Integrated Pedagogy for Specialty Courses in Chinese Engineering Education.

Specialty courses bridge a student's university education and future occupation. This paper discusses an integrated pedagogy to cultivate a broader, global engineering perspective among Chinese students to enhance their critical thinking and research skills. Two kinds of pedagogies based on the curriculum order are integrated with traditional lectures: English language literature review and Project-Based Learning (PBL). This integrated pedagogical approach was applied in three different kind of engineering courses at three different schools in three different Chinese universities. Student feedback and self-evaluation shows that the literature review method helps them improve their specialty area English level, as well as gain a better grasp of textbook theories and concepts. Meanwhile, PBL helps students develop process-oriented approaches to real-world problem solving and collaboration. Findings show that Chinese students experiencing the integrated pedagogy accept the method, and report a better understanding of textbook content than through passive lectures alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]