The 16 CDIO International Conference

Working Group: Faculty-Technician Collaboration

The purpose of this information is to make it conceivable for possible working group members to figure out if they will be a good candidate for a working group.

Name: Faculty-Technician Collaboration for Enhanced Student Learning: CDIO Technician Network

Problem/Question:

CDIO programmes are distinctive because they focus not just on the acquisition of scientific knowledge but also on the development of graduate skills, experience and attitudes essential in 21st century society and professional engineering. CDIO programmes are therefore typically built around team based active & experiential learning activities, with a special focus on design-build-test projects. The design & delivery of such learning experiences requires educators with a particular blend of skills: expertise in engineering science, pedagogy and practical / professional engineering experience.
CDIO Standard 9: Enhancement of Faculty Competence acknowledges that “Engineering professors tend to be experts in the research and knowledge base of their respective disciplines, with only limited experience in the practice of engineering …” Standard 9 also recommends that “… Faculty needs to enhance its engineering knowledge and skills so that it can provide relevant examples to students and also serve as individual role models of contemporary engineers”. For many years CDIO collaborating schools have been seeking to develop their academic Faculty competence in an effort to create the “ideal engineering educator”. For many years they have failed. Almost all collaborator self-evaluations against the CDIO Standards prove that Standard 9 is the hardest to make progress against.
The authors suggest we take a new approach: that we stop trying to create the academic Faculty member with the perfect blend of skills & experience, and instead focus on proper partnership between academic and technical staff in the design and delivery of teaching. Deploying these two distinct skill sets together will enhance student learning and allow us to target the full range of required learning outcomes.
This working group seeks to create the CDIO Technicians Network to acknowledge the work of technical staff across our network, and as a mechanism to enable technicians to:

• Share their practical engineering skills, experience and equipment
• Share their experience of delivering student learning; and to develop best practice and teaching resources
• Improve their partnership with academic Faculty in the design of student activities
• Deliver a regular strand of activity at CDIO conferences and thereby establish the Technician Network as a central part of the Initiative.

Leaders

Matt Murphy and Tony Topping, University of Liverpool, UK ( murphym@liv.ac.uk )

Application:

Application for joining the working group on Faculty-Technician Collaboration is done by filling out the application form Here and emailing it to the working group leader (Matt Murphy, murphym@liv.ac.uk)

Things to be done before the physical conference:

In advance of the Working Group meeting participants will be invited to:

• Establish a local Faculty-Technician Network within their own School to work together on this theme;
• Perform a literature survey to uncover published work in the field of teaching competencies and faculty-technician partnership;
• Consider the structure and content of a Technician Network database of practical expertise and technical resources; and to prepare their record for entry
• Create their entries into a directory of student learning experiences: activity descriptions and delivery guides to be shared across the Network
• Explore the creation of a series of practical engineering guidebooks, written by technicians to support student design-build-test
• Imagine a future for the Technician Network

What is expected to be the output of the face-to-face meeting?

The resultant state-of-the-art report will:

• Review the context for, and purpose of, the CDIO Technician Network; taking in relevant published literature and with explicit reference to the CDIO Standards;
• Describe the aims and objectives of the Network and provide exemplars of its core activities;
• Present the 3-year operational plan and describe the benefits of participation for member schools.

Other relevant information:

The CDIO Technician Network is by definition a collaboration between faculty / academic teaching staff and technical / workshop staff. The working group must therefore comprise both faculty and technician members. We have structured the activity to allow technical staff to make a full contribution in advance, but we would very much value their participation at the meeting.