Critical thinking of engineering students through an ...

Critical thinking of engineering students through an active learning experience at primary school Federico Davoine1, Elisa Rocha2, Laura Aspirot3, Cecilia Stari4 Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de la República, Uruguay 1 [email protected], 2 [email protected], 3 [email protected], 4 [email protected]

ABSTRACT Keywords - Students changing educative roles, Basic physics at school, Transverse skills, Active learning at the beginning of the career “Kujenga - Science at the School” is an active learning experience in engineering education from Universidad de la República, Uruguay. Its main objectives are: collaborate with primary school teachers in Physics and Mathematics; develop transverse skills of engineering students like critical thinking, communication, creativity, interdisciplinary teamwork, etc. The experience is validated as an optional course for students from computer sciences, electrical and mechanical engineering. Few years ago, primary school programs have changed steeply, adding more contents in sciences, like electricity and probability in 5th grade (11 year old children). However, primary school teachers are not specifically prepared to work with those topics. Hence, they are very afraid of making experimental activities in class, given that they do not feel sure with sciences. The final outcome is that they normally avoid working with sciences like physics. Kujenga was born in 2011, as a project from the university to collaborate with primary school teachers in science education. From May to July several organizational tasks (making agreements with primary school authorities and teachers, obtaining financial support from university) were done by engineering teachers. After that, Kujenga was proposed as an optional course in the second semester 2011, being taken by 13 students, most of them freshmen. There were weekly meetings between engineering teachers and students, where contents and methodology for working with children were discussed. Students were arranged in 3 groups and entrusted with planning 4 hour workshops related with a specific topic. They had to seek and choose experimental activities for working with physics and mathematics, and then to prove and prepare them. They designed hands-on for children and coordinated with primary school teachers, who were in charge of some introductory activities before workshops. Each group of engineering students worked with one group of 5th grade in the school, with the collaboration of teachers, implementing 3 workshops (magnetism, electricity and probability). Students were encouraged to be autonomous when planning and implementing workshops. Weekly meetings were designed for discussing and sharing their work. Nevertheless, they were not quite autonomous at the beginning of the course, depending on engineering teachers for choosing activities and devising the whole workshops. Gradually, they have become more confident on themselves, improving their organization and communication skills. They have developed a critical point of view with regard to their work with children and primary school teachers. At the end, it was clear that they were very engaged with their work, being proactive and responsible when planning the activities. Students were evaluated on their performance planning and implementing the workshops, both individually and in groups. They had to make reports, evaluating their work at the school. Primary school teachers made an assessment of the whole activity too, in order to improve it in the future.

An active learning approach to education in MRI technology for the biomedical engineering curriculum Lars G. Hanson Technical University of Denmark [email protected]

Keywords: magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), education, evaluation, Bloch simulator software Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is an important part of the biomedical engineering curriculum. It is challenging, however, to give students an intuitive understanding of the basic magnetic resonance phenomenon and a sample of the many MRI techniques. Whereas compact mathematical descriptions of MRI techniques can be made, students are typically left with no intuitive understanding unless the common sense expressed in the math is in focus. Unfortunately, the nuclear vector dynamics happen in four dimensions, and are therefore not well suited for illustration on blackboard. 3D movies are more appropriate, but they do not encourage active learning. The typical solution employed by educators is hand waving (literally), since arm motions can to a limited extent be used to illustrate vector dynamics. Students may find this confusing, however, and students who do not grasp the meaning during lectures, are left in a bad position. For this reason, educational software was developed over the last decade. It is freely available and can be run directly from the software homepage http://www.drcmr.dk/bloch that also links to popular YouTube software presentations aimed at those who have already gotten a first introduction to MRI concepts. The software is mainly aimed at educators for interactive demonstration of MRI techniques but can also be used for student exercises which may significantly improve the understanding of MRI concepts. This paper introduces software made for the first few minutes of MRI education but focuses mostly on the educational value of the more advanced Bloch Simulator. It is explored how, and to what extent, active learning based on the software may improve student understanding. An interactive teaching session on advanced topics (pulse types, the Fourier relationship, selectivity) was evaluated using pre- and post-lecture anonymous questionnaires. These subjects are challenging and significant, and it was hypothesized that the approach may improve student understanding considerably. Though rigorous testing of the benefit over traditional teaching was not within the scope of the project, indications of improved skills were found, and the student satisfaction was good. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is an important part of the biomedical engineering curriculum. It is challenging, however, to give students an intuitive understanding of the basic magnetic resonance phenomenon and a sample of the many MRI techniques. Whereas compact mathematical descriptions of MRI techniques can be made, students are typically left with no intuitive understanding unless the common sense expressed in the math is in focus. Unfortunately, the nuclear vector dynamics happen in four dimensions, and are therefore not well suited for illustration on blackboard. 3D movies are more appropriate, but they do not encourage active learning. The typical solution employed by educators is hand waving (literally), since arm motions can to a limited extent be used to illustrate vector dynamics. Students may find this confusing, however, and students who do not grasp the meaning during lectures, are left in a bad position.

Hunting Pseudomonas A. A bridging education and talent development program Lene Krøl Andersen, Anders Bech Bruntse and Lars Jelsbak DTU Systems Biology, Denmark [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]

Keywords: Junior high school, High school education, University research, Talent development, Cystic Fibrosis

Hunting Pseudomonas A. is a cross institutional, teaching and talent development program. It was established at the Technical University of Denmark, Institute of Systems Biology in collaboration with Biotech Academy, Science Talents , the Academy for Young Talents (ATU)and funded by the NTS-center . The aim of Hunting Pseudomonas A. is to solve the mysteries behind the recurrent lung infections in patients suffering from the genetic disease Cystic fibrosis. Alongside, the goal of this educational program is to enhance the knowledge within the area of microorganisms, their evolution and distribution in Nature. This goal is to be reached through a cross institutional teaching and educational program for junior high school students (8th and 9th grades), high school students (12th graders/2. G.) and university students, in close collaboration with real researches at the Technical University of Denmark. A scientific teaching program, suited for the 8th and 9th graders, using the soil bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa is developed and integrated in the present teaching in 20 high schools in Denmark. These students will alongside their theoretical teaching sessions, also have practical sessions where they will collect the actual Pseudomonas aeruginosa Bacteria from the environment. The students will identify their respective collection sites for the bacteria through qualified guesses based on their knowledge obtained through the program. The collected samples will be sent to the researchers at DTU where they will be screened and further analysed by high school students visiting the university. The junior high school process will be ending with a big Talent Development Conference at DTU where the best Pseudomonas hunter will be celebrated. In order to participate in this conference each class will have to send their best poster, illustrating what they have learned and how their work can help solve the mysteries of the lung infections caused by Pseudomonas aeruginosa in patients suffering from cystic fibrosis. Sponsors have ensured great prizes to be won by these enthusiastic 8th and 9th graders. Hunting Pseudomonas A. is a unique educational program that easily can be repeated within other research topics and implemented into the educational system at various levels of difficulty. It is a new way of doing explorative research and gathering empirical data, while at the same time spreading the inspiration of the topic in focus throughout the schools or institutions involved.

Using role-play to think about ethical issues in engineering education Miguel Romá Romero and Josep David Ballester Berman University of Alicante, Spain, [email protected], [email protected]

Keywords – Active learning, Generic Competences.  Rationale o Background. It is assumed that promoting the reflection about ethical issues, as well as any other generic competence, is essential in the learning process of the future engineer. Notwithstanding, the relevance of technical knowledge leaves no room in the syllabus for specific development of transverse competences. As an example of this situation, a new telecommunication engineering degree syllabus has been developed at the University of Alicante. One of the objectives that can be read in it states “the ethical responsibility of engineering work” as a competence to be obtained by students. However, there is no course, neither compulsory nor elective, about ethical issues. An activity has been designed to both serve as a diagnosis of the degree in which ethics is taken into account in the degree and to fill the gap if it is found. o

Explanation. Students explicitly want to discuss about ethics and critical thinking in engineering and engineering education, as conclude in the Board of European Students of Technology Symposium (Madrid-2006). When there is no course on ethics, any activity proposed to work about this topic will be accepted positively by the students.

o

Set-up. Students are organized into “discussion groups”, and each group has to face up one specific engineering topic in which ethics are involved. The activity is organized as a role-play in which students have to defend a given point of view, not necessarily concordant whit their own one. New groups are formed including a member of each “discussion group” to summarize.

 Expected outcomes/results. At the diagnosis stage, a profound gap has been found between students’ relevance perception of ethical issues and the degree in which these issues have been treated in the degree. Performing the activity with first year students delivers interesting discussions. Even though the activity has been designed to be implemented in the context of any course both at classroom or laboratory, best results will be obtained in sessions with lower number of students (problems or laboratory session).

An Interactive Exploration of Gender and Engineering: Unpacking the Experience Debbie Chachra, Caitrin Lynch, Alisha L. Sarang-Sieminski, Lynn Andrea Stein, Yevgeniya V. Zastavker Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, USA [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] ABSTRACT Keywords – gender, engineering, student experience, schemas, identity

I BACKGROUND The engineering student experience is understood to be different for male and female students: including lower numbers of women enrolled in engineering programs (Sax 2008), lower selfconfidence among these women (Chachra 2009), and lower retention rates (Seymour and Hewitt 1997). We have been investigating how best to make engineering students and educators aware of issues relating to gender, identity, and privilege, including facilitating workshops at ALE and elsewhere, speaking to students at our own and other institutions, researching the student experience, and offering a co-curricular discussion series at Olin College. To disseminate this work more broadly, we have developed a ‘Gender Discussion Exploration Kit,’ which can be used by faculty and others to facilitate interactive discussions around these themes at their own institution. In this session, we will give ALE attendees the opportunity to experience this Kit/set of activities and to focus on the issues that it raises for participants. A complementary session, “An Interactive Exploration of Gender and Engineering: Feedback and Development,” has also been proposed, with a separate abstract, in which we will focus on equipping participants with skills necessary to use this Kit in their own classrooms and institutions and on improving the Kit itself.

II SESSION INFORMATION Rationale: The purpose of this activity is to introduce participants to the concepts of gender schemas, privilege, and identity through a range of interactive activities, including brainstorming and a structured discussion. By drawing on the personal experiences of the participants and encouraging them to share these experiences with others, we will further explore, understand, and cement the relevant concepts. Participants will fill out a brief feedback form asking them to reflect on their experience in the session and what they learned. They will also be invited to the follow-up Feedback and Development session, to share their feedback on the overall design of the experience. Materials required will include: the Gender Discussion Exploration Kit (provided), index cards, markers, and a projector and screen. Expected outcomes: At the end of this session, all participants will have a greater understanding of how gender schemas and privilege affect the experiences of both male and female students in engineering programs (as well as in the world at large.) Feedback from similar sessions suggests that this is a transformative experience that provides many participants with a new lens to view their own experiences.

REFERENCES Chachra D, Kilgore D (2009): Exploring gender and self-confidence in engineering students: a multimethod approach. Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference, Austin, TX. Sax L (2008): The Gender Gap in College. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA, USA. Seymour E, Hewitt NM (1997): Talking About Leaving. Westview Press, Boulder, CO, USA.

Didactic Engineering Applied to Control System Learning: Ball And Beam, Stability and Equilibrium Concepts Francisco Tamayo Colombia Universidad de los Andes; [email protected] Michael Canu France École de Mines de Nantes; [email protected] Mauricio Duque Colombia Universidad de los Andes; [email protected]

Keywords: Control system teaching, Didactic engineering, Control system misconceptions, Conceptual change Learning centered on teacher’s presentation followed by some application exercises (strategy very common in engineering courses), presents important limitations when dealing with understanding of central discipline concepts, in particular, in subjects related to physics topics. Particularly, in this field several studies have shown the persistence, even after instruction, of inappropriate conceptions that remain. In consequence students have problems when they try to solve novel situations. The "classic" courses may train students well in solution pattern of typical exercises, but wouldn’t seem to promote profound understanding that allow them to approach new problems less structured than exercises. One of the well-studied concepts, that frequently present erroneous conceptions (also called misconceptions or naïve conceptions) are those that characterize movement, force, work, energy, or feedback, in mechanical system field. However few studies exist about equilibrium and stability misconceptions or misunderstandings in mechanical dynamic systems like those used in engineers control courses. If basic inquiry activities are introduced based on didactic investigation and designed from a didactic engineering point of view, it is expected to achieve better results in the student understanding in the control systems area when including activities that promote greater probability in conceptual changes. To reach this purpose, one way consists in proposing conceptual related situations to students. Indeed, studies show that to make operational most of theoretical concepts it seems to be important to show the links between several situations, chosen for their representativeness, where those concepts take place and are clarify. Starting from erroneous conceptions studies related to two mechanical unstable systems chosen for conceptual nearness, a set of activities based on hands-on with selected materials were proposed that allow students to work directly with identified erroneous conceptions. In order to evaluate the activity impact, standardized tests were applied to different groups of students (In particular for the course in which the activities were implemented, a pre-test and two post-tests were performed at the end of the activities and a month later). The performed tests showed that “traditional” courses seem to be ineffective to change typical mistaken conceptions; however when students participate in the design activities applied tests showed important evolution in the conceptions for most students.

DTU Brew House: A Framework for Promoting Active Learning Inside and Outside the Curriculum Timothy Hobley, Preben Hansen and Anders Nielsen Technical University Denmark [email protected]

Keywords: extra-curricular activities, practical experiments All university students have a passion for something about their education and one of the jobs of the teacher is to help nurture and promote that passion whenever it is discovered. If the students can pursue their particular passion, they will by necessity apply their knowledge, discover the limitations of their competencies and seek to improve them so that they can better follow their particular interest. This means that the students will automatically progress through the different levels of Blooms taxonomy and come to learn the subjects in a far deeper way by relating it to their own experience of its application. In traditional educational settings, the only time this passion and enthusiasm has a chance to come into the light is during a bachelor or masters research thesis. This is especially true for students that are captivated by the so-called ‘wet’ experimental disciplines where access to advanced labs, potentially dangerous and expensive chemicals and equipment is necessary. But it can also be true for students with an interest in other areas, such as in silico modeling, where access to data bases, servers and computing power may be needed. The DTU Brew House has been developed to provide a generic framework which gives students with different interests an environment where they can explore them at their own level in an experimental way during the entire length of their university education. Beer (and fermented beverages in general) is something that has universal appeal to engineering students in western countries, and in fact many have tried to brew themselves at home. Furthermore, the beer brewing process is a polytechnic discipline involving most aspects of engineering, from raw materials processing, fermentation with microorganisms, enzyme and chemical reactions, unit operations, heat and mass transfer and mixing, process control, materials, energy, buildings and design, waste treatment and environment, sustainability etc., etc. It is thus of relevance to most engineering students who wish to pursue their own interests. The DTU Brew House is also used actively in the curriculum of traditional teaching activities such as practical courses on unit operations and food analysis, as well as bachelor and masters research theses. The core of the activities centers around a small microbrewery (200 L fermentations) on campus. It is led on a daily basis by a food technician experienced in brewing, an associate professor who provides formal project supervision and a central student who shows particular enthusiasm. As the central student nears the end of their education, a new one is selected to take over. The activities are rooted in a scientific research environment, nevertheless, the experience after ca. 3 years has been that some of the students go far beyond the curriculum of a particular subject and of their educational or research program, learning a variety of desirable professional competences that can otherwise be difficult to teach, such as management, professional ethics, intellectual property, collaboration across hierarchies, public relations and working with governmental regulatory authorities (e.g. health department and tax department). Other students at the start of their educations are allowed to embark upon hardcore Ph.D. level research problems such as studying the effect of fermentation environmental conditions on gene regulation, metabolite formation and beer taste. Others wish to apply the knowledge from courses to not only understand why something they have unsuccessfully tried at home has failed, but to implement under scientific conditions their newly synthesized ideas for a new way to conduct it (e.g. sake fermentation with added enzymes). Still others wish to select from a catalogue of project ideas which can be presented to them. In this way the DTU Brew House is able to cater to students at their own level and give them the opportunity to actively learn in a way that really interests them.

Developing active and significant activities to assist the interpretation of kinematic graphs Véra Lúcia Da Fonseca Mossmann, Giovani Luis Rech and José Arthur Martins Brazil University of Caxias do Sul [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]

Keywords: Active and meaningful learning, Engineering Education, Physics Education The involvement of students in the teaching-learning projects is proving increasingly effective. Participation is more intense when they interact with someone or something that is potentially significant for their interest, therefore, leading them to a higher level of abstraction. One of the skills required for understanding the contents of physics is the construction and interpretation of graphs. Being able to extract information from a graph is an ability of scientists and teachers, but often poorly understood by students. Graphs of the kinematics, i.e., graphs of position, velocity and acceleration versus time are usually the first one worked on physics course. Giving students means to learn how to interpret and use them as one of the possible representations of physical phenomena not only contributes to the learning of kinematics, but also for further learning of other content. From the difficulties encountered by fresh man students of engineering programs at the University of Caxias do Sul in understanding the concepts of movement it was developed an activity of interpretation of graphs. This activity was performed in the mechanics lab during the years of 2010 and 2011 with the participation of 210 students. In the beginning, the teacher asked a student to walk in the room uniform steps. For it was necessary to discuss where the origin is and what trajectory direction is. Afterwards, students were invited to individually represent such situations in the position versus time and speed versus time graphs. The teacher collected the charts and then invited another student to perform the next activity. By using a motion sensor connected to a computer interface to build real-time graphs of position versus time. The origin was determined as the position where the sensor was. The student then stood for a time interval, and the sensor was triggered to record the data. The graph constructed by the software was presented and compared to the students` graph made in the first activity. Then, with the student walking away from the source, the sensor plotted the data and a printed copy of the graph was given to each student. Once more, it was compared the before and after graphs made by each. It was asked to the students to make the adjustment using the appropriate mathematical function, in addition, participants were also asked to calculate the slope of the line and questioned whether there was a physical meaning to this value. The activity was repeated with the student is about 2.0 m away from the sensor. When done with the activity in the classroom, the teacher conducted a review with students the graphs made by them. According to Perrenoud (2000), it is important to work with students' conceptions, Talk to them so that the subject to be worked has a meaning in their daily lives. Through conversation with the students, it was found that there was an understanding of the objectives of the proposed activity and its involvement with the activities of the Engineer. Based on the results obtained, it can be concluded that most students could learn skills such as: the ability to observe and order events, interpret data and draw conclusions and think critically and develop a spirit of team work. The training of new engineers with different skills is essential for scientific and technological development of any country. Hence arises the need to change the current applied method in teaching physics, making it more attractive to the eyes of students and develop the skills needed for future engineers. Perrenoud, Ph.: As Dez Novas Competências para Ensinar. Porto Alegre, Editora Artmed, 2000. 192p.

Bringing Fermentation and Enzyme Kinetics Experiments from University into the High School Class Room Timothy Hobley and Kim Ottow Technical University Denmark [email protected] Christian Borregaard and Solvejg Pedersen Lyngby Technical High School, Denmark

Keywords: high school, engineering education, practical exercises Teaching fundamental science and engineering concepts at high schools in Denmark is usually relegated to theoretical explanations and exercises due to the lack of basic experimental equipment. When combined with limited teaching time there is a risk that even the most enthusiastic pupils will mistakenly think they have fully comprehended what is being taught but in reality have not seen the full picture. There is thus a considerable risk that the pupils and teachers believe that they have advanced from the bottom rungs of Blooms taxonomy to the highest, but in fact have not. One of the most telling illustrations of this is that it is frequently observed that even the most basic of calculations (e.g. calculating the volume of a pre-culture to add to a fermenter to give a desired starting cell concentration) thwart pupils in the final years of high school, not because they cannot do the mathematics (simple multiplication and division), but because they do not understand how to apply their knowledge to formulate the equation needed. Such experiences can, on the one hand prove perplexing and embarrassing for the pupils, but on the other hand forces them to apply their knowledge in a new way. Conducting real experiments in the lab allows the students to see the full picture and how to apply their knowledge. It then becomes possible for the pupils to understand, investigate and use more complicated concepts in a very short space of time. However, for many high school teachers the only option is to ally themselves with universities who are willing to commit the time and resources to not only develop and conduct experimental exercises, but to also understand the basics of the high school curriculum and the pupils’ level of understanding. In this presentation we discuss how fermentation and enzyme kinetic experiments conducted at university allow high school pupils to understand and apply a wide range of fundamental engineering, chemistry, mathematical and biological concepts. Two groups, each with 9 teams of 4 high school students (i.e. 18 teams in all) conducted a one day experiment in which wild type Bacillus licheniformis fermentations in 1 L fermenters were done as well investigating Michaelis Menten enzyme kinetics of pure B.licheniformis protease. Different conditions such as temperature and pH were investigated by each team, leading to a large combined data set for each group. Each team analyzed their own data using the spreadsheet Excel. It was found that at first this proved too challenging for the pupils, but following a workshop to explain how to treat the data, the teams were able to complete it. In this way, the pupils directly applied their knowledge of biology and mathematics to model the growth kinetics and enzyme kinetics for their system. They moved from simply plotting raw data to analyzing and extracting the most important parts for further treatment, which subsequently allowed them to understand and apply a simple verbal model to explain their observations. Subsequently the combined data set for each group of 9 teams was examined, leading to new understanding for the pupils of how temperature and pH affect growth and reaction kinetics. Evaluation of the pupils’ experiences led to revision of the exercises and they now focus on fermentations with genetically modified brewing yeast producing a glucoamylase and examination of glucoamylase kinetics.

Measuring the impact of active learning activities in the apprehension of knowledge. Jair Eduardo Rocha González Universidad Militar Nueva Granada, Colombia, [email protected] Carlos Andrés Arango Londoño Universidad de la Salle, Colombia, [email protected] Hernando Alexander Gutiérrez Universidad de la Salle, Colombia, [email protected] Keywords - Design of experiments, linear programming, active learning

The measurement and monitoring of learning processes play a fundamental role in the activities of improving the work of teaching, as they allow the evaluation of various methods and devices according to the level of efficiency in the transmission of knowledge and apprehension the students. This work suggested methods for the evaluation of the apprehension of knowledge through the use of two tools of teaching: conventionally class and active learning techniques as an alternative and innovative fun. The proposal consists of a methodology which assessed the impact of the implementation of active learning in engineering courses. This is done by using appropriate statistical tools such as own methods of experimental design, with which they seek in a scientific manner the effect on learning of the two pedagogic devices mentioned before. Once completed, the proposed activity aims to design a methodology to assess the apprehension of knowledge through the use of statistical techniques of experimental design. (conventionally class and active learning techniques) The work consists of several stages. Initially, an active learning activity is selected in such a way that will be suitable for the experiment. After that, it is determined a statistical process and allocation of sampling units to ensure internal and external validity of the experiment as a replication for the evaluation of the two educational tools presented. Account shall be taken formulate a completely randomized design appropriated and the application of a census instrument which takes into account the skills required and the learning goals set before and after the experiment.

A Survey of Active Learning in Brazilian Engineering Schools Valquíria Villas-Boas Universidade de Caxias do Sul, Brazil, [email protected] Octavio Mattasoglio Neto Centro Universitário do Instituto Mauá de Tecnologia - Escola de Engenharia Mauá- Brazil, [email protected] Luiz Carlos de Campos Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, Brazil, [email protected] Benedito Guimarães Aguiar Neto Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, Brazil, [email protected] Keywords: Active learning strategies, Engineering Education, Brazilian survey. The new requirements for the professional profile of an engineer place demands for new methodologies, differentiated pedagogical approaches and a more consistent vision of the teaching-learning process in order to form a critical and efficient professional that generates knowledge in his/her area. In this situation, active learning and active learning methods, stand out and have been receiving increasing attention from educators in many countries, because they constitute one of the possible responses to the new educational demands of the engineering programs. This main objective of this paper is to determine the state of the art of the work in Active Learning in Engineering Education in Brazil and research efforts in this area, as well as to map the researchers involved in this type of teaching-learning approach. The ultimate aim is to create a collaborative network to exchange experiences and build a foundation for this line of research in the Brazil. Considering the Active Learning strategies: Problem/Project/Process or Practice based Learning (P3BL), Peer Instruction, Think-Pair-Share, In-Class Exercise Teams, Cooperative Note-Taking Pairs, Guided Reciprocal Peer Questioning, Thinking Aloud Pair Problem-Solving, Minute Paper, Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT), it was possible to do a survey of Brazilian engineering schools that use these strategies in their programs and to identify the results obtained from their use, from the reports of those who conducted the courses with these strategies. UEFS has an undergraduate program in computer engineering almost completely structured with Problem Based Learning. UFJF, UFPA and UCS are using PBL in individual courses and activities. UFJF and USP / São Carlos are altering their pedagogic course projects to adapt them to the strategy of Problem Based Learning. PUC / SP is developing the Biomedical Engineering Program, totally focused on Problem-Based Learning. UNB; PUC / PR; UFSC - Joinville campus, UNESP - Bauru, UFMG and PUC / MG using Project Based Learning. At UCS, a considerable number of professors in basic areas, such as Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics, as well as some from the technical areas are using active learning strategies, such as Peer Instruction, In-Class Exercise Teams, Cooperative Note-Taking Pairs, Thinking-Aloud Pair Problem Solving, Minute Paper, Justin-Time Teaching, Project Oriented Learning and are initiating the use of Problem Based Learning. In the Maua School of Engineering (CEUN-IMT), at PUC-Rio and at the Polytechnic School of USP, ProblemBased Learning and Project Based Learning are used already in the first year, when students of the course “Introduction to Engineering”, are advised to attempt to solve a problem, delimited by the boundary conditions specific to the level of their knowledge. If we take into account the large number of engineering schools in Brazil, we can observe that the engineering education in the country is still extremely focused on traditional approaches of education and that much remains to be done for Brazilian students to have an engineering learning process with autonomy that leads them to think critically and creatively about the knowledge they are building. However, following the papers presented at the Brazilian Congress of Engineering Education (COBENGE) over the recent years, we can see an increasing number of reports of innovative pedagogical experiences, although their authors do not recognize them as active learning strategies.

Pedagogical portfolio, active learning and academic development affecting student learning Elisabeth Saalman, Chalmers University of Technology Division of Engineering Education Research [email protected] ABSTRACT Keywords – pedagogical portfolio, active learning, academic development, teacher training, student learning This paper connects the pedagogical portfolio concept with active learning, academic development and student learning. The paper discusses the incentives, pr ocess, effects and gain - being a teacher - of writing your pedagogical portfolio. This means to start a reflective and active learning process which has potential to affect your future work concerning teaching and learning in order to improve education and student learning. In a pedagogical portfolio the teachers´ pedagogical qualifications are compiled in an organized, current collection of records, reflections and evidence of one´s pedagogical knowledge, attitudes, merits and pedagogical skills. The pedagogical portfolio is used for appointments of staff and staff promotion. Besides this an important reason for keeping a pedagogical portfolio is to improve one´s teaching. Simply reflecting on why you do what you do in teaching is likely to improve your teaching. A key-point in writing your pedagogical portfolio is a statement concerning your pedagogical philosophy and practice of teaching and learning. The pedagogical skill has to do with how you as a teacher carry out your pedagogical tasks. The pedagogical portfolio means an ac tivity that can help the teacher to start to study the pedagogical part of her/his work, for example car rying out formative studies, action research in classroom settings regarding different ways of supporting student active learning. Many universities today have directions how to set up and structure a pedagogical portfolio. The content of a pedagogical portfolio can be described by the following headings: Teaching within undergraduate and postgraduate education; Pedagogical studies and devel opment projects; Pedagogical activities outside the university; Evaluation of teaching contribution from the student perspective; Description and reflection of your own pedagogical activities; Production of teaching aids; Administration and management of education; Relevant subject knowledge; Other pedagogical qualifications; Verification through documentation and referees. When you start to write your pedagogical portfolio there are some personal questions that are useful to reflect on: What have I done being a teacher?; How have I carried out my pedagogical commissions?; Why have I carried out my pedagogical commissions the way I have done?; What results can I see from my pedagogical work?; What pedagogical education/courses have I attended what did I learn – how have I used my knowledge/experiences in my pedagogical work, teaching and learning At Chalmers university of technology the mission of the division of Engineering education research, EER, is to provide pedagogical support and development for Chalmers administrative and academic staff, and the students they serve. Primarily EER fulfill this mission by offering courses to teaching staff and doctoral students. EER offers a Diploma of higher e ducation to participants who have completed courses worth 15 higher education credit points, and submitted an application that contains a reflection of what has been learned in each course. In the Pedagogical project course (6 credit point) specified training is given to the participants in how to write and judge pedago gical portfolios, and involves the understanding and development of a pedagogical portfolio. This will include the keeping of a critical/reflective teaching and learning file that charts and analyses learning incidents from the course and from the participants own teaching, learning and/or supervisory practice. The second part involves a piece of "action research" on a particular question, issue or problem in one's practice. The course aims to develop the participants' ability to critically study a focused part of the own or the department's educational activities. The study can aim at several aspects, e.g. observing elements in teaching, which can be in need of change, follow up of ongoing course development or plan a basis for coming developmental work at first cycle level. The participants´individual work also constitutes the content of the course and is to be examined and discussed within the framework of the course. Note: This submission to ALE 2012 could either be used as a group reflection or be presented as an interactive poster activity.

A Telemedicine System as Platform for Learning within Healthcare Technology Henrik Bechmann, Bo Holst-Christensen, Keld Baden-Kristensen, Klaus Phanareth and John Aa. Sørensen 1,2,3,5: Copenhagen University College of Engineering, Denmark [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] 4: Telemedicine Research Unit, Frederiksberg Hospital, Denmark [email protected] Keywords: Healthcare Technology, interdisciplinary courses, active learning, generic competences, Telemedicine, capturing and processing sensor measurements, pathology dependent processing chain, from physiological sensor to clinical decision, decision support software. The 3.5-year interdisciplinary education program Bachelor of Engineering in Healthcare Technology [1], presently under development and delivered in Danish by the Center for Information Technology and Electronics (CITE) in close cooperation with the Metropolitan University College [2] , consists of a wide selection of subjects, ranging from medical electronics, mathematics, signal- and information processing and analysis and IT, to physiology, anatomy, pathology, psychology, sociology, and interpersonal communication. Such a program requires, a steep learning curve within the core engineering subjects such as medical electronics, physiological measurements and analysis and the closely associated communication path from a patient to a clinical application server hosting clinical decision support software. In this contribution it is suggested to use a telemedicine system [3] as a platform for supporting the above learning process for a selection of the core engineering subjects and for the interdisciplinary subjects. The hypothesis is that a close coupling between the individual subjects and their application at a telemedicine system level will improve the understanding of both the subject and its application in a system context. This hypothesis is presently being investigated within the framework of the programs [1] and [4]. The learning within the above framework will typically take place in groups of students with 3 - 4 participants formed from a class of approx. 20 participants using an environment consisting of a mixture of both simulation and real time capture and analysis of physiological signals. The poster for this contribution will present examples from work in progress of a selection of intra- and interdisciplinary questions, aiming at supporting the students learning. Among others the example questions are related to deciding the necessary physiological sensor analog to digital conversion sampling rates, precisions and required upper limit for bit error rates in the delivery of the measurements to the clinical decision support software for a selection of diseases of relevance to telemedicine applications. The diseases include COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and changes of HRV (heart rate variability) related to specific pathologies. REFERENCES [1] Bachelor of Engineering in Healthcare Technology (in Danish) www.ihk.dk/sundhedsteknologi [2] Metropolitan University College, www.phmetropol.dk [3] The Virtual Hospital, www.virtuellehospital.dk/side/english [4] Summerschool 2012 “Healthcare Technology - Towards a Personalized Healthcare Mass Market” www.ihk.dk/ihk-en/summer-school/health-care-technology