Teaching and Assessing Meta-attributes in Engineering: identifying, developing and disseminating good practice
Engineering faculties across Australia are experiencing substantial pressure from industry, professional bodies and institutions to contextualise and embed graduate attributes in undergraduate programs. This project investigated good practice in the teaching and assessment of meta-attributes in engineering (reflective practice and systems thinking).
Funded by the Australian Learning & Teaching Council (ALTC)
Project Team:
| Dr Anna L Carew – Leader (University of Tasmania) Dr Sandrine Therese (The University of Queensland) A/Prof Simon Barrie (The University of Sydney) E/Prof Alan Bradley (Engineers Australia) A/Prof Paul Cooper (University of Wollongong) |
Mr John Currie (The University of Sydney) A/Prof Roger Hadgraft (The University of Melbourne) Prof Timothy McCarthy (University of Wollongong) A/Prof Sharon Nightingale (University of Wollongong) Prof David Radcliffe (Purdue University) |
Date: 2009
Link to Final Report - www.altc.edu.au/system/files/resources/CG623_UoW_Carew_Final%20Report_new.pdf
Executive Summary (excerpt)
Engineering faculties across Australia are experiencing substantial pressure from industry, the professional body and their home higher education institutions to contextualise and embed graduate attributes in undergraduate degree programs. Responding to this pressure is proving challenging with three inter-related problems evident in the Australian engineering education literature:
- Innovation in teaching and embedding graduate attributes tends to be isolated and short-lived.
- Rigorous evaluation of impact on student learning of graduate attributes is rare.
- Contextualisation is limited with graduate attributes described in the literature tending to be disproportionately aligned with generic institutional lists, and poorly aligned with the realities of engineering practice.