News Archive

I'm delighted to launch the first of a regular section of the newsletter dealing with engineering education . This space will be a place for us to announce workshops, share interesting thoughts and ideas about teaching, news about developments here in FECM as well as on other campuses and in other countries, summaries of the best sessions attended at recent education related conferences and links to presentation given and other useful sites.

To introduce myself to those who have not yet met me, I am the Chair of Engineering Education in the Faculty and it is my job to support the development of staff who are interested in becoming more knowledgeable about teaching issues. I am also here to help those who are keen to enter into the world of engineering education research.

Perhaps you have developed a very interesting innovation for your class which you would like to write about but don't know where to begin. I can offer assistance in conducting studies of student learning so that there is more evidence to back up your intuition, that what you have done works really well to support your students in their learning.

I am currently in the US, visiting Purdue University, which has a Department of Engineering Education, within their Faculty of Engineering. This might sound incredible to many but it is the first of several, which are growing up in the US. This Department has 20 full time academics that teach a combined first year class and run a graduate PhD program in engineering education.

Their research is focused completely on engineering education. You might imagine that these students are amongst the most researched in the world! And yet in fact the research interests are very varied. They range from learning using computer games, to feminist education practices, the history of engineering education and the more expected studies of student learning experiencing a variety of educational techniques.

The reason the University allowed such a venture is because the scholars here bring in so much funding. In the US, the National Science Foundation is very supportive of engineering education research, in all its guises, as it sees that the nation needs more and better qualified engineering graduates.

Purdue has seen several of its PhD students graduate and they are very employable - many have become lecturers in engineering schools that value teaching, some in Physics Education and yet others in museum and government education departments. The fact that UWA has moved to create a Chair in Engineering Education such as mine is very far sighted and we hope that there might in the future be a growing group of us involved in this kind of work within the Faculty.

It may not become your main area of research, it is in fact possible to do both technical and educational research, as I do (in Materials Engineering). If you are interested in learning more about how to get involved in this kind of research activity please do contact me.

Please email any thoughts, ideas, questions or contributions to this space to [email protected] .