Using a contextualised English support programme to assist international engineering students (2025)

students perceptions of initial PBL implementation in engineering education in Malaysia

BACKGROUND Higher education in engineering and technical fields should prepare graduates to take on the increasingly challenging roles required of the engineering profession. Engineering graduates are expected to be responsible for their own personal and professional development. In view of this, the German Malaysian Institute (GMI), an established technical education provider in Malaysia, has adopted Problem-based learning (PBL) as its innovative approach. The main objective is to prepare technologists and industrial workers who are well-grounded with soft skills and abilities. These include abilities to apply knowledge, higher order thinking skills, and personal values, alongside strong handson and technical skills. PURPOSE This paper describes the implementation of Problem Based Learning (PBL) as a new approach in the context of engineering education at GMI. It provides an analysis of the first cohort of students’ feedback of their initial experiences of PBL after its implementation in January 2010. The paper focuses the first years’ student experiences specifically looking to better understand the ways in which they engage with PBL. DESIGN/METHOD A questionnaire survey was administered to 115 first year students in the Department of Industrial Electronic, after four weeks of PBL implementation in the first semester of their studies. The survey addressed the students’ perspectives on PBL course content, course delivery, self-motivation and PBL assessment. Section A required students to answer using a Likert scale of 1-5 (where 1 meant Strongly Disagree to 5 which meant Strongly Agree). Section B requested open-ended feedback on PBL implementation and difficulties students experienced with PBL. The survey was conducted to evaluate and refine the process of PBL implementation at a very early stage. RESULTS Overall, students’ initial feedback was positive and provides encouragement to continue with the PBL approach. This is despite the typical problems that student face including the challenges of working in groups, insufficient resources or insufficient time to complete the problem given. The survey results provide insights into what the majority of students recognise as the benefits of PBL especially in enhancing their critical thinking, problem-solving skills and team-working skills. CONCLUSIONS The findings of the survey indicated that it is clear much can still be done to make PBL a success. The Department of Industrial Electronics have taken immediate measures to address the issues raised by students. Our findings support the notion that PBL is suited to be adopted in engineering disciplines because it nurtures critical thinking and problem-solving skills which are central to a graduate’s career in engineering.

Is lecture attendance just a flip of a coin?

2012

BACKGROUND In the sciences, the content of sequential lectures is often planned under the assumption that the majority of students present in the class have attended the previous sessions. To some extent, students are expected to be able to recall and understand the previously delivered content. During a study into the effectiveness of a novel lecture engagement strategy (Interactive Lecture Demonstrations, or ILDs) in a first-year introductory electronics unit (Mazzolini, Daniel, & Edwards, 2012), student-generated codes were used to anonymously track individual students’ responses to the ILD activities over successive lecture sessions. These codes offered an unintended proxy for attendance, with surprising results. PURPOSE To what extent can lecturers assume that the same set of students attend each lecture, and therefore construct a lecture sequence that builds lecture-by-lecture on previous work? DESIGN/METHOD To enable anonymous tracking of student responses over multiple lectu...

Assessing final year engineering projects (FYEPs) ensuring learning and teaching standards and AQF8 outcomes : final report 2015 /

2015

Sustainable Project-Based Learning: A More Practical Approach

Journal of Engineering Education Transformations, 2021

Project Based Learning Symposium: Preparing Students for the Workplace

Project Based Learning has received a lot of attention among educators around the world over the last decades. Different variations, models, and perspectives on Problem and Project Based Learning have emerged and led to approaches such as “Problem-Oriented and Project-Based Learning” and “Problem-Based Project-Organized Learning”. The common focus of the different Project Based Learning variations and models is triggering the students’ learning process by a more or less vague project scenario taken from a real life situation or similar to situations students will find at the workplace. This supports active and student centered learning based on challenges rather than learning discrete subjects. The “Project Based Learning Symposium: Preparing Students for the Workplace” was an initiative of the Center for Project Based Learning in the School of Engineering at the Australian College of Kuwait. The symposium aimed at bringing together engineering educators, industrial employers and engineering students in order to exchange experiences and perspectives on Project Based Learning. The Australian College of Kuwait is one of the leading institutions of higher education in the Middle East that utilizes a Project Based Learning approach in Engineering Education. Although Project Based Learning approaches have been applied for a long time in various disciplines and different geographic regions, Project Based Learning is still a new learning approach in the Middle East. Project Based Learning in the School of Engineering at the Australian College of Kuwait has been continually adjusted over the last years, in order to accommodate for the local and regional needs. The accumulated insights gained are based on both research related to active learning and practical experience with the Project Based Learning approach. The papers of this proceeding were presented during the symposium and allowed insights into the practical application of Project Based Learning to various undergraduate engineering courses (seven papers), the relationship between industrial entrepreneurial skills and Project Based Learning (two papers), an institutional approach to ensure continual improvement of a Project Based Learning model (one paper), and the challenges involved in Project Based Learning team formations (one paper). I hope these papers will inspire the reader and contribute to further and fruitful reflections on Project Based Learning in the Middle East and beyond.

Designing Reflective Assessment for Workplace Learning in Legal Education

Faculty of Law, 2007

Balancing Pedagogy and Student Experience in First-Year Engineering Courses

2007

Student Engagement in Project-based Courses in First Year Chemical Engineering at RMIT University

Proceedings of the 2005 …, 2005

Abstract: In late 2001, RMIT Engineering embarked on a project to renew all undergraduate programs as capability driven curricula. The Bachelor of Chemical Engineering was renewed in 2004 and a new first year introduced in 2005. New project-based learning courses have been ...

Evaluation and assessment of problem-based and case-based learning in the Mining Education Australia (MEA) collaborative initiative

A conference for university teachers, 2007

Simulating Industry: An Innovative Software Engineering Capstone Design Course

To be presented at the 43rd Annual Frontiers in Education (FIE) Conference

Universities are required to produce graduates with good technical knowledge and ‘employability skills’ such as communication, team work, problem-solving, initiative and enterprise, planning, organizing and self-management. The capstone software development course described in this paper addresses this need. The course design contains three significant innovations: running the course for two cohorts of students in combination; requiring students to be team members in 3rd year and team leaders in their 4th (final) year; and providing assessment and incentives for individuals to pursue quality work in a group-work environment. The course design enables the creation of a simulated industrial context, the benefits of which go well beyond the usual, well-documented benefits of group project work. In order to deliver a successful outcome, students must combine academic theory and practical knowledge whilst overcoming the day-to-day challenges that face project teams. Course design enables the blending of university-based project work and work-integrated learning in an innovative context to better prepare students for participating in, and leading, multi-disciplinary teams on graduation. Outcomes have been compellingly positive for all stakeholders – students, faculty and industry partners.