Changing a Culture – A Project Centred Curriculum for Chemical Engineering Education
Educating chemical engineers for coming challenges
Teaching Methods, Techniques & Modules (T6-2)
Keywords: project centred learning, engineering education, cultural change, curriculum innovation
Like no other period in the last 50 years, engineering is in rapid transformation. Engineering education is likewise in a period of reassessment and realignment, driven by a wide range of factors that drive specialisation, globalization and engagement with disparate disciplines. Curriculum innovation is now essential to meet the newly emerging environment. Cultural change in engineering curricula is difficult to achieve but there are significant examples. This paper shows a complete top-down design of a new curriculum which directly addresses a wide range of graduate attributes within a strong systems approach to engineering education.
One approach is the Project Centred Curriculum (PCC) within Chemical Engineering at The University of Queensland, where there is now greater emphasis on creative problem solving through the inclusion of a continuous core of increasingly open-ended project work. Team work, and partnerships: with peers, mentors, and industry are embedded into the learning activities associated with the projects. There are greatly enhanced student-staff interactions and a sense of belonging to a community of learning and a profession. A number of strategies are used, including student team work, team teaching, industry participation and sponsorship of projects, and industry site learning placements. The recurrent themes are; reality and relevance of the project work; and the relationships and networks that support professional development and connect the students to the profession. This impacts strongly and positively on teaching approaches and the learning outcomes of the program. It has provided a major enhancement in the quality of teaching and learning: PCC has met with student acceptance and enthusiasm, accolades by industry, professional engineering societies and adoption by other Australian engineering schools and discipline areas. It has been recognised nationally with a number of awards culminating in a 2005 Australian Award for University Teaching, and it has been acclaimed internationally as an exemplar in engineering education. This is a transformation that has taken 10 years. The paper overviews the achievements and the challenges inherent in designing, delivering and sustaining a project centred curriculum. Critical factors are ownership, assessment and evaluation of change and dissemination of its success.
Presented Monday 17, 15:00 to 15:20, in session Teaching Methods, Techniques & Modules (T6-2).
