Opportunities for and Barriers to Innovation in Engineering Education

The 21st Century has brought both tremendous promise and challenge for engineers. The need for sustainable development and growing pressures from automation are some of the societal challenges facing tomorrow’s engineering graduates. Educational institutions must ensure students possess competencies in professional skills, such as adaptability, critical thinking and creativity to thrive in today’s rapidly evolving ecosystem. Continuous improvement in teaching techniques and content will be required to ensure students are prepared for life beyond graduation. Technology-mediated course delivery, blended learning, and project-based learning are promising approaches to work lateral thinking and professional skills into the curriculum; but no new solution comes without drawbacks. It is critical that ongoing research be conducted and documented into the effectiveness of interventions so that informed decisions on course and program design can be made. This work presents findings and experiences of implementing a technical project-based, blended fluid mechanics course; analyzes factors that affected professional skills development indicated by twelve Graduate Attributes. Project-based and blended learning were found to be effective in developing professional skills, however several institutional barriers were identified to the scalability of these approaches. Two self-efficacy surveys were assessed for their reliability, and opportunities were identified for future improvements to be made on several survey questions. Opportunities for the development of professional modules on ethics and equity, professionalism, and lifelong learning were identified. End of term student surveys revealed that as student-centred approaches to teaching and learning increased, student perception of teaching quality decreased and workload increased, indicating a potential barrier to achieving buy-in from tenure-track instructors who rely on student end of term survey results for promotion. Teaching assistant training, resource allocation, risk management, and institutional memory were identified as critical areas requiring interventions for project-based learning to be sustained within the system. This work can be utilized to inform discussions on local program design within the University of Calgary, but the insights and ideas presented are relevant for instructors, institutions, and international initiatives looking to facilitate sustainable educational change across the post-secondary system as well.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science (MSc)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Engineering – Mechanical & Manufacturing

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Schulich School of Engineering

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Meikleham, Alexandra

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Hugo, Ronald J

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Brennan, Robert
• Johnston, Kimberly

• Project-based learning
• Engineering education
• Fluid mechanics education

Statement dc:rights

• University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.

Language dc:language.iso

en

DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/35710

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ucalgary.scholaris.ca:1880/109446