The Australasian Association forEngineering Education
NEWSLETTER
March 2009
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The Australasian Association forEngineering Education NEWSLETTER |
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It is a great honour to be elected President of Australasian Association of Engineering Education as the first New Zealander in this role. I look forward to working with the other members of the Executive Committee to serve the members of the association and the wider Engineering Education community for the next year. In particular, I would like to recognize the enormous contribution of Roger Hadgraft to the Association. He steps down as President, after several years on the Executive, but to my great relief is staying on the Executive as Past President. Roger's standing in the international community is exemplified by the request for him to chair the 2009 gathering of the Research in Engineering Education Symposium to be held in Queensland in July.
The Association has matured in the 20 years since its first conference in 1989, and the recent Annual Conference in December at Yeppoon, demonstrated the level of experience and expertise we now have amongst our members. The papers presented, all peer reviewed to a high standard, provided insight into examples of exemplary best practice teaching methods, and leading edge engineering education research. The presentations by the finalists for the AAEE Teaching Awards, included in the programme for the first time in 2008, were inspirational and fully justified their selection. Thank you to Anne Gardner of UTS who organized the Award submission and selection processes.
The Educational Research Methods special interest group held a workshop and Invited speaker session which were both standing room only - a pleasing response, and a special thank you to Lesley Jolly who initiated both of these. Another Special Interest Group was formed for those interested in First year programmes and support, and I take pleasure in being able to co-ordinate that group myself.
The 2008 conference, isolated us all in the delightful setting of the Capricornia resort in Yeppoon, where the weather and the hospitality was warm - many thanks to Prue Howard and her team. The sense of community was commented on a special feature of the conference and we look forward to reviving those friendships in Adelaide in December.
The coming year is filled with promise. My main focus as President might loosely be termed communication and dissemination. As a starting point, the executive committee has been putting material that will be of interest to our members on a wiki site at http://aaee-scholar.pbwiki.com. You will see our enthusiasm reflected in the postings by Special Interest Groups, notices of forthcoming conferences, etc Please visit the site. Your comments and feedback on any of the wiki material is welcomed. If you wish to contribute please contact Roger Hadgraft who is currently managing the wiki site.
Note also, the workshops being put on by the ERM Special Interest Group as outlined further on in this newsletter. The aim of these workshops is to strengthen our sense of community, and use that community to provide engineering academics with the opportunities and resources to build their knowledge and skills in the scholarship of learning and teaching, and educational research.
I encourage you all to share our enthusias, print our newsletters, or articles of interest, talk about them over coffee and leave them lying around for your colleagues! Enjoy the last of your summer, and I leave you with one of my favourite quotes:
"There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning (Krishnamurti)"
Elizabeth Godfrey
President
The 2009 Executive from left to right (with their areas of responsibility in brackets) are:
Frank Bullen from USQ (ACED); Prue Howard from CQU, Duncan Campbell from QUT (CDIO), Narelle Folkard, Secretariat Engineers Australia; Gerard Rowe from Uni of Auckland (Bibliography), Lesley Jolly from UQ (ERM), Euan Lindsay from Curtin (Vice Presdient, Treasurer, Remote Labs, AJEE Assoc Editor); Liz Godfrey from Uni of Auckland (President, 1st Yr Programmes, IFEES rep); Colin Kestell from Uni of Adelaide (Website, newsletter, 2009 Conference); Anne Gardner from UTS (Awards); Les Dawes from QUT (AJEE Editor); Roger Hadgraft from Uni Melbourne (Past President, chair REES, AEESEAP rep, JEE rep).
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2009 will mark the 20th anniversary of AAEE and the 20th conference will be held at the University of Adelaide and proudly hosted by the Faculty of Engineering, Computer and Mathematical Sciences. The campus lies in the heart of the 'City of Churches' with an abundance of accommodation and dining opportunities in easy walking distance. The South Australian vineyards, world famous for their excellent wine are only a short trip North, East and South of the City. To the West (a tram ride away) lie the golden sandy beaches. For more details on this please visit the conference website at: http://www.plevin.com.au/aaee2009/ Adelaide is a remarkable city and we ask you to consider extending your stay to enjoy the beauty of its surroundings. For more information about South Australia, please visit: http://www.southaustralia.com/
To help us organise the program, please submit your abstracts as soon as possible. |
The 2008 AaeE Conference was held at Rydges Capricorn Resort at Yeppoon in Queensland. The organisers tried to showcase the tropical environment, and provided lots of sun and even a tropical storm.The resort pool was well used and proved a popular place for networking opportunities.Ice cream for afternoon tea was a big hit. Along with showcasing the local wildlife (a visit during one of the lunches by local crocodile handlers and a couple of their young charges for everyone to pat), there were 3 keynotes, 10 workshops and 98 papers along with invited papers, panel sessions and for the first time, presentations from all the AaeE Award finalists.
The Awards dinner saw the awards winners presented with
their trophies and citations. Being close to Christmas, Beach Santa made a
special visit to recognise his AaeE friends and distribute some presents. The
tropical climate along with the organising committee encouraged the casual
approach, but there were a few who insisted on wearing ties to dinner!
The
theme for this conference “To Industry and Beyond” was intended to encourage
delegates to think about a number of issues that impact on the future of
engineering education. What is engineering? What do the various stakeholders
want from an engineering graduate? How is the engineering workplace changing?
What pressures will engineering graduates face at work now and in the future?
What are the internal and external pressures experienced in engineering
education?
The discussions following the keynote speakers - Robin King (the future of Engineering Education), Graham Scott (the future of Engineering Practice) and Shanna Daly (about Beyond Engineering), - and the comments on the daily evaluation showed that many of the delegates were doing this.
Engineers Australia supported the conference through the participation of the Local Group.A half day focused on industry issues with the keynote focussing on Engineering Practice and an industry panel to debate the concept of Learning integrated Work. The conference had about 170 delegates,including the Local Group participants.
In 2008 there was an increase in both quantity and quality
of applications for the AaeE Awards. Although this made the work of the
selection panel a little more difficult, it is a pleasing trend that we would
encourage to continue. In 2009 we will be looking for applicants' contribution
to the engineering education community, and would remind everyone that AaeE
provides an avenue for doing this.
Andrew Ooi was awarded the 2008 prize for teaching excellence and Lydia Kavanagh and Syed Mahfuzul Aziz were highly commended
The award for programs that enhnce learning innovation in curricula, learning and teaching was awarded to Lyn Brodie, John Worden, Mark Porter and Thiru Arivinthan for the "USQ Problem Solving Strand"
The award for programs that enhnce learning educational partnerships and collaboration was awarded to Richard Hopkins for the "Master in Water Resources Management Program".
Citations for outstanding contributions to student learning in engineering were awarded to:
Anne Gardner
Welcome to the second year of the CDIO Special Interest Group. In 2008, we saw AAEE become formally recognised by the CDIO Council as an Affiliate,the first of such a relationship with CDIO around the world. This year, we would like to promote greater membership and interaction of CDIO type activities around Australia and New Zealand. The ANZ CDIO Regional Group is chaired by Dave Levy and co-chaired by myself. To date, the University of Sydney, Queensland University of Technology and the University of Auckland have been recognized globally as CDIO collaborators. We know there is more CDIO activity going on around the region and would certainly encourage those interested to participate in the growing community of practice, share experiences, and consider becoming a CDIO collaborator if you feel this would be of benefit to you and your institution. We have made a further step in developing an AAEE CDIO SIG web-site which is now residing at http://aaee-scholar.pbwiki.com/CDIO-PBL. Finally, registration for the 2009 CDIO Conference in Singapore is now open. There are at least 500 delegates expected, so it is going to be a big one. There are also a number of getting-started workshops for CDIO planned. Further details at http://www.sp.edu.sg/cdio2009
A/Prof Duncan Campbell
Chair, AAEE CDIO Special Interest
Group
Educational research methods were quite a focus of the 2008 conference with an invited speakers session, two other ERM paper sessions and a well-attended workshop. The aim for this year is to spread the word and develop the group through more member input.
Check out the aaee-scholar wiki at http://aaee-scholar.pbwiki.com. There's a page there for ERM so please have a look at the offerings so far, get involved in discussions and let us know what else you would like to see on the site.
Later this year the AaeE Executive and the Councils of Engineering Deans will be sponsoring workshops in all major centres around Australia and New Zealand entitled "Education Research and Your Career". The workshops will include the latest news on local policies with respect to education research, some how-to sessions and a seminar with someone who is in the process of incorporating education research into an academic career. We're hoping for the first workshops to take place in Sydney in April and Auckland in May. Watch out for the fliers.
For the 2009 conference we hope to build the ERM activities around the theme of "interdisciplinarity" so please think about submitting an abstract about your experiences of working across disciplines. Just like last year we're planning a session of invited papers and a workshop on the subject. We'd also like to invite everyone interested in ERM to a special breakfast so we can get to know each other face to face and plan next year's activities.
It should be a very interesting year!
Regional workshops
Dr Lesley Jolly
Chair, ERM interest group.
One of our more ambitious projects in recent years was the collation of the AAEE bibliography. Led by the University of Adelaide's Holger Maier, this project brought together the key publications on a number of relevant topics. There is a wealth of literature out there, but not all of it is equally useful. The bibliography gives you a starting point for accessing information about a range of different topics.
We have recently changed our format of this resource so that we can keep it as up to date as possible. Please visit our new Wiki at http://aaee-scholar.pbwiki.com
We are always looking for new contributions to our bibliography - either to update existing topics, or to add new ones. We are particularly interested in good references (preferably electronically accessible) on engagement, evaluation, ethics and assessment (peer/group/design and project assessment). If you have suggestions, please forward them to bibliography@aaee.com.au
Dr Gerard Rowe
Bibliography editor
The Remote Labs SIG has been quiet of late, with work continuing on at individual institutions around the county. 2009 will see a review of laboratory education in Australia - a snapshot to see what laboratory facilities are being used, what new facilities are being built, and what old facilities are being phased out. This will help identify opportunities for increased sharing of facilities, and directions for cooperation in the future.
Dr Euan Lindsay
Remote Labs SIG
A list of forthcoming conferences and brief information will be kept updated on the aaee-scholar.pbwiki.com site - please notify us of any conference you wish to have included.
These currently include:
Women in Engineering Survey
Andre Kappelhoff andre@widepr.co.uk
The Government-funded UK Resource Centre for Women in
Science, Engineering and Technology (UKRC) and the engineering staffing company
EPCglobal invite you to take part in a short anonymous prize survey of engineers
from around the world, about the position of women in the profession.
The survey has to date been conducted amongst 300 engineers
from
The survey can be accessed here: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB228XY6H96XF
Please note: this survey, for men and women,will be used as a starting point for discussion and examines a few important issues in a top-line fashion.
It will take place in Orlando, Florida, USA, on July 10th - 13th, 2009.
http://www.ICTconfer.org/eeet/Organizer.asp
Tuesday 23 and Wednesday 24 June 2009, engCETL, Loughborough University, UK
http://www.engsc.ac.uk/nef/events/project-based-learning.asp
This event, hosted by the Engineering Subject Centre and the engCETL, aims to provide an excellent opportunity for delegates and presenters to discuss and review the benefits of project based learning in their teaching.
The overall aim of the event is to highlight examples of effective project based learning in engineering in the UK, and delegates will be given the opportunity to learn more about the impact of the interventions in UK departments and the potential barriers to implementation.
http://www.sefi2009.com/nl/default.asp
The deadlines are the following:
For Invited Sessions Proposals, please go to the conference web site or directly to:
http://www.ICTconfer.org/eeet.
It will take place in Orlando, Florida, USA, on July 10th - 13th, 2009. http://www.ICTconfer.org/eeet/Organizer.asp
For more information on Global Colloquium's program and logistics, please visit ASEE's website at http://www.asee.org/conferences/international/2009/index.cfm.
The report, prepared by Professor Owen Hicks (ALTC senior consultant), provides a formal documentation of the Symposium and a summary of the disciplinary and common cross-disciplinary learning and teaching priorities identified by participants in the Symposium workshops. A full transcription of the notes generated by Symposium participants is available on the ALTC Exchange at: http://altcexchange.edu.au/notes-disciplinary-and-cross-disciplinary-workshops-altc-leading-change-symposium-2008.
Watch the wiki site for more conference announcements!
Roger HadgraftInternational Symposium on Engineering Education and Educational Technologies: EEET 2009
Enhancing Project Based Learning in Engineering
SEFI 2009, Attracting Young people into engineering
Rotterdam, July 1-4 2009International Symposium on Engineering Education and Educational Technologies: EEET 2009
Pre-Conference and Post-conference VIRTUAL sessions (via electronic forums) will be held for each session included in the conference program, so sessions' papers can be read before the conference, and authors presenting at the same session can interact during one week before the conferences, and after it is over. Authors can also participate in peer-to-peer reviewing in virtual sessions.ASEE Global Colloquium on Engineering Education, Budapest, Hungary, October 12-15
This year's Colloquium is titled "Cultures, Markets and Regulations: Shaping Global Engineering Education." The colloquium will explore aspects of the interplay between national culture and history and the relative importance of market forces and regulation in shaping engineering education in different countries and regions.
ASME Asia-Pacific Engineering Education Congress (APEEC), Taipei on April 9-11, 2009.
For more information and registration visit: (Advance registration deadline, March 15)
http://apeec2009.ntu.edu.tw/introduction.asp
Announcement of JSEE Annual Conference
Please click here for the anouncement
2009 MERLOT International Conference Call for Papers
Please click here for the anouncement
ALTC Leading Change Symposium
The Australian Learning and Teaching Council is pleased to inform you that a report on the ALTC Leading Change Symposium, held in Sydney on 27 and 28 November 2008, is now available on the ALTC website at: http://www.altc.edu.au/carrick/go/home/pid/586.
Please note that you will need to login or join the ALTC Exchange to view.
Past President
