Abstract:

In engineering education, the learning contents and methods have traditionally been very subject oriented and teacher centered. As the world today is changing enormously, it is crucial that the contents and methods in teaching also change at a sufficient rate.

In Häme University of Applied Sciences (HAMK), the pedagogical model has been completely renewed during the past few years. Terms like phenomenon or competence based learning and team teaching are things which have not very often been related to engineering education, but are now the foundation of HAMK’s pedagogical model in all disciplines, even in engineering studies.

At the same time, increased need for flexibility in teaching subjects has required a completely new way of building new contents to teaching. It can no longer be expected that the teachers would be the specialists in all the matters in the curriculum. More and more often we’ll find ourselves in situations where we as teachers are learning new competences together with our students or sometimes even from our students. We also need to be more open to utilizing non-educational experts and sources as part of teaching.

In this paper, a new flexible way of executing engineering studies will be introduced. The paper will summarize 4 years’ experiences and observations of a process where traditional teacher centric mechanical engineering teaching was converted into a model where teachers work collaboratively in teams supporting the students’ learning processes. After all, we should create educational processes which motivate and encourage the students to learn the perhaps most important skill for their further work career: the ability and eagerness to learn more.

Keywords:

team teaching, collaborative learning, engineering education, new pedagogy