Abstract:

The current technology trends, along with their continuously evolving character, are fostering major transformations in the educational environment; especially, in the higher education sector. This vivid scenario is providing a hotbed for the development and application of alternative teaching approaches, aimed at reforming the classroom environment, in order to ensure pedagogical practices reflect the dominant cultural, professional and societal values in vogue. This is particularly true for engineering, given its very scientific/technological nature as well as the high demands for such professionals in society. Such transformations may be perceived in more abstract forms – such as teaching approaches, learning methods – and, more recently, in more concrete forms, with drastic changes in the physical spaces dedicated to teaching/learning. In this context, an investigation has been devised in order to assess the impact of such transformations on the reshaping of the teaching approaches and on the learning experience of students of the electro-mechanical engineering course at CU Coventry (subsidiary of Coventry University); and is, herein, presented as a case study. A comparative study is currently being developed around the modules of the second year of the course, tested for both teaching/learning approaches and physical classroom design/construction, along successive runs. This initiative is intended to produce the first metrics on different degrees of blended approaches and, chiefly, on the shift towards the use of technology-enhanced open learning spaces. From such quantitative results, appraisals on the pedagogic practices will, then, be elaborated.

Keywords:

Open space, technology, engineering education, blended learning, teaching.