We are happy to announce the following keynote speakers who have accepted our invitation:
Andrew Jamison, Professor, Aalborg University, Denmark: Fostering a Hybrid Imagination - Using PBL to Teach Engineers About Society:
Since the early 1980s, Aalborg University has provided instruction in “technology, humanity and society” for all first year students in educational programs in science and engineering. The instruction has involved both lectures, as well as advising within a framework of problem-based learning in relation to student projects. In the talk I will briefly tell the story of our “contextual knowledge” teaching, with some examples drawn from recent experiences in such fields as medialogy, biotechnology, and nanotechnology. Using concepts that have been presented in my book, Hubris and Hybrids (Routledge 2005), written with Mikael Hård, I will discuss our efforts as representing an attempt to foster a hybrid imagination as a way to tame the hubris that is so much a part of contemporary scientific and technological development.
CV:
Andrew Jamison is docent in theory of science at the University of Gothenburg where he received his doctorate in 1983, and, since 1996, professor of technology, environment and society at the Department of Development and Planning at Aalborg University. He has been teaching and writing about science, technology and society for over 30 years and is the co-author, with Mikael Hård of Hubris and Hybrids. A Cultural History of Technology and Science (Routledge 2005). He has served on the board of the European Association of Study of Science and Technology (EASST) and as coordinator of the EU and Nordic project, Public Participation and Environmental Science and Technology Policy Options (PESTO).
Prof. Roger G. Hadgraft, University of Melbourne, Australia: PBL, Sustainability and Future Engineering Skills
Our world faces many challenges – climate change, drought, flooding, poverty, urban slums, water shortages, severe pollution, substance abuse, homelessness, profligate resource use, megacities, peak oil, land salinity, AIDS, malaria, and so on. It is already acknowledged that we are consuming the earth’s resources faster than natural systems can recycle them.
What sorts of engineers do we need to be educating for the 21st century? What capabilities will they need? What will be their focus? How will we prepare them to deal with these complex, emergent problems?
We need a new focus for engineering, recognising that solving technical problems is no longer enough. In fact, many of the predicaments we now face will not be solved by technical means, but by social means. If engineers are to play a role in these issues, they will need much more than technical skills. They must be skilled in four areas of expertise – the triple bottom line (economic, social and environmental) plus the technical.
Problem-based learning provides a way to educate these new engineers. Rather than start in first year with loads of engineering science, we start by building PBL process skills through a first project. (We may also be doing some parallel processing in engineering science). As the students’ process skills mature, their ability to learn technical skills increases rapidly. Students’ knowledge grows quickly and develops in unexpected ways. Those of us experienced in PBL have experienced the emergent nature of learning in the PBL way. A project never runs the way I expect. It’s always much better and more interesting as students’ real talents emerge!
CV:
Roger Hadgraft is a civil engineer with more than 15 years involvement in engineering education research. He has published many papers on engineering education, with a particular focus on problem/project-based learning and the use of technology to support learning in this way. He was instrumental in introducing a project-based curriculum into civil engineering at Monash University, commencing in 1998. From 2002-6, his work at RMIT was in curriculum renewal to embed graduate capabilities, specifically through a stream of project-based courses/subjects in civil, chemical and environmental engineering. He has consulted on PBL to several Universities, nationally and internationally. Roger has been a member of the Australasian Association for Engineering Education (AAEE) Executive since 2001 and is its 2008 President. In February 2007, Roger was appointed at the University of Melbourne as Director of the Engineering Learning Unit to assist in the introduction of the new Melbourne Model in engineering, to support new project-based learning courses and new learning spaces and to improve teaching quality across the Melbourne School of Engineering.
Prof. Mariane FRENAY, University of Louvain, Belgium: Implementation of PBL – development of skills, knowledege and acedemic staff
In spite of the growing popularity of Instructional practices inspired by Problem-Based Learning (PBL), evidence regarding the efficacy of PBL to improve student achievement is mitigated and mostly limited to medical education.
In this lecture, I will report on a four-year research project assessing the implementation of a problem- and project-based curriculum in a School of Engineering in Belgium, both at the students’ level (changes in students’ knowledge and skills) and at the academic staff level (perceptions of changes and engagement).
The results suggest that students attending the PBL curriculum have developed new skills and better knowledge base compared to students from the previous curriculum. When comparing perceptions of the learning environment, self-efficacy, goal orientations, self-regulation strategies, study strategies, and satisfaction among engineering students before and after that shift, from a lecture-based to a problem- and project-based curriculum, results of multivariate analyses show that PBL students perceived stronger academic support and weaker organizational structure.
They also report using more adaptive self-regulation strategies, using deeper processing strategies rather than surface ones, lower satisfaction and higher attendance. No differences were found for motivational beliefs.
Moreover, perceptions of instructional practices mediate most of the observed differences between cohorts.
Survey data from teachers and students support the idea that the introduction of this new curriculum was associated with real changes in instructional practices: more coordination between teachers from different disciplines, increased teachers engagement in staff development, more coaching of the students, more contextualization of teaching.
Finally, I will also discuss main issues raised by implementing this new curriculum and its sustainability on the long term, in a changing university environment.
CV:
Mariane Frenay is a professor in the Faculty of Psychology and Education at the Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium and received her PhD in Instructional Psychology in 1994. She is an active researcher in the field of higher education teaching and learning and faculty development, and since 2001, she is part of the UNESCO Chair of university teaching and learning of her university.
As such she has been involved in numerous research and development projects, aimed at building the teaching and learning capacity and assessing the impact on motivation and learning of innovative instructional practices. She publishes regularly on those issues both in French and English. She is currently the president of the European Network for research on innovation in higher education (RERIES), the European branch of the GUNI from UNESCO and past president of the Francophone Associatin of Comparative Education (AFEC). She has been teaching for several years in the Masters and the doctoral program in Psychology and Education. She is also involved in faculty development activities in Belgium and elsewhere.
Prof. Denis Bédard, University of Sherbrooke, Canada: Comparing PBL Models
The researchers at the Center for Research in Higher Education (Centre d’études et de recherche en enseignement supérieur) at the University of Sherbrooke, Canada, have conducted research in the field of engineering education. More specifically, they have focused on studying the effects of Innovative Project and Problem-Based Learning environments on both students and teachers. Three engineering programs (Mechanical, Computer and Electrical), where different PBL models have been implemented, will be considered. I will first attempt to answer the following question: What are the impacts of PBL on students’ and teachers’ perceptions (cognitive and emotional levels), over time? Data that will be presented considers the learning activities taking place in the classroom. Then, I will take a more comprehensive, curricular view of PBL to attempt to show which factors better predict engineering students’ engagement and persistence. It is here assumed that the PBL curriculum represents a distinct “player” as such in students’ learning experience, beyond what is going on at the classroom level.
CV:
Denis Bédard is a professor in the Department of Pedagogy at the University of Sherbrooke, Canada. Dr. Bédard received a Ph.D. from McGill University in Educational Psychology in 1993. He has been active as a researcher in the field of Higher Education Teaching and Learning, more specifically interested by the role of context on knowledge acquisition. His work has earned him the « Glen L. Martin Best Paper Award » of the American Society for Engineering Education in 1997. He is currently the director of the Centre for Research in Higher Education (CERES) at the University of Sherbrooke (http://projets.gel.usherbrooke.ca/ceres). He is also the vice-president of the European Network for research on Innovation in Higher Education (RERIES). Having published regularly both in French and in English, Dr. Bédard has also been teaching both in Canada and in Europe to students on the pedagogical tools they will need to have has teachers in Higher Education.