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- Berglund, Anders, et al.
(author)
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Co-creation beyond the expected : LAB environments as mean to enhance learning
- 2015
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Background: Co-creation is a term that has been used to emphasize collaborative learning in design education. Allowing students to develop both hard and soft skills has been demonstrated important to facilitate effective learning [1]. When mixing disciplines with each other it becomes an important catalyzer that allows you to learn in new ways and to tackle perspectives on growing societal challenges and innovation. This paper proposes a curricula design that matches student interdisciplinary learning, design challenges and societal benefit. OpenLab is an initiative to support an interdisciplinary learning approach from the perspective of both lecturers’ and students’ aiming to create innovation in the meeting between medicine, social sciences and engineers. Creation involves empathy and capability to define, ideate, prototype and test. Creation allows prototypes to be made, which are by default presented and interpreted differently by people according to their understanding and frame of reference [2].Purpose: The purpose of this study is to present and the curriculum for a master level course that emphasis and support the creations performed by problem-solving interdisciplinary teams. The subsequent purpose is to position the course design in relation existing best practices that has presented similar challenges of merging the specific methods presented, e.g. Scrum and Design thinking.Design/Methodology: Observational notes and more than 100 student reflections, notes and remarks from more than 30 peer-to-peer faculty internal meetings, international workshops and faculty-student ‘review screenings’ sessions have been used to outline the pros and cons for the presented curriculum.Findings: a unique opportunity to break existing By addressing the process of key elements of the course both scrum and design thinking has been adopted and practiced early up-front in the course. Moreover, initial team building and checkpoints, pre-checks and cultural differences have been reported positive in relation to the possibilities of deepen student project understanding and appreciation.Conclusions: From initial course design and analysis the learning environment provides a catalyzer for learning to be appreciated and acted upon. The design of activities should build on a shared perspective from faculty and motivate students and convincing them to deepen their need for interdisciplinary design.[1] Naveiro, R. M., and de Souza Pereira, R. C., Viewpoint: Design Education in Brazil, Design Studies (2008), 29: 304-312[2] Berglund, A., and Leifer, L., Why we Prototype! An International Comparison of the Linkage between Embedded Knowledge and Objective Learning. Engineering Education (2013) 8(1), 2-15. DOI: 10.11120/ened.2013.000
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- Berglund, Anders, et al.
(author)
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Reforming Engineering Education : Proposing a Change Model for Sustained Impact
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Other publication (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Universities must take swift, targeted, and efficient action to overcome future challenges in engineering education. In particular, good decision-making is required to strengthen the educational efforts that influence students’ learning. Engineering education research has not yet produced a robust framework capable of supporting a systematic approach to implementing change initiatives. In addition, existing pedagogical research provides little guidance on how best to ensure the spread of good practice, and the available evidence indicates that the diffusion of such practices tends to be limited, which reduces their long-term impact. Striving for effective teaching provides a systems change at many universities, still universities seem unable to fully transmit or properly support the adoption of new practices, approaches and methods needed by faculty. This paper presents a model that can be used to guide change efforts and support good practices at times when careful decision-making can have profound long-term consequences.
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- Berglund, Anders, et al.
(author)
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Reforming Engineering Education : A feasibility analysis of Models for Innovation
- 2014
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The capability to innovate is an important skill for engineers, thus stressing the critical issue of educating for innovation at technical universities. This paper investigates the feasibility of four different models for implementing and practicing new content in engineering education. Implementation efforts are looked at revealing systematic constraints and pitfalls, and also evaluating these approaches from the perspective of innovation capabilities and the desired effects from changes in education. The different models can be categorized as bottom-up and top-down approaches depending on actors’ roles in the education system. The top-down and bottom-up approaches are also categorized in accordance to the width of the approaches: programmatic changes with new content in many courses and specialized changes with new courses addressing the desired content and capabilities. A critical analysis is made of the four models intercepting specific learning elements that can be elevated to facilitate innovation in courses and programs. The critical analysis not only relates to educational values, but also relates more specifically to the needs of teaching and training innovation and consequently to developing innovation capabilities. This leads us to discuss the practical epistemologies involved in engineering practice in general and in innovation in particular; engineering as an art and as a science and both are essential. Finally arguments on how to actually reform education are addressed, with attention on leveraging innovation as a key driver to excel and challenge the learning experiences faced by current and future students.
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- Bernhard, Jonte, 1953-, et al.
(author)
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Alternating currents first : Experiences from designing a novel approach to teaching electric circuit theory
- 2016
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In: 44th Annual Conference of the European Society for Engineering Education - Engineering Education on Top of the World. - : European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI). - 9782873520144
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Commonly in electric circuit theory courses, circuit laws are first introduced in the context of direct current (DC) electricity and first thereafter are alternating currents (AC) introduced. The extension of DC-theory to AC is quite easily done mathematically but is conceptually difficult for students. Engineering students have difficulties in understanding phase relationships and phasor representations in AC-electricity. Indeed, it has been suggested that phase should be seen as a threshold concept.PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to investigate if a re-designed introductory electric circuit course could improve students’ understanding of important concepts in AC-electricity.METHOD and COURSE DESIGN: The course was re-designed introducing AC and DC electricity simultaneously. DC was introduced as a special case of AC with requency equals zero. The re-designed course was taught for the first time during the spring semester 2014 and a new textbook was written. A conceptual test was developed and first administered in 2013 to serve as a baseline and in subsequent years to evaluate the revised course. In 2014 the students’ courses of action in selected lab-groups were video-recorded.RESULTS: In the first revision cycle many students had difficulties to complete the labs in time. Students revealed a mixed response towards the revised course and the results on the conceptual test showed neglible improvement. In the second cycle revisions the number tasks were reduced and focus was laid on tasks that were identified as most important for contributing to the development of student understanding. As a result the learning gain improved with an effect size (Cohen’s delta) of 0.56. Also the course and the textbook were very well appreciated. In the third cycle only small revisions are made.CONCLUSION: The results show that that AC-electricity can be taught concurrently with DC. However, two revisions cycles was needed which demonstrates that curriculum development needs a sustained effort over a considerable period of time with continuous revisions in light of gained experiences. In further revision we will continue to refine the labs and to develop appropriate interactive lecture demonstrations for the lectures and to develop the problems.
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- Bernhard, Jonte, 1953-, et al.
(author)
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Analysing and modelling engineering students’ learning in the laboratory : A comparison of two methodologies
- 2015
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In: Proceedings of 6th Research in Engineering Education Symposium (REES 2015). - : Curran Associates, Inc.. - 9781510815575 ; , s. 620-628
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Producing structured, meaningful and useful descriptions (representations) of students’ learning in labs is not straightforward. Two possible approaches are compared here. Students’ courses of action in labs of an electric circuit course were video-recorded, then the activities during the labs were described and analysed using “the learning of a complex concept” (LCC) methodology. Conversations during the full lengths of the same labs were also transcribed verbatim. Subsequent analysis indicates that transcription offers a more detailed representation of the learning and interaction that occurred. However, it is considerably slower than LCC methodology, which can also represent learning in the full length of a lab in some detail. Furthermore, the latter gave a better overview of the analysed labs than transcription and more readily facilitated representation of both learning complexities and linking theory to practice. In conclusion, both methods can play valuable roles in engineering education research, depending on the questions addressed.
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- Bernhard, Jonte, 1953-, et al.
(author)
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Analytical tools in engineering education research : The “learning a complex concept” model, threshold concepts and key concepts in understanding and designing for student learning
- 2011
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In: Research in Engineering Education Symposium, 2011. - Madrid : Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM). - 9788469526156 ; , s. 51-60
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- For a long time, most research relating to science and engineering education has examined “misconceptions” about “single concepts”, despite the fact that one common objective in many subjects is “to learn relationships”. In this paper we introduce the notion of “a complex concept”, i.e. the idea of describing knowledge as a complex, a holistic unit, consisting of interdependent and interrelated “single concepts”. We describe how this conception could be used to identify both problems associated with learning as well potentials for learning. We will also relate the notion of a complex concept to the notion of threshold and key concepts.
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