Experience on blended learning: towards e-Laboratory

Abstract

Engineering Education in UniMAP is a profession devoted to harnessing and modifying the three fundamental resources that are available for the creation of all technology: energy, materials, and information. Therefore, engineers seek to manipulate material and energy for the benefit of humankind. This task will successfully be achieved if the engineers, technicians and others have knowledge and experience related to the specific engineering field (Trevelyan, 2007 & 2008). Although the appropriate use of relevant science and technology is essential in engineering education, and though all engineers insist on the need to teach students the fundamental sciences underlying engineering practice, curriculum designers have so far shown only limited interest in the possible applications of learning science to engineering education (Chisholm, 1990). Research carried out in the past two decades into trying to understand how students learn does seem, however, to open up new opportunities for a re-appraisal of traditional curriculum structures and delivery methods. More precise specifications for different domains of learning have been established, for example: - knowledge (remembering, ability to recall), - skills (ability to perform tasks), - understanding (familiarity with concepts, sometimes called "deep learning"), and - the affective domain (attitudes and values). At the same time, students have been found to differ significantly in the actual way they learn and gain experience. They can be serialist or holist learners, visualisers, verbalisers, or doers (Borrego, 2007). Learning material has to be adapted to the needs of the different kinds of learners. Deep learning, that is, learning for understanding, is aided by providing a rich educational environment to cater for different learning characteristics (Brown & Atkins, 1988) while practice is essential for learning skills (Chisholm, 1990). Therefore, at university or college level, engineering education helps students gain the foundation for acquiring knowledge and experience that will help them in engineering practice.