The class of 2020 will have lived through one of the most profound changes in the way engineering has been taught since the discipline entered universities in the mid-nineteenth century. By definition, engineering is a vanguard discipline that drives change and innovation. However, while the lab setting provides engineers with a suitable environment to test the effect of change on their research, teaching engineering in the digital world became a social experiment on a mass scale. Like every crisis, the situation offered opportunities for innovation. The silver lining, says Dr Dariusz Alterman, is his generation Z students are familiar with the virtual formats used to introduce complex learning material.
Dr Dariusz, who trained at the Polish Academy of Sciences and undertook post-doctoral research at the Tohoku Institute of Technology in Sendai and the Auckland Institute of Technology, before joining The University of Newcastle as a Senior Research Fellow, appears unfazed, “Every year, engineers use new materials, techniques, and testing methods; they must adapt to a new tomorrow very quickly. The digital campus is a great chance to try something new. I found it works even better than the traditional classroom. Students can share their screens and everyone can search why a particular code does not work and how to correct their own mistakes and errors.”
Alex Fairclough, who is completing his PhD in mechatronics, agrees that COVID has been disruptive. But the experience of teaching digitally has already led to a profound adaptation in how he teaches engineering that he will retain after returning to physical classrooms. “Keeping students engaged has always been a challenge when demonstrating concepts that require slides full of equations but having a tablet device has been my life-saver. It gives me the ability to highlight, arrow, draw, and annotate slides as I’m talking. When we return to teaching in person, I will continue demonstrating my slides straight from my tablet so I can keep doing these annotations.”
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“The pandemic will have a lasting impact on how we teach first year engineering subjects.”