self-Regulated Learning through Evaluation of Task Complexity

In order to self-regulate, students need to honestly reflect on their learning and to take appropriate corrective action. A simple procedure to cultivate student skills in self-regulated learning, known as the Task Evaluation and Reflection Instrument for Student Self-Assessment (TERISSA) is discussed in this paper. TERISSA guides students through two evaluations of the complexity of a task: the first is undertaken just before solving the task and the second straight after completing the task. This study involved 63 undergraduate students and observed a statistically significant difference (p = 0.007) in performance between the students who did (6.1/10) and did not (4.1/10) use TERISSA during tutorials leading up to an assessment task

Clickers: enabling valuable diagnostic feedback to both students and instructors in real time

This paper is devoted to the investigation of the capability of classroom response systems (clickers) in enabling real-time diagnostic assessment during tutorial sessions. The study involved two hundred and seven students who were divided into five tutorial groups. Clickers were used to conduct the Task Evaluation and Reflection Instrument for Student Self-Assessment (TERISSA) procedure in order to anonymously reveal students&#039; individual evaluations and reflections to the whole class. It was discovered that 62% of the surveyed participants were able to clearly identify the study areas that required their immediate attention and that 54% of the surveyed addressed these learning needs. It was also found that the use of clickers with TERISSA enabled tutors to obtain a real-time evaluation of students&#039; prior knowledge and their misconceptions. Differences in prior knowledge and misconceptions between five tutorial groups were also established

Impact of dynamic (videotaped) worked examples on knowledge transfer

The effectiveness of worked examples in instructional guidance has received a considerable amount of attention from researchers. Rapid increases in computer power as well as the expansion of the world-wideweb have created opportunities for educators to offer students &#039;dynamic&#039; worked examples (DWE) - solutions that incorporate both visual and sound instructions and can be watched over and over again (Belski, 2011; Moreno &amp; Mayer, 1999; O&#039;Shea, 1999; Wandel, 2010). It has also been reported that when students have been offered a set of dynamic worked examples to supplement their face-to-face learning their examination performance in that year improved significantly (Belski, 2011). However it is not yet clear whether DWE impact on knowledge transfer, and if so whether it is near or far transfer that is most affected. PURPOSE This paper investigates whether significant improvement in student examination performance that occurred as a result of the provision of DWE, was related to its usage patterns and impact on near or far knowledge transfer. Engineering and science educators developing new educational resources need to consider developing DWE that permit students to expand their self-learning and enhance their far knowledge transfer skills

Student-created dynamic (video) worked examples as a path to active learning

This paper aims to investigate the effectiveness of learning new course material in disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) by means of engaging students in creating short DWE on topics new to them and assess their enjoyment of the task

Are We Fit to Graduate Creative Professionals?

Development of professionals ready to work in the 21st Century requires university educators to revisit a set of skills that need development and to rethink learning outcomes to be achieved. Governments, business leaders and professional associations believe that enterprise skills, which include: digital literacy, interaction and creative problem solving skills are those most needed by university graduates in the 21st Century. This paper focuses on the development of creativity skills. As an example, it analyses studies involving teaching creativity by engineering educators and proposes that in order to enhance creativity skills of their students, educators from all fields of study should consider embedding simple thinking heuristics into existing discipline courses

Student-generated dynamic worked examples as videos to enhance learning in STEM

Abstract not availabl