Hydrostratigraphic members of the Edwards Aquifer in Travis and Hays Counties, Texas

UT Librarie

Learning to be employable: practical lessons from research into developing character.

Employers are often quoted as saying that the employability skills they so sorely need are often lacking in young people when they hit the jobs market – but what are these elusive skills? Can you even teach them? And if so – how?\ud \ud Learning to be Employable’ is the latest research by Professor Bill Lucas and Dr Janet Hanson, commissioned by the City & Guilds Alliance. The research aims to answer these questions - identifying the skills that employers really want, giving a framework to teach them in an FE setting and highlighting the essential role of employers, Government and the FE sector in embedding them in young people as they study towards their chosen profession

Thinking Like an Engineer:Using Engineering Habits of Mind and signature pedagogies to redesign Engineering Education

In order to attract more young people into engineering\ud and ensure that they are well equipped to meet\ud future professional challenges we need to know how successful\ud engineers think and act when faced with challenging\ud problems. Using a mixed methods approach this study investigated\ud the habits of mind that engineers use most frequently\ud when engaged in the core activity of “making”\ud things or “making things work better”. We identified the six\ud most distinctive learning dispositions, or engineering “habits\ud of mind” [EHoM] that engineers frequently deploy. Our\ud research then explored ways in which the teaching of engineering\ud might be re-designed to cultivate EHoM using “signature\ud pedagogies” and through this, generate deeper understanding\ud of what is involved in becoming and being an\ud engineer. This paper reports on the research undertaken\ud with engineers to define the EHoM and identifies some of\ud the distinctive features of signature pedagogies as they\ud might be applied to engineering education. It concludes by\ud outlining future research to further validate and define\ud habits of mind and signature pedagogies for engineering

Thinking like an engineer: using engineering habits of mind to redesign engineering education for global competitiveness.

If we want to ensure that young engineers are ready to meet the challenges of the future and can operate in a global environment, we need to know how successful engineers think and act when faced with challenging problems. Once we have identified these distinctive engineering ‘habits of mind’ (EHoM) we can then suggest how the education and training system might be re-designed to ensure the cultivation of these EHoM in school, college and university. Funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering, our research found that there was considerable agreement about the six habits of mind that engineers use most frequently when engaged in the core activity of ‘making’ things or ‘making things work better’. As a result of these findings, we suggest that active teaching approaches, such as PBL or CDIO, although helpful, can in themselves only take the learner so far. However, if the curriculum overtly articulates EHoM as an outcome of learning and if teachers provide students with opportunities to develop and practice them at all levels of the education system, more successful engineering learning will occur

Thinking Like an Engineer: Implications for the education system.

This report, commissioned by the Royal Academy of Engineering, offers fresh\ud insights into the ways engineers think. It goes on to suggest ways in which the\ud education system might be redesigned to develop engineers more effectively. The\ud report also makes suggestions as to how the wider public might become engaged\ud with these issues.\ud Engineers make ‘things’ that work or make ‘things’ work better. But they do this in\ud quite particular ways. The report identifies six engineering habits of mind (EHoM)\ud which, taken together, describe the ways engineers think and act