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© Proceedings of the 46th SEFI Annual Conference 2018: Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship for Engineering Education Excellence. All rights reserved. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is regarded as a key enabler for all the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Higher Education Institutes have been slow in adopting a holistic approach to ESD in undergraduate engineering curricula. The aim of this research is to explore how tertiary subject coordinators understand and envision sustainability and how that subsequently manifests in their teaching curriculum design. A qualitative inquiry approach was adopted to explore the rationalities of ten academics within the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at an Australian university. In a previous study in the School, the researchers identified a low percentage of ESD integration across the curriculum. The interviews showed that these academics perceive sustainability as a technical concept, presumably taught by someone else in the curriculum. As a result, sustainability is mostly invisible within undergraduate engineering curricula. Results elsewhere show that for ESD to be effectively implemented at a tertiary level, academics must come to understand and accept what ESD aims to achieve, which is to educate engineering students to encourage them to integrate sustainability decision making in their future engineering practice. Engineers Australia's Code of Ethics requires: Balance the needs of the present with the needs of future generations. The difficulty is that these behaviours are difficult to detect in engineering curricula, which are strongly focused on technical problem solving. This research will identify and disseminate good practice in curriculum design for sustainability at both unit level and program level. This paper represents an early part of the research program.

CONTEXT Despite their shortcomings formal examinations are often favoured as a means of achieving learning assurance as students undertake them on their own in a controlled environment. However, while formal exams may mostly ensure the integrity of a student’s submission the claim that they provide assurance of learning is less clear. Even if the questions in the exam validly assess the associated subject learning outcomes students are frequently able to pass (achieve 50%) with unsatisfactory, and perhaps even no capacity to demonstrate learning in some subject topic areas, even though they may be regarded as requisite. Furthermore, while undertaking these exams may highlight to students their learning deficiencies, there is often no opportunity for feed-forward assessments to motivate them to address these identified learning gaps. This paper reports on the impact of a threshold exam process on both student learning and assurance of that learning. PURPOSE What impact will threshold exams have on the way students behave and respond to the learning outcomes associated with a unit? APPROACH A large (>500 enrolments) multidisciplinary first year engineering subject was chosen for this study. Students were required to undertake a threshold exam in week 10 of a 13 week semester. The pass mark was set at 80%. Students who failed this threshold exam were invited to attend a workshop and sit a supplementary threshold exam at the end of the semester. This study used discussion forum posts, student surveys, tutorial discussions and analysis of exam results to investigate how student’s behaviour changed as a result of the threshold exam and the impact on their learning. RESULTS Despite many students having an objection to an 80% pass rate perceiving it as unfair, the threshold assessments had a significant impact on the way students approached their learning and engaged in their tutorials and other learning activities. CONCLUSIONS This study demonstrated the potential of a threshold examination process to improve confidence in assurance of learning. Many student who failed the initial threshold exam focused on mechanical level conceptualisations of learning which suggests long-term changes to their learning culture requires more scaffolding and adoption of such practices in more units of study.

The increased adoption of blended learning designs such as flipped instruction by STEM academics has brought learning benefits for many students; however, it relies heavily on students being able to take much more responsibility for their own learning than in traditional lecture-based subjects (Reidsema et al 2017). Previous studies (Willey & Gardner 2015, 2014a, 2014b, Gardner et al. 2014, Willey et al. 2014) of students in two different engineering majors at the University of Technology Sydney have shown that students who perform poorly in flipped learning environments typically do not demonstrate the agency and self-efficacy necessary to take responsibility for their own learning and hence have difficulty achieving the cognitive changes expressed as learning outcomes in subjects. Poor self-efficacy, that is a competence belief about one’s capability to execute a particular action and achieve a particular goal, has been linked to attrition in previous research: Many different factors underpin attrition decisions in any one institution and for any one individual, for whom attrition usually results from the aggregation of diverse factors rather than 'the straw that broke the camel's back'. The only attrition triggers which span most universities and years of study are lack of clear reasons for being at university or academic self-efficacy (Willcoxson et al 2011)[6]. Crick and Goldspink (2014) refer to the link between learning dispositions, agency and identity and how students’ thinking about these concepts, such as self-efficacy, frames their future learning trajectories. While university programmes generally address knowledge generation, Crick et al (2015) argue that forming a learning identity is also “pedagogically significant”. The research of Thomas (2013) reports that ...students often experience stress, uncertainty and use ineffective learning strategies when they are not supported to understand how to direct their own learning... findings suggest that learners can demonstrate increases to cognitive and metacognitive functioning, as well as self-efficacy through engagement with a program to support self-regulated learning... However, Thomas (2013) also found that there are “significant challenges to encouraging all students to engage with such a program”. Buckingham Shum and Crick (2012) point out that the development of self-regulation and self-efficacy impacts not just student performance at university but also their performance in the workplace: Theoretical and empirical evidence in the learning sciences substantiates the view that deep engagement in learning is a function of a complex combination of learners’ identities, dispositions, values, attitudes and skills. When these are fragile, learners struggle to achieve their potential in conventional assessments, and critically, are not prepared for the novelty and complexity of the challenges they will meet in the workplace, and the many other spheres of life which require personal qualities such as resilience, critical thinking and collaboration skills.

CONTEXT Two consecutive offerings (2015 and 2016) of the same subject, Concrete Technology and Practice, prompted opposite reactions from students. The academics involved in 2015 and/or 2016 sought to explore the similarities and differences between these consecutive offerings in reflecting on the learning and teaching practices in their classroom. PURPOSE Practice architectures theory provides a framework for examining and understanding the differences between these consecutive offerings of ostensibly the same subject. This paper also provides an example of how a theoretical framework can be used to examine teaching practices – even our own by practitioners who are also acting as researchers in this context. APPROACH Evidence used in comparing the 2015 and 2016 offerings of this subject is drawn from focus group discussions with students and observations of each of the researcher/practitioners involved. Additional data includes the end of semester Student Feedback Survey results including written responses to open-ended questions. RESULTS Differences in aspects of the cultural-discursive, material-economic and socio-political arrangements of the 2015 and 2016 offerings of Concrete Technology and Practice became apparent from the analysis. CONCLUSIONS Using the theory of practice architectures gave us insights into the inter-relationships between the different arrangements inherent in teaching and learning practices. It also highlighted the resilience of ‘taken for granted’ practices.

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology. The field of research that an academic participates in is seen as central to the development of their academic identity. In the case of engineering academics that become engineering education researchers there are additional complications in reconciling this change with their academic identity. Part of the difficulty that engineering academics have with educational research paradigms is that they are so different to the typically positivistic perspective of most engineering epistemologies. A further complicating factor is that engineering education is an emerging research area in Australian universities and as such there are few formal training pathways into it and little consensus as to the standards and norms of practice. Yet engineering academics have and continue to make this transition - how they develop an academic identity in this research field is the focus of this study. The research approach is interpretive using the identity-trajectory as a theoretical framework because it pays attention to the context-specific characteristics of working as an academic. Interviews with a range of engineering academics about preparing a conference paper and their response to the peer review process illustrated how various aspects of their research work contribute to the development of the intellectual and networking strands of their academic identity, the effect of their university environment on this development, and included the ways that engineering academics interpret how their past experiences contribute to their present situation and/or their future intentions. By focussing on the individual, this conceptualisation of academic identity aligns with the common experience of engineering education researchers and with the premise that development of the field is a function of the development of the individual researchers within it. The engineering education research landscape model presented in this study was a successful stimulus for dialogue about the nature of the research field by allowing participants to identify where they belong on the landscape. Such discussions will help both the community and individuals to articulate and understand observed changed in their own and their peers’ research as expertise is developed, as well as provide a language for researchers to plan, discuss and evaluate this development. The continued importance of participation in engineering education conferences for the intellectual and networking strands of academic identity for members of this research community is apparent for researchers at all stages of development, although in different ways.

BACKGROUND Mechanics of Solids is a second year undergraduate subject, undertaken by both Civil and Mechanical engineering students at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS). Mechanics of Solids has been delivered for many years in a traditional format with lectures and problem solving tutorials. As part of a national Australian project “Enhancing Industry Exposure in Engineering Degrees”, UTS in partnership with other universities and industry partners in Australia has sought industry involvement to engage students with the real-world challenges of engineering practice. PURPOSE The main objective of this project is to design, develop and implement learning modules in Mechanis of Solids that integrate industry exposure to provide context for the concepts included in this subject. DESIGN The project consisted of six guest lectures by industry representatives on topics related to typical Mechanics of Solids subject matter and two seminars on using MDSolids software. Students completed a collaborative assignment aligned with one of the industry presentations. Their reports and presentations were assessed on assessment criteria which included contextual understanding, judgement, effective collaboration and creativity, and their perceptions were captured to evaluate the impact of industry engagement in this subject. RESULTS One of the major benefits of this project was students’ better understanding of engineering practice. There were also positive effects on students’ motivation for learning engineering. CONCLUSIONS This paper reports the major findings, outcomes and challenges for implementing enhancing industry exposure approach in Mechanics of Solids subject at UTS. The main finding of this research concluded that this project is very valuable to both students as it promotes exposure to real-world engineering challenges. The students’ exposure to real and substantive challenges improves their contextual understanding, plus their judgement, practice based planning, teamwork, and initiative learning skills.

BACKGROUND Flipped instruction is a form of blended learning that typically encompasses the use of technology to move instruction and preparation outside the classroom. This facilitates the use of ‘in class’ time for more participative learning activities. These activities should require students to interact and collaborate to improve both their learning and their learning experience. Many researchers have highlighted issues of importance to designing learning activities including student behaviour, assessment, student self-efficacy and goal orientation and the importance of dialogue and feedback for learning. PURPOSE In this paper we explore these themes in the context of a flipped instruction environment for different types of students: those with a learning mastery orientation, those focussed on grade achievement and a subset of grade achievement students - those who struggled to pass. APPROACH Student perceptions of flipped instruction were investigated through survey responses, observations and focus group discussion. In particular, students were asked to explain the impact of the flipped activities on their learning experience including how they approached their studies or managed their time. OUTCOMES Students reported liking flipped instruction compared to the more traditional lecture style delivery format. Most students believe that it had a positive impact on their learning experience and promoted them to become more independent and responsible learners. The main finding that emerged from the interviews and focus group was how the student’s goal orientation affected their engagement with the learning opportunities provided. CONCLUSIONS The authors present a model showing potential pathways for a change in goal orientation prompted by the quality of assessment and learning design. We found evidence to support our theory that a student’s orientation can be changed temporarily by the quality of the learning opportunity provided and in particular how it is assessed. We recommend that instructors develop learning activities that challenge students to develop their understanding from multiple perspectives and assessments that require them to apply this understanding in different contexts. Such activities and assessments will act as an initial step in promoting students’ adoption of a mastery approach to their learning.

CONTEXT Flipped learning is an instructional approach which allows instructors the opportunity to use a blending of online and face to face learning activities. The main affordance of flipped learning is the opportunity to free up class time to allow students and instructors to engage in collaborative learning activities designed to consolidate and deepen conceptual understanding of the subject material. Research has shown that participating in flipped instruction can change the way students approach their studies and improve motivation. PURPOSE OR GOAL We are interested in students’ experience of the flipped environment, particularly their expectations of a learning environment, and the level of responsibility they take for their own learning. The purpose of this analysis is to create a baseline against which future instances of flipped learning can be compared. APPROACH Student perceptions of flipped instruction were investigated through survey responses and observations of students in a first year subject (Engineering Mechanics) a second year subject (Engineering Computations) and a third year subject (Construction Materials) in a Civil Engineering degree programme. In particular, students were asked to explain the impact of the flipped activities on their learning experience including any changes in how they approach their studies or managed their time. OUTCOMES Most students in each of the three subjects agreed that they ‘liked’ flipped instruction compared to the traditional lecture format. The majority of students in each subject also agreed that it is reasonable to expect students to prepare before attending a face to face session. However, some students made strong negative comments demonstrating how the flipped environment did not meet their expectations of how learning should be organised. This study suggests that students in the second and third year subjects were not necessarily showing signs of better self-regulation and time management skills or being more comfortable with taking more responsibility for their own learning. CONCLUSIONS Flipped learning challenges students to develop metacognitive skills such as time management, self-regulation and self-evaluation, while providing opportunities to deepen conceptual understanding of the subject material. Given the different experience of students, both within a particular subject and between subjects at different stages of their degree, we need to provide scaffolding to assist students to understand how to make the most of these learning opportunities, including how to approach them, evaluate their learning, develop their judgement and the required learning skills.

BACKGROUND Engineering education research is still consolidating as a recognised research area in Australian universities. A current project funded by the US National Science Foundation is attempting to develop a taxonomy for engineering education as a research area. Our project takes a slightly different perspective by using a landscape model to describe engineering education as a knowledge domain that includes a variety of areas of endeavour. PURPOSE This paper is motivated by questions around the range of topics being addressed in the AAEE community and as a means of initiating a discussion about how we define, evaluate, understand and move within our research domain. APPROACH This paper reports data collected as part of a wider project examining the peer review process for the Australasian Association for Engineering Education (AAEE) annual conference. During semistructured interviews nineteen participants used one or two coloured adhesive stars to locate their paper on a model of the engineering education research landscape presented in this paper. The location of the stars was then analysed in relation to various elements of the model and the explanations were coded in NVivo 10 for themes relating to the star location. OUTCOMES All participants could locate the topic of their conference paper on the presented model, and articulate clearly why their star belonged in the selected location demonstrating an individual understanding of the focus and outcomes of their research. Not surprisingly most stars were clustered in the `teaching and learning of engineering element or on one of the trajectories leading to it. This reflects that for many participants, their educational publications are inextricably linked to their practice of teaching engineering. Interestingly, there were strong voices from participants across all expertise levels and university types against a perceived move to make the annual AAEE conference focus on theoretical research. This was seen as a move towards exclusivity and a lack of acceptance for practice-based studies. CONCLUSIONS The landscape model presented in this paper successfully stimulated dialogue around both the nature and the areas of research in our community and allowed participants to appreciate where they are positioned in the landscape. Such a dialogue will help us define our research domain and support both colleagues and postgraduate students seeking to participate in or move within it. We suggest it can also be used to dissipate some of the tensions developing in AAEE about the standard and value of research. We argue that a practice versus theoretical research dichotomy is ultimately divisive and that our national conference should provide a forum for all authors in an environment aimed at improving the quality of publications and the development of academics wherever they are in the landscape.

BACKGROUND Formal examinations are often used in engineering classes as the tool to evaluate student learning. These exams are often high stakes assessment tasks and provide no opportunity for feed-forward. Despite academic claims that all topics in their subject are requisite material, students are regularly able to pass these assessment tasks with unsatisfactory, and perhaps even no capacity to demonstrate learning in some topics. Furthermore, while undertaking the exam often highlights to students their learning deficiencies, it typically has no impact on their learning as they rarely receive feedback other than a mark or grade and there is no further opportunity to address these learning gaps. This paper reports on the impact of a two-staged examination process on both student learning and assurance of that learning. PURPOSE The aim of the staged examination process was to improve confidence that students had satisfactory knowledge in all requisite subject topics and to test its capacity to be learning-oriented in that it provides improved opportunities for students to learn while simultaneously increasing the level of learning assurance. DESIGN/METHOD The first stage of the process was an exam that covered all requisite subject topics. This exam consisted of multiple choice questions set at or just above the level of threshold learning outcomes. Students were required to score 80% on this exam to qualify to undertake the second part of the assessment process at a later date. Students used IFAT (Immediate Feedback Assessment Technique) cards for this stage to facilitate immediate feedback as to their strengths and weaknesses. The time between exams allowed students to review identified areas of weakness before attempting the second stage of the exam. Note: while not contributing to their final grade students who failed the first exam were also permitted to undertake the second exam as an opportunity to learn and as a means of evaluating the impact of the process. The second exam consisted of open-ended questions requiring students to explain their critical thinking and judgement used to arrive at their answer. Evaluation of the effectiveness of this process was based on a student survey, focus group discussions and an analysis of student examination scripts. RESULTS The threshold learning outcome exam was effective in improving assurance of learning in that students had to demonstrate satisfactory learning across topics to achieve the 80% required to âpassâ the exam. Furthermore, students reported that they used the opportunity between exams to address identified learning gaps, hence demonstrating the learning orientation and feed-forward capacity of the two stage process. However, the fact that two students who did not achieve the threshold level of 80% in the first exam were able to address their learning gaps and pass the second and harder exam suggests that an alternative to the 80% exclusion criteria should be considered. CONCLUSIONS The study demonstrated that a two staged examination process improved confidence in assurance of learning while providing students with an opportunity to first identify and subsequently reduce learning gaps. However, the fact that some students who failed the threshold exam demonstrated significant improvement in their understanding in the second exam suggests that more research is needed to both understand the impact of and improve the benefits from this activity.

It is well recognised that changes in the contemporary world demand that professionals continuously learn. Often this continual professional learning takes the shape of formal courses, seminars and other obviously educational events. The starting point of this paper is an acknowledgement that people also learn in the day-to-day practices that constitute their work. Work can be understood as a bundle of practices that are typically shared by most people employed in that profession. For engineers, and experienced engineers in particular, an example might be attending design review meetings, toolbox talks and or carrying out site walks. In this paper we posit that these practices afford important opportunities for professional learning.

BACKGROUND The benefits to student learning from participation in formative assessments have been reported by many educational researchers and scholars. This literature reports improved engagement when students see formative activities as being highly relevant and valuable for their learning. However, many academics still report that students are reluctant to participate in a learning activity unless it contributes some marks to their final subject grade. PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact on learning of undertaking a series of out-of-class formative learning activities. In addition, for the students that undertook these activities, we are interested in why they chose to participate and what, if any, learning benefits they experienced from participating. In regards to the students that chose not to undertake the activities, we are interested in their reasons for not participating. We are also interested in investigating the impact on students of scaffolding the learning activities used throughout the semester. DESIGN/METHOD For the Autumn 2012 offering of Engineering Mechanics, out-of-class formative learning activities were designed for four topics in the syllabus. These activities required the students to read the relevant section of the textbook and subsequently answer multiple-choice questions provided online including entering comments to explain their chosen answer. While there were no marks allocated to these activities, the instructor did allocate more time in lectures to the material related to questions with the largest variation in responses. Students who answered the online questions could log back on at the end of the submission period to compare their responses to the instructorâs answers and reasoning. At the conclusion of the semester students were asked to complete a survey consisting of both closed and open-ended questions to investigate their perceptions of the effects of the online activities. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the closed responses to this survey and also to determine if there is any significant correlation between participation in the formative assessment task and subsequent performance in summative assessment tasks in this subject. RESULTS The results show that the majority of students in the class did not undertake all of the activities. The results also indicate that students that participated in 3 or more activities scored, on average, almost one grade increment higher than those that participated in 0 or 1 activity. In addition, increases in the institutional student feedback survey results for the subject indicate an improvement in student perception of the learning experience compared to the previous semester. CONCLUSIONS Students who participated in the formative assessment activities in this subject benefitted in terms of their learning which was suggested in the final summative assessment task. These results and what we learnt about studentsâ motivation to participate will be used in future semesters to demonstrate to students the link between participating in the formative activities and scoring well in the summative tasks. We argue that making this link explicit and scaffolding the learning activities are the keys to improving students motivation to learn.

BACKGROUND Arguably the most important opportunity to acquire the standards and norms of any discipline and develop researchers' judgement is the peer review process â and this is probably particularly true in an emerging discipline such as engineering education. Ironically, research in many disciplines has established that the review process is deeply flawed in conception as well as (often) in operation, with the American Medical Association asserting that if peer review were a drug it would never be allowed on to the market. And yet university ranking systems for published research, on which all of our careers depend, rely on this flawed instrument. With this in mind we have been examining how members of our community (AAEE) give and respond to reviews with a view to making the process more useful. PURPOSE Reviewing is an inexact and subjective process so it would be misguided to think that somehow inter-rater reliability or some notion of objective âtruthâ may be attained. Instead, we ask what reviewers need to do to provide helpful advice that can help shape norms and standards in the field. DESIGN/METHOD In previous work (Willey et. al. 2011; Jolly et.al. 2011) there appeared to be a need for well-expressed criteria that would guide authors on what a publication should contain and guide reviewers in how judgements should be made. With the help of a Delphi panel made up of 12 international researchers in the field a set of criteria were developed. Volunteers were then sought to apply the criteria to sample texts in an online tool (SPARKplus). Individual interviews with some respondents were then used to clarify participantâs understandings and goals. RESULTS The criteria developed by the Delphi panel are those being used for this conference. The members of the panel particularly approved the âcommentsâ accompanying the criteria per se which were intended primarily as guidance to authors about acceptable practice. Anecdotal evidence to date suggests that authors should find the criteria and comments clarify expectations but the matter of standards will remain. The use of the criteria in the second stage and analysis of the discussions in particular will produce information both about present expectations and practices and visions of future growth and improvement. CONCLUSIONS Our analysis of the stage 2 data will aim to describe consensus on research quality and how to use the peer review process to help attain it, in the form of recommendations for future application of the criteria, in journals as well as at conferences. Our international experts from the Delphi panel have expressed an interest in being involved in stage 2 and informed about the outcomes so the potential also exists for this community to develop best practice peer review in engineering education thorough the sharing of their expertise in this way.

BACKGROUND The work described in this paper has emerged from an ALTC/OLT funded project, Exploring Intercultural Competency in Engineering. The project indentified many facets of culture and intercultural competence that go beyond a culture-as-nationality paradigm. It was clear from this work that resources were needed to help engineering educators introduce students to the complex issues of culture as they relate to engineering practice. A set of learning modules focussing on intercultural competence in engineering practice were developed early on in the project. Through the OLT project, these modules have been expanded into a range of resources covering various aspects of culture in engineering. Supporting the resources, an eBook detailing the ins and outs of intercultural competency has also been developed to assist engineering educators to embed opportunities for students to develop skills in unpacking and managing cross-cultural challenges in engineering practice. PURPOSE This paper describes the key principles behind the development of the learning modules, the areas they cover and the eBook developed to support the modules. The paper is intended as an introduction to the approaches and resources and extends an invitation to the community to draw from, and contribute to this initial work.

Engineers today are required to make critical judgements involving decisions that often extend beyond traditional discipline boundaries. This requires professional engineers to undertake ongoing learning. Much of this learning is informal, learnt on the job from peers from different disciplines. To enable students to develop the skills required for professional practice they need opportunities to experience, practise, reflect and improve their ability to work in a collaborative environment. One method used at the University of Technology, Sydney to develop these skills is collaborative activities incorporating immediate feedback. Subject topics are tested through quizzes that are initially undertaken individually and then collaboratively using immediate feedback assessment technique (IF-AT) cards. These activities allow students to first identify and subsequently have gaps in their learning addressed initially by their peers within the one activity. This paper reports on a comparative evaluation of the collaborative use of IF-AT quizzes in four subjects taught by the authors. We found that these methods not only consistently improved student engagement, learning and developed skills required for life-long learning, but also promoted changes in their learning culture by having them take more responsibility for their own learning.

Arguably, the most important opportunity to acquire the standards and norms of the discipline and develop researchers' judgement is the peer review process - but this depends on the quality of the reviews. 'Good' feedback - which we take to mean feedback that has the capacity to improve subsequent practice - has been identified as being timely, specific and relevant. Yet often reviews lack these basic qualities. In this paper we report an investigation of the peer review process at the 2010 Australasian Association of Engineering Education (AAEE) conference. Authors at the conference were given the chance to rate their reviews and we subsequently analysed both the nature of the reviews and authors' responses. Findings suggest that the opportunity to use the peer review process to induct people into the field and improve practice is being missed. As in other disciplines there is also ample evidence that the review process does little or nothing to ensure the standard and relevance of conference presentations. It is therefore legitimate to ask whether there may not be better processes to attain these ends and we conclude with some discussion of how the review process may be made more helpful for everyone involved.

In large engineering subjects, it is common to have multiple tutors where each tutor is responsible for grading the assessment tasks for students in their tutorial. An issue regularly faced by subject coordinators is how to achieve a consistent standard of marking and feedback quality amongst different tutors. To address this issue the authors initially used a number of methods including double blind marking to support consistent grading. However, with increasing demands on academics these time-consuming activities became an unrealistic option. This process was improved by using a software tool to compare both the marking and feedback provided by different tutors for a number of randomly selected project tasks. In this paper, we report using new software features developed as a result of this previous research to quickly establish and build a community of assessment practice amongst subject tutors. The reported process promotes inclusiveness by using a software tool to anonymously record and report tutor assessments allowing all opinions to be considered during a subsequent discussion activity. Even though this pilot exercise was undertaken by experienced tutors it significantly influenced their feedback skills and to a lesser extent their marking standards.

We present our work on introducing Adaptive Tutorials in first and second year mechanics courses in Engineering. Adaptive Tutorials are interactive online modules where an Intelligent Tutoring System adapts the instruction level to learners, based on their individual performance. Through an ALTC-funded project, we formed a community of practice of Engineering Mechanics educators from a range of Australian universities. As a team, we began by identifying Threshold Concepts that if they are not grasped inhibit studentsâ learning before developing a set of Adaptive on-line Tutorials to target them. These Adaptive Tutorials were used by students throughout the first half of 2011, and were found to be both engaging and conducive to learning. In this paper, we present our approach and findings and discuss our strategy of giving educators pedagogical control over such advanced technologically-based instructional methods with the goal of increasing adoption and ultimately improving students learning.

Junior structural engineers rarely work alone. Their design calculations are usually peer reviewed, and they may be involved in reviewing other engineersâ designs. They are also likely to have to articulate their design decisions to their supervisor or the project team, if not the client. At the University of Technology, Sydney the authors redesigned the asssessment tasks in the subject Concrete Design to be collaborative learning-oriented tasks that provide an opportunity for students to develop and practice the skills they will need to interact with other professionals in the workplace and continue learning during their career. We theorised that allowing students to collaborate during quizzes and a project would make these activities more learning-oriented, in that students would actively learn from each other while completing their assessment. Data from various sources were collected to examine the impact of this collaborative assessment on student learning. These sources included instructor observation, analysis of student responses to a reflection activity, student surveys and student results. Students reported that not only were these activities enjoyable but they also significantly improved their learning.

Engineers today are often required to make critical judgements involving decisions that extend beyond traditional discipline boundaries requiring ongoing learning, much of which is informal, learnt on the job from peers who are often from different disciplines. To prepare students for professional practice, they need opportunities to experience, practise, reflect and improve their ability to work in a collaborative environment. The University of Technology, Sydney teaches an undergraduate engineering science programme in Hong Kong. The authors have found it initially difficult to get students to participate in collaborative learning activities and in particular those that involved students in using their own judgement or critical analysis. In response, the authors redesigned their course to integrate collaborative peer learning activities into all areas of the curriculum including collaborative problem solving exercises that are subsequently assessed through a series of first individual then collaborative quizzes (using the immediate feedback assessment techniques (IF-AT)) and exams. Initial results from students overwhelmingly showed that the collaborative activities improved their understanding, ability to think through and resolve problems, and the identification and addressing of gaps in their learning. This approach has potential to benefit all engineering students as it prepares students to make the most of the informal collaborative learning opportunities provided in professional practice while simultaneously enhancing their ability to undertake lifelong learning.

For several years the authors have coordinated a large engineering design subject, having a typical cohort of more than 300 students per semester. Lectures are supported by tutorials of approximately 32 students that incorporate a combination of collaborative team and project-based learning activities. Each tutor is responsible for grading the assessment tasks for students in their tutorial. A common issue is how to achieve a consistent standard of marking and student feedback between different tutors. To address this issue the authors have used a number of methods including double-blind marking and/or random re-marking to support consistent grading. However, even when only small variations between the overall grading of different tutors were found, students still complained about a perceived lack of consistency. In this paper we report on an investigation into the use of a collaborative peer learning process among tutors to improve mark standardisation, and marker consistency, and to build tutorsâ expertise and capacity in the provision of quality feedback. We found that studentsâ perceptions of differences in grading were exacerbated by inconsistencies in the language tutors use when providing feedback, and by differences in tutorsâ perceptions of how well individual criterion were met.

If universities are to prepare students for professional practise then they should also prepare them for the type of learning that occurs in the workplace. Graduatesâ workplace learning often differs considerably from their university experience. Firstly there is typically no lecturer or tutor to instruct them, and workplace learning is often collaborative. Hence studentsâ preparation for entering this workplace environment should include opportunities to practise collaborative learning with their peers. While designing collaborative learning tasks that involve students having to make and reflect on their judgements are extremely beneficial, these participatory exercises can result in an intolerable administrative burden especially for large classes. The authors have recently developed a specific benchmarking tool to assist academics to produce regular student centred assessments to improve studentsâ judgement and learning with a manageable academic effort. In this paper we reflectively deconstruct a purposely designed collaborative learning activity, investigating the effect of each of its components on student learning. Furthermore we explore how effectively the educational technology used reduced both the marking and administrative burden of running these exercises particularly in large classes.

A number of digital animation clips have been developed to explore the effectiveness of their use in teaching of the subject Structural Analysis at the University of Technology, Sydney.The subject Structural Analysis is perceived by most students as challenging not only because of the theory and analysis concepts covered, but also because in its application it is difficult to visualise how structures behave when subjected to loads. The animation clips that were developed bring âmovement and lifeâ to structures that are traditionally presented in textbooks as static. It is anticipated that this will assist students to visualise the behaviour of structures and to better understand difficult concepts and methods taught in the subject. The intended uses of the animations are (1) in-class demonstration of behaviour of structures and methods of structural analysis and (2) as a self learning tool for students. This paper will present examples of the animations, how they have been used in teaching of Structural Analysis and feedback from students on their effectiveness.

The authors have previously reported the effectiveness of using self and peer assessment to improve learning outcomes in groupwork by providing opportunities to practise, assess and provide feedback on studentsâ attribute development. Combining this research and that reported in the literature on learning-oriented assessment we theorised that self and peer assessment would be an ideal tool to develop and facilitate assessments specifically designed to promote learning. In this paper we report testing this theory by integrating self and peer assessment into different learning oriented assessment tasks within a single subject. These tasks use self and peer assessment to not only assess a studentâs contribution to a team project but also assess individual student assignments, their understanding and judgement. The results demonstrate that self and peer assessment is an extremely effective tool in facilitating learning orientated assessments.

The authors have previously reported the effectiveness of using self and peer assessment to improve learning outcomes in groupwork by providing opportunities to practise, assess and provide feedback on studentsâ attribute development. Combining this research and that reported in the literature regarding learning-oriented assessment we theorised that self and peer assessment would be an ideal tool to develop and efficiently facilitate activities specifically designed to be student centred and promote learning. In this paper we report the effectiveness of a self and peer assessment activity specifically designed to promote collaborative peer learning, require students to take responsibility for their learning and improve their judgement, while at the same time only imposing a small assessment load on academics.

A combination of self and peer assessment is a powerful and rich teaching and learning management tool that can be used to monitor and evaluate group performance in project work. An on-line system (SPARKPLUS â Self and Peer Assessment Resource Kit) has been developed to simplify this process for the academic. This system generates factors for both the peer assessment weighting to be applied for individual contribution and the studentâs perception of their contribution compared to their peers by using key assessment criteria and a rigorous algorithm that is applied to the student evaluations of themselves and their peers. This paper describes and evaluates the introduction of SPARKPLUS to assess the performance of Mining Engineering Undergraduates in Year 3 at The University of Queensland in the first semester of 2008 in two of their core undergraduate courses that required group project work to be completed for assessment. The results obtained from this initial trial show the potential for improving student behaviour in group work through a structured approach to monitoring and feedback of their performance. It was found that male students with GPAs ⤠5 tend to overestimate their contribution to group work more frequently than their peers whereas the opposite applies for male students with GPAs > 5.

The authors have previously reported the effectiveness of using self and peer assessment to improve learning outcomes by providing opportunities to practise, assess and provide feedback on students' attribute development. Despite this work and the research of others, we have found a significant number of students perceive self and peer assessment to be an instrument to facilitate fairness focusing on its freerider deterrent capacity, rather than providing opportunities for reflection and feedback to complete the learning cycle. It is the authors' intention that all students would benefit, both from the reflective nature of self and peer assessment and the feedback it provides, and for these benefits to be seen as valuable and desirable so that students are eager to participate. In this paper we report investigating the use of self and peer assessment multiple times for different purposes within a single subject. In particular, we examine whether providing students with multiple opportunities to practise and receive feedback in different contexts encourages peer learning, increases engagement and students' desire to learn.

Posters are used to convey information concisely and clearly. It requires judgement to decide on how much information to include, whether this information should be presented in a graphical or textual form, and how to organise the information in the space of the poster. A poster is the initial assessment task at the short course run by the International Institute of Women in Engineering (IIWE) at EPF, Ecole d'ingenieurs generaliste, and in association with ParisX1 University. This three week short course has been offered since 2001 and is intended for recently graduated or final year engineering students from diverse cultural and disciplinary backgrounds. The poster was chosen as the initial assessment task because young professionals are generally asked to present in this way at professional conferences. There were several aims associated with use of the poster: 1. to develop students' poster making skills 2. to help students who are shy or lacking confidence in English skills to be able to have a means of communication with each other and with staff 3. to initiate the discussion around the sustainability theme of the course. The poster display also defines the participants' space in a foreign university - it defines 'our space' for the duration of the course. The posters are assessed against criteria for both content and visual impact by three members of staff who provide feedback to the participants. An award for best poster is presented at the end of the course to recognise the skill involved in creating an effective poster. Participants in the 2008 IIWE course were surveyed to determine the effectiveness of presenting and using a poster considering these aims. This paper shows that the response was very positive in regards to the poster being useful for both gaining an understanding of fellow participants and their discipline and cultural diversity. The introduction of the concept of the individual environmental footprint and its link to the sustainability theme of the workshop was not so obvious to the participants and requires further development by the authors.

The authors have previously reported the effectiveness of using self and peer assessment to improve learning outcomes. Its thoughtful use provides opportunities to practise, assess and provide feedback on students graduate attribute development. Our previous research has shown that it is beneficial for teams to use self and peer assessment multiple times a semester to produce regular feedback allowing students to reflect on their performance, then put into practice what they have learned to improve their future performance and overall grade. In this paper we report our investigation as to whether the use of self and peer assessment produces similar benefits in a short-course where teams rather than staying the same, change for different assessment tasks.

There is a reported competency gap between the teamwork skills required by employers and those developed by engineering students during their undergraduate courses. The University of Technology, Sydney is addressing this issue by combining project-based learning with self and peer assessment to determine an individualâs team performance. A confidential online tool is used to collect and collate the student self and peer assessment ratings used both for formative feedback as well as assessment purposes. We found this approach improved student teamwork, engagement and satisfaction, while requiring only a small commitment of academic resources. We propose that using self and peer assessment would also be beneficial in industry to change workplace cultures, promote teamwork, individual skill development, engagement and productivity. Our implementation produces two assessment factors. The performance factor may be used by managers to coach staff to improve their performance, while the formative feedback factor will assist individuals to identify their strengths and weaknesses as perceived by their peers, facilitating ongoing skill development.

The design of structural frameworks for buildings is constantly evolving and is dependent on regional issues such as loading and constructability. One of the most promising recent developments for low to medium rise construction in terms of efficiency of construction, robustness and aesthetic appearance utilises concrete-filled steel tubular sections as the columns in a moment-resisting frame. These are coupled to rigid or semi-rigid connections to composite steel-concrete beams. This paper includes the results of a pilot experimental programme leading towards the development of economical, reliable connections that are easily constructed for this type of frame. The connections must provide the requisite strength, stiffness and ductility to suit gravity loading conditions as well as gravity combined with the governing lateral wind or earthquake loading. The aim is to develop connections that are suffer, less expensive and easier to construct than those in current use. A proposed fabricated T-stub connection is to be used to connect the beam flanges and the column. These T-stubs are connected to the column using "blind bolts" with extensions, allowing installation from the outside of the tube. In general, the use of the extensions results in a dramatic increase in the strength and stiffness of the T-stub to column connection in tension, since the load is shared between membrane action in the tube wall and the anchorage of the bolts through the extensions into the concrete.

This paper discusses results of experiments on an element of a proposed moment-resisting composite connection. The element is subjected to cyclic tension. A feature of this element is the use of blind bolts and extensions to these bolts into the concrete-filled CHS column. The test specimens with extensions failed at a higher load and showed increased initial stiffness compared to the specimen without extensions. The experimentally derived values of initial stiffness are also compared to the initial stiffness values derived from a mechanical component model of the connection element. © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.