Work in Progress: Projects in Engineering Education – Cross-fertilization Between Communication and Situated Learning

Joakim Sigurd Wren

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Conference: 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
Publication Date: June 23, 2018
Start Date: June 23, 2018
End Date: July 27, 2018
Conference Session: Technological and Engineering Literacy/Philosophy of Engineering Division Technical Session 3
Tagged Division: Technological and Engineering Literacy/Philosophy of Engineering
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 15
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--31300
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/31300
Download Count: 423

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Paper Authors

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Joakim Sigurd Wren Linköping University, Sweden

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Joakim Wren is an Associate Professor in Applied Thermodynamics and Fluid Mechanics at
Linköping University, Sweden. His interest is on education and research in Engineering Thermodynamics and Energy engineering. He has a long experience in development and management of engineering programs and implementation of teaching methods facilitating active learning.

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Abstract

Demands on today's and tomorrow’s engineers involve the ability to design and manage products, processes and systems with regard to society's goals for economically, socially and ecologically sustainable development. This inevitably means collaboration in interdisciplinary environments, interacting in groups with different configurations and with representatives of other professions. A prerequisite to be successful in such an arena is an effective and clear communication. The problem is, however, that the communicative ability and skill is actually decreasing among engineering students, according to a broad consensus among the university teachers in our country. To improve this situation, a “teaching module” that supports and develops the students' communicative competence has been developed. This module has been integrated in a number of courses at several 5 years long Masters programs in e.g. Mechanical engineering and Industrial engineering at a well renowned European University, and is at present being evaluated. The aim is not only to boost the students’ communicative competence per se, but also to facilitate an improved situated learning. The general idea follows the phenomenological approach, which stimulates a deep-level instead of a surface-level approach to learning, and is thereby closely related to student-centered, active and sociocultural learning strategies. Although most teachers agree that students must be “active” to learn, active in a general sense is however not enough – When using active learning, students are engaged in dialog, debate, writing, and problem solving, as well as higher-order thinking, e.g., analysis, synthesis and evaluation. An important part of this Paper as well as the communication module is focused on written communication, e.g. project reports. The process of writing or “developing” a report shows similarities to the development of a product or service – all involve alignment and combination of sub-tasks carried out in series and/or sequences, but with the final product is in focus throughout the process. These and other aspects will be further elaborated in the final paper, which will also include a study comparing communicative improvement and learning in relation to the courses’ goals. This study is initiated and will be finalized during spring 2018.

Citation
Format

Wren, J. S. (2018, June), Work in Progress: Projects in Engineering Education – Cross-fertilization Between Communication and Situated Learning Paper presented at 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--31300

TY - CPAPER
AB - Demands on today&#39;s and tomorrow’s engineers involve the ability to design and manage products, processes and systems with regard to society&#39;s goals for economically, socially and ecologically sustainable development. This inevitably means collaboration in interdisciplinary environments, interacting in groups with different configurations and with representatives of other professions. A prerequisite to be successful in such an arena is an effective and clear communication.
The problem is, however, that the communicative ability and skill is actually decreasing among engineering students, according to a broad consensus among the university teachers in our country. To improve this situation, a “teaching module” that supports and develops the students&#39; communicative competence has been developed. This module has been integrated in a number of courses at several 5 years long Masters programs in e.g. Mechanical engineering and Industrial engineering at a well renowned European University, and is at present being evaluated.
The aim is not only to boost the students’ communicative competence per se, but also to facilitate an improved situated learning. The general idea follows the phenomenological approach, which stimulates a deep-level instead of a surface-level approach to learning, and is thereby closely related to student-centered, active and sociocultural learning strategies. Although most teachers agree that students must be “active” to learn, active in a general sense is however not enough – When using active learning, students are engaged in dialog, debate, writing, and problem solving, as well as higher-order thinking, e.g., analysis, synthesis and evaluation.
An important part of this Paper as well as the communication module is focused on written communication, e.g. project reports. The process of writing or “developing” a report shows similarities to the development of a product or service – all involve alignment and combination of sub-tasks carried out in series and/or sequences, but with the final product is in focus throughout the process. These and other aspects will be further elaborated in the final paper, which will also include a study comparing communicative improvement and learning in relation to the courses’ goals. This study is initiated and will be finalized during spring 2018.

AU - Joakim Sigurd Wren
CY - Salt Lake City, Utah
DA - 2018/06/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Work in Progress: Projects in Engineering Education – Cross-fertilization Between Communication and Situated Learning
UR - https://peer.asee.org/31300
DO - 10.18260/1-2--31300
ER -