Feature Archive

The NATALIE Project, Professor Jim Boyle, University of Strathclyde

The New Approaches to Teaching & Learning in Engineering (NATALIE) Project has been set up to respond to two recent significant, but subtle, changes in engineering education.

The New Approaches to Teaching & Learning in Engineering (NATALIE) Project has been set up to respond to two recent significant, but subtle, changes in engineering education:

Universities are now in an era of mass higher education: this brings with it not only more students, but students with a wider range of skills and motivation.
Secondary education is being driven by success in examinations: this develops an attitude in our students that the most important issue in their education is assessment rather than learning.

The leader of the NATALIE teaching team, Professor Jim Boyle, Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, believes that these changes represent a significant threat. “We sometimes forget we are training our students to be Professional Engineers”, says Professor Boyle, “We are not just a degree mill - we are preparing our students for professional practice. This brings with it certain responsibilities - not only the need to educate in professional ethics and the uncertainties of design as well as business and management concepts, but also the recognition that we must ensure competence.” Professor Boyle believes that at its basic level, competence means that when a student draws a free-body diagram he gets it right, not the '40% right' which is all that's needed to pass an exam! Engineering can never be treated seriously as a profession, compared to doctors and lawyers, if we do not aim for competence. The question is - how do we do this?

The NATALIE philosophy is to try to re-emphasise the role of critical thinking - the basis of a higher education as well as a necessary skill of a professional engineer. A significant part of critical thinking is the recognition of the crucial role of conversation. Higher education began with Socratic Dialogue - teaching by questioning and discussion. Engineering education - through the roles of Master and Apprentice - was based on essentially the same idea. But in the context of mass higher education steered by assessment, how can this be done? “It is crucial to understand that we have to move away from the 'traditional' lecture, tutorial and laboratory format”, says Professor Boyle, “Passive learning has never had a place in engineering education - we have become too dominated by engineering science and have followed the teaching models of the post Second World War scientists”.

Given the inadequate funding of higher education, and engineering education in particular, how is it possible to establish a more active learning format, without substantial resource implications?

In fact it is possible. Freshman physics education in the USA has faced a similar problem (primarily in the context of non-majors) in recent years. Several innovative groups - in particular the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Physics Education Research Group and Eric Mazur's group at Harvard - have successfully demonstrated how discussion can be reintroduced into the large lecture using the technology of Classroom Communication Systems. As a first step the NATALIE project have adapted this teaching style to teach first year engineering mechanics and thermo-fluids (as well as several other classes in later years) and have installed two Classroom Communication Systems in the Strathclyde InterActive ClassRoom.

According to Professor Boyle: “What we are doing is just a variation on 'interactive engagement' methods (that is, the students do things in groups, and engage in discussion with each other and with us, and learn at their own pace) - there is overwhelming research evidence that this greatly improves the pass rate (we don't focus too much on 'grades') and improves student understanding of difficult ideas. We have verified this in our first year, but also note that the students are much more confident about themselves, their degree choice and the university - and it greatly improves the first year experience for them. The classroom communication systems enables active collaborative learning in a large class (about 120 in our case, but Harvard & UMass have classes of 500) and allows bi-directional feedback - the students know if they are following the material, and so do we. Most of us who teach with feedback now couldn't go back to traditional large lectures - you get hooked!”

“We have built our Interactive Classroom with two 'classroom communication systems' (CCS): Classtalk, which was developed a few years ago and is a wired system based on TI advanced graphic calculators, and the newer Personal Response System (PRS) - an infrared system (we now have a few of these since it is very portable). Classtalk is relatively expensive but very sophisticated allowing questions other than multiple choice and with bi-directional feedback. PRS allows multiple choice questions only, and 'confidence levels' (i.e. the student can say how confident they are in the answer) and is fairly cheap. Our typical lecture is two hours and consists of mini-lectures, demonstrations, videos and problem solving interspersed with question sessions. The CCs just starts the question session - the most important bit is the students initial discussion in their group, followed by feedback and then class-wide discussion. It's really only the ancient method of Socratic Dialogue enabled for a large classroom. In fact we're using a variation developed by Mazur known as Peer Instruction. The way we ask questions varies depending on what we're trying to do - sometimes an instant response is required, then discussion and the question is set again, sometimes we allow dissent from the group, sometimes they can change their response, sometimes not. The sequence of questions is also important. Fortunately we've had a lot of help from UMass and Mazur. Despite the questions, we think the classes are very relaxed - much less of a burden than the traditional lecture. We get to play music (in engineering classes!). Its good fun!”

“In addition to these changes to the traditional lecture format, we have also introduced a version of Problem-based Learning using Mechanical Dissection into new first year design classes. In the same way that students of medicine learn the workings of the human body through clinical dissection, engineering students can learn a great deal about engineering components by mechanical dissection. The students work in the same groups in their lectures as in the design classes (and as far as possible in all their classes). This has also been very positive and really challenges the students.”

In fact, the pioneering Interactive Classroom is currently being dismantled to be rebuilt as part of the new Strathclyde Teaching Cluster - a suite of managed state-of-the-art multimedia classrooms, Interactive ClassRooms with seating layouts to enable group work in large classes and a new Teaching Studio based on the Rensselear Polytechnic Institute studio model. All will have Classroom Communication Systems.

“Anyone interested in visiting the new Teaching Cluster or the PBL Design Classes is more than welcome”, says Professor Boyle, “We have many visiting academics and teachers sitting in the classroom observing the teaching techniques and the classroom technology. Most leave with a resolution to try it out for themselves and we learn a lot from their observations and feedback, after all we're still learning too!”

External Links:

E-mail Jim Boyle the author
University of Strathclyde

The NATALIE team have been influenced by the following educational researchers, among many others - you can learn much more by linking to their web sites:

The University of Massachusetts, Amherst Physics Education Research Group
Eric Mazur's Group at Harvard, and Peer Instruction

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The NATALIE Project, Professor Jim Boyle, University of Strathclyde

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