Industrial Engagement in Engineering Education to Nurture Smart People Tommy H. Y. Cheung*, a, Billy M. H. Chow a and Frankie Y. C. Leung a a
Department of Engineering, Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education (Haking Wong), Hong Kong SAR *
[email protected]
Abstract Introduction In the end of 2017, the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) of the Government of the Hong Kong SAR released a report of consultancy study on Smart City Blueprint for Hong Kong. The blueprint includes ‘Smart Mobility’, ‘Smart Living’, ‘Smart Environment’, ‘Smart people’, ‘Smart Government’ and ‘Smart Economy’. To co-creating a smarter Hong Kong, there is a necessary to sharpen and nurture students’ practical skills in an authentic “real-world” work experiences. The Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education (IVE) Engineering Discipline of Vocational Training Council (VTC) encourages teaching and learning with the engagement of industry exposure and in a Project-based environment in order to encounter complex systems and processes in a competitive environment. To nurture smart people fit for the future and fulfil the needs of industry, it requires collaboration and good team player skills from engineers working in industry, bringing both theory and practice together in the students’ study. A solar car team project under that philosophy is developed and more than twenty students from electrical and mechanical engineering field participated the team year by year. The project features collaborative teaching and learning where the industry stakeholders and institution supervisors work together to provide practical environment. Design thinking process is adopted to engage and motivate students to learn and develop in the project, which include ‘Empathize’, let student learn about the audience for their designing process; ‘Define’, construct a point of view that is based on user needs and insights; ‘Ideate’, brainstorm and come up with creative solutions; ‘Prototype’, build a representation of one or more of student ideas to show to others and ‘test’, return to original user group and testing their ideas for feedback. This paper would further elaborate how the industry engagement help students in terms of developing important soft skills and their technical capability, which beneficial to their whole person development and hence co-create a smarter Hong Kong. Keywords: Smart people, Industrial Engagement, Project-based environment, Design thinking process
The Smart City Blueprint for Hong Kong issued by the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) of the Government of the Hong Kong SAR is set to build Hong Kong into a world class smarty city, the policy objectives are to make use of innovation and technology (I&T) to address urban challenges, enhance the effectiveness of city management and improve people’s quality of living as well as Hong Kong’s sustainability, efficiency and safety, to enhance Hong Kong’s attractiveness to global businesses and talents, and to inspire continuous city innovation and sustainable economic development. The blueprint made recommendations in six major areas, namely ‘Smart Mobility’, ‘Smart Living’, ‘Smart Environment’, ‘Smart people’, ‘Smart Government’ and ‘Smart Economy’.
Figure 1. Smart City Blueprint of Hong Kong In particular, the goal of ‘Smart people’ is to have more students selecting Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) as their education and professional careers and thus have a local supply of data scientists and other technology practitioners in need, hence having more successful entrepreneurs in their new ventures. To co-creating a smarter Hong Kong, there is a necessary to sharpen and nurture students’ practical skills in an authentic “real-world” work experiences especially in the STEM area. The Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education (IVE) Engineering Discipline of Vocational Training Council (VTC) encourages teaching and learning with the engagement of industry exposure and in a Project-based environment in order to encounter
complex systems and processes in a competitive environment. The higher diploma programme in engineering discipline provides an opportunity for students apply their professional knowledge acquired from the lecture to the real workplace, solving problems that happen in the real world and obtaining working experience before graduation via an authentic working environment with industry partners in a Project-based environment. The scheme stated is Industry-based Student Project (IBSP), which aims to equip students with technical knowledge and help them to get ready for the workplace as well as to facilitate their transition from study to work.
industry assessor, students are able to identify a topic in the industry based on their experiences gained in the workplace. Students are encouraged to build out a prototype of his/ her solution and test it with improved version of these prototypes, and thus the project outcomes are being demonstrated. Throughout the whole process, most of the students realized they cannot simply applying the theory to the workspace since in a real environment, there would be a lot of limitation. These experiences broaden their view in terms of problem solving, design concept and technology application, thus self-confidence was highly enhanced. Results and Discussion
Engagement with Industry Stakeholders Involvement of and collaboration with industry partners are the critical factors for the success of the IBSP scheme. Students will gain knowledge through their own research and application of findings to solving problems associated with the work in a creative manner and will be under the similar work pressure as the employees of the company, students will also be required to take certain level of responsibility for their projects. To support the students, teachers will act as facilitators and guide the students throughout the project. Borego et. al. (2013) provide a review to assist engineering educators in understanding and applying industrial and organizational psychology to engineering education. In this connection, the facilitator and the second project assessor which nominated from the industry, will assess the students’ performance in terms of engineering and professional competence and soft skills aspects. The engineering and professional competence aspects include the comprehension of the problem; idea, concept, design and build; testing and development, realization and implementation; problem solving skills and environmental and safety awareness, meanwhile, the soft skills aspects include planning of the work; investigation and research; motivation and independent work; communication skills and leadership and team work. Students will also be required to maintain a project log of activities, which includes the project plan and details of work undertaken, including results obtained. There are some major differences when IBSP comparing with the traditional internship scheme, first, the involvement of the teachers and industry assessors will be more and assess students in an all-round aspect, second, students are required to develop theoretical and engineering solution to specific problems in carrying out design work on system, hardware or software and third, students need to have proper documentation and presentation throughout the process. To unleash student’s potential and build up their confidence, “Design Thinking Process” is adopted to give them inspiration. Brown (2008) and Kumar (2009) discussed design thinking as part of the innovation process. Under facilitator’s guidance and supervision, students learn how to empathize and identify the needs or problems, conduct data analysis, and find suitable solutions to address the needs in the industry. Through brainstorm and technical exchanges with facilitator and
A set of survey was given to each of the collaborating industry stakeholders from 58 different companies to (a) Evaluating Student’s improvement in (i) Communication skills, (ii) Managing information, (iii) Critical thinking and problem solving and (iv) Demonstrating positive attitudes and behavior, while 1 means no improvement; 10 means great improvement.
Figure 2. Student’s Improvement Evaluated by Employer The figure and the observation support that while IBSP is implemented, there is a positive improvement in students’ communication skills, managing information aspect, critical thinking and problem-solving performance and able to demonstrate positive attitudes and behavior. For modern engineers, his communication skills also need to expand to good listening, visual, interdisciplinary and intercultural skills as well (Riemer (2007)). Students could be benefited by exchanging ideas with peers, teachers and industry supervisors. Students could also practice knowledge and applying ideas by action, giving them an enhanced learning experience which a traditional lecture cannot offer.
Advanced Industry-based Student Project (IBSP) The project groups will normally be formed with one or two students per group. On a need basis, facilitators can put more project groups to work together on a largescale project. There is an innovative and sustainable project which consists of students from Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering working together, aiming to design a solar powered vehicle called ‘SOPHIE’, in order to demonstrate the viability of renewable energy through using the green transportation. Students learnt about solar power technology and advanced application, high-tech automotive design and fabrication, logistic management and team cooperation via the IBSP platform. Students gained practical knowledge and hands on experience from the discussion and working with industry stakeholders.
Figure 3. Students were working on molding at car garage
Figure 5. Students were learning wheel alignment The vehicle ‘SOPHIE’ allow students to learn by doing and applying ideas, which is also the key feature of project based learning (PBL) which discussed in Bulmenfed (2000). With the supporting of industry stakeholders, seven ‘SOPHIE’s were built under the massive effort of students. Four of them participated in world class races under students’ leadership, ‘Shell EcoMarathon Asia 2012’ with SOPHIE SEM, ‘World Solar Challenge 2013’ with SOPHIE IV, ‘World Solar Challenge 2015’ with SOPHIE V and ‘World Solar Challenge 2017’ with SOPHIE VI. In each competition, students demonstrated their telnets in building solar vehicles. Students have applied the knowledge learned in classroom to design and fabricate the solar vehicle for competitions and showed their confidence and interest in building the solar vehicle. As a kind of PBL, IBSP showed positive attitudes toward learning itself, team communication, and collaborative behaviour which were discussed in literature (i.e. Dominguez & Jaime, 2010; Kaldi, Filippatou & Govaris, 2011; Van Rooij, 2009). Furthermore, PBL was examined with respect to increasing students’ interest, self-confidence, and selfefficacy, found by Baran & Maskan (2010), which was highly related to the components of PBL such as collaborations in group work and contextual problems reflecting students’ real-world experiences. Conclusions
Figure 4. Students designed suspension system and CNC with magnesium alloy
The IBSP enriches students’ professional knowledge and develop their creativity, innovation, collaboration, communication and problem-solving skills throughout the engagement with industry stakeholders. To nurture more young talent as ‘Smart people’, resources and structured planning are required for implementation. References Baran, M. & Maskan, A. (2010). The effect of projectbased learning on pre-service physics teachers electrostatic achievements. Cypriot Journal of Educational Sciences, 5(4), 243–257.
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