In-Class EMI Challenges Arising in an Arabian Gulf Engineering Programme

Teacher collaboration is of great significance to improve the professional ability and development of teachers. This study shows that the traditional path of teachers' professional development has gradually lagged behind the pace of the development of the times, and the new path of teachers' professional development with teachers' collaboration as the core is attracting much attention. This study examines and reflects on the hot topics in the concept and practice of teacher collaboration from the aspects of the theoretical implication, manifestation and implementation dilemma of teacher collaboration. In fact, under the development concept of teacher collaboration, there are many implementation difficulties. Providing time guarantee for teacher collaboration, guiding teachers to correctly understand teacher collaboration and balancing the limits of teacher autonomy and collaboration are very important to promote teacher collaboration.

This chapter discusses how interaction can be encouraged in engineering courses. To many educators in Taiwan, EMI and non-EMI teachers alike, interactive tasks belong in the language classroom and are not suitable in content courses. In fact, teachers often complain about having to reduce content in an EMI classroom, leaving little or no time for activities. However, it is commonly acknowledged that EMI teachers often need to deal with a passive class, where students are unresponsive and avoid interaction with the teacher. This chapter will first review literature on engineering education to demonstrate that an interactive approach in teaching not only makes learning more interesting but also allows teachers to gain insights into student learning. The chapter will then present and discuss the findings from four EMI courses offered by an undergraduate mechanical engineering (ME) program in a comprehensive university in southern Taiwan. Finally, the chapter will suggest quick but effective activities that meet teachers’ needs for quality feedback and students’ desire for oral practice.

This study was to investigate the English-language needs of 182 second-year Thai undergraduate engineering students in a Thai public university in Thailand for their study in their second-year English program in engineering. A two-part self-assessment questionnaire was constructed based upon the previous research on the English-language needs of English as a Second Language (ESL)/English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students, particularly in Science and Technology in relation to English for Academic Purposes (EAP). The first part of the questionnaire asks for their demographic variables: gender, specialty, years of studying English in the school(s), and self-reported English proficiency in Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing skills. The second part deals with 45 items of English-language needs in four major areas: Language Structures, Rhetorical Categories, Language Functions, and Language Skills (Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing). The findings of this study determined by the descriptive statistical analyses indicate that the majority of these engineering students seem to show similarity with their perceived English-language needs in those four major areas listed in the questionnaire as being moderately important or very important to learn in their second-year English program in engineering. Generally speaking, their self-perceptions of the English-language needs in the questionnaire in association with these demographic variables: gender; specialty: Chemical, Civil, Computer, Electrical, Industrial and Mechanical Engineering; and years of studying English in the school(s) did not differ statistically significantly at the 5% level of significance (α = .05). Recommendations, implications, and suggestions for applications and future research are also discussed.

The paper outlines the development of a senior-level laboratory for demonstration and hands-on activities related to various maintenance technologies. This laboratory has been developed as part of a course entitled Introduction to Maintenance Engineering, which is designed for seniors and first-year graduate students in engineering. The course and the accompanying laboratory were developed at The University of Tennessee under an NSF-CRCD grant. Students learn the principles of various maintenance technologies as they are practiced by U.S. industry. Six laboratory modules, spanning the important maintenance technologies, are currently available. The scope of the Laboratory has been enhanced by providing Internet access to machinery data. 1. Introduction The University of Tennessee, Knoxville has a well-established certificate program in Maintenance and Reliability Engineering. This program is designed primarily for undergraduate students in engineering. In addition, a graduate certificate program in Maintenance and Reliability Engineering is available for both on-campus and distant students 3 . The course entitled

The professional development of teachers in India is still, by and large, based on formal and outdated professional learning traditions, often characterised by crash courses and one-off workshops. In education, blogs have proven to be an effective means of establishing and maintaining collaborative learning networks and helping members reflect on their professional practices. Information and communications technology (ICT) enabled practices of teacher professional development is still in its infancy in India. Moreover, there is limited research in India to secure foundational understanding of how and in what ways teachers of English in India use blogs for their professional development. This study explores the use of teacher reflective practice, teacher networking, and teacher collaboration, beyond formal ICT training, through blog-based professional development of English teachers in the Mumbai region of India. Using data collected from 32 teachers from three private schools in Mumbai, through ICT interactive workshop observations, questionnaires, interviews, and blog comments, this action case study explains whether and why blogging, as a learning community, has the potential to add significant value to existing professional development of English teachers in Mumbai.

In the Dublin Institute of Technology, an engineering programme in the School of Control Systems and Electrical Engineering has successfully incorporated a study skills module into the core curriculum. The purpose of having this module, Academic Development and Key Skills, in the first year of the programme is twofold. It is meant to assist the students with the transition from second level education to third level by aiding them in becoming more competent with their learning style. This is turn has helped to create a positive impact with respect to the retention of this student group within the programme. The second year of this module develops the study skills further. It has been recognised by industry that study skills in fact mirror many of the skills students require for their future careers such as time management, presentation skills, communication skills and task management. These skills are otherwise known as soft, core, key or transferable skills. This paper discusses how the implementation of study skills into the core curriculum of a third level engineering programme can be of benefit to the current and future needs of students-both academic and personal developmental as well as with their future professional requirements. By providing the environment to develop and learn these skills within an engineering programme it is taking a step towards addressing the holistic needs of its student population

Prior research on faculty-student interactions in engineering education generally conceptualizes the function of these episodes to be supportive of professional development.In this paper, we examine the experience of professional shame amid faculty-student interactions.More generally, we examine the emotional significance of interactions between faculty and students and how such moments can affect how students cope with the experience of professional shame.Our findings are based on a thematic analysis that followed a broader qualitative mixed-method investigation of how engineering students experience professional shame.Specifically, we analyzed specific episodes of moments where the experience of shame was connected to faculty members within focus group transcripts (n = 10) of engineering students (n = 38) and interview transcripts with engineering students (n = 16).We generated three themes that characterized the experience of professional shame amid faculty-student interactions.First, faculty would engender shame through conveying vague, holistic expectations of what it means to be an engineer.Second, students would cope with the experience of shame by blaming the faculty member for the experience.Finally, some students saw the faculty member as a source of hope while they experienced professional shame.These findings point to the crucial role that faculty play in not only preparing engineering students for professional practice but also for cultivating environments of well-being within engineering programs.

Academic performance of college students, particularly those who are in an engineering program, continues to receive attention in the literature. However, there is a lack of studies that examine the simultaneous effects of students' systems thinking (ST) skills and proactive personality (PP) on academic performance. The linkage between ST skills and PP has not been investigated adequately in the literature. The study aims to examine the ST skills and PP to predict the academic performance of engineering students and to find if there is a relationship between students' PP and the level of ST skills. Two established instruments, namely, ST skills instrument with seven dimensions and PP with one dimension, are administrated for data collection. A web-based crosssectional survey using Qualtrics was used to collect the data using a sample of college engineering students. Different classification techniques were applied to perform the analysis and to compare the validity of results. This study provides implications and contributions to the engineering education body of knowledge. First, the study provides a better understanding of students' academic performance. This intent is to help educators, teachers, mentors, college authorities, and other involved parties to understand students' individual differences for a better training and guidance environment. Second, a closer look at the level of systemic thinking and PP of engineering students would help to understand engineering students' skillset.

This study concerns on how reading text are developed for vocational school. This study was conducted by using Research and Development (R&D) design. It was started from collecting the data, analyzing data, designing course grid, designing new reading material by using Scientific Approach, validating by experts, and revising for final product. The new reading material contained of five stages namely; observing, questioning, exploring, associating, and communicating. The source of data of this study was the grade X students of Computer Engineering and Networking Program at SMKS Taman Siswa Medan consisting 24 students. Instrument of collecting data were observation, questionnaire, and interview. After analyzing data, the researcher got the students‟ need in learning English in term of vocation that they have. The interview and questionnaire result proved that the students need English reading materials which contain English for Computer Engineering and Networking program. The materials which were developed were focused on descriptive text. The product had been validated by the experts. The average scores are 3,4 both from English teacher and English lecturer. It means the developing materials categorized as relevant for students of Computer Engineering and Networking program grade X.

“Transfer shock” is a well-known phenomenon during the process of articulation, when students move from short-cycle applied programs to more academic longer-cycle study programs. In the US context this problematic transition has been observed in students transferring from community colleges into the traditional university system. In Ireland's binary higher education structure, one set of institutions, known as Institutes of Technology (IoTs) allow for this transition to take place entirely within individual institutions. This paper is part of an ongoing investigation into one such IoT, where engineering students who achieve high grades at the end of 3-year (so-called Level 7) “ordinary degree” programs frequently transfer into the 3rd year of 4-year Level 8 “honors degree” programs, with surprisingly successful outcomes. One surprise derives from the fact that the students who enter Level 7 engineering programs are deemed at the outset to be academically less able, particularly in mathematics, than those who go directly into Level 8 programs from secondary school. Relatively little work has been done on this transition to date. In the 3rd and 4th year of many honors engineering programs within this institution it is not unusual to have 30–50% of the students coming from an ordinary degree background, the majority from within the institution itself — with others transferring from other IoTs in Ireland. Previous research has shown that students from this background initially struggle in the 3rd year of the honors degree program when compared with students who have proceeded directly through the honors program, before going on to successfully graduate. Can this be attributed to ‘transfer shock’ even though most of these students are continuing in an institution and with faculty that they are already familiar with? In order to examine this phenomenon we interview students from several engineering disciplines at various points in this transition. We explore the perceptions of the students regarding this transition and, based on the information coming from the interviews, we conduct a large scale survey to be administered to articulating students across engineering programs in the institution. The preliminary results of this survey are also presented here.

Informed by literature on developing pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) through teacher collaboration, this study aims to investigate the trajectory of PCK development among business English teachers through module team collaboration in Chinese context. Drawing upon multiple sources of data including observation, semi-structured interview, and teaching materials from three case teachers, this study explores how PCK components were developed in one academic year when case teachers participated in module team collaborative activities. The findings show the individual differences among the three participants in their PCK development and reveal that two key PCK components—Knowledge of students’ understanding and Knowledge of instructional strategies have developed through teacher collaboration. This study suggests the collective inquiry in teacher collaboration.

OF DISSERTATION QUESTIONING AS A CIVIC ACT: AN EXAMINATION OF HOW SOCIAL STUDIES TEACHERS DEFINE, DEVELOP, AND CULTIVATE QUESTIONS FOR INQUIRY The present qualitative study used socio-cultural theory (Wertsch, 1998), pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1987), and reflective practice (Schon, 1983) to examine how social studies teachers define and develop inquiry questions. Existing literature reflects a long tradition of equating inquiry with high quality social studies instruction (e.g., Barton & Levstik, 2004; Bruner, 1977; Griffin, 1942) and arguing that successful inquiry hinges on an engaging question (Barton & Levstik, 2004; Grant, 2003), but relatively little attention has been paid to how teachers characterize and develop questions for use with inquiry (Grant & Gradwell, 2010). The main research question was: How do high school social studies teachers understand the role questions play in inquiry? Supporting questions included: (1) How do teachers define inquiry? (2) What traits do teachers attribute to questions used for inquiry? (3) How do standards impact teachers’ understandings of questions used for inquiry? (4) How do teachers approach developing questions used for inquiry? Data included transcripts from semistructured interviews, field notes from verbal report exercises, and documents from teacher completed tasks. Results indicated that teachers identified questioning as an important inquiry skill and civic practice, identified student relevance and complexity as key attributes of inquiry questions, and approached the development of inquiry questions in a deliberate and reflective way. Additionally, results indicated that a proposed state social studies standards document provided teachers with useful terminology and that experience developing and implementing inquiry questions positively influenced teachers’ comfort with inquiry. This study sheds light on the potential of cultural tools to influence teachers’ curricular and instructional decisions. Further consideration of how teachers develop and implement inquiry questions may offer insight into the presence and success of questions and inquiry in social studies classrooms.

It is an important and challenging task to develop concepts and skills of undergraduate engineering students in computer programming course and hence their evaluation on higher order skills. Already several methods are developed to evaluate the students of this course for various engineering programs, but a method for undergraduate electrical and electronic engineering (EEE) program was not found in the literature. In this paper, a simple evaluation method for the students of computer programming course of undergraduate EEE (BSc in EEE) program has been reported using result-oriented learning. Detail methodology, course syllabus design, course outcomes (COs) and mapping it with program outcomes (POs) of BSc in EEE, question setting following Bloom’s taxonomy, laboratory experiment, assessment plan, course and PO evaluation data and graphs have been presented along with relevant statistics. All data are presented for a cohort of students who took this course in summer 2019 Semester at EEE Department of Southeast University. It has been observed that the target set by the course teacher has been achieved by the students. Recommendations of the course teacher for further improvement of the COs’ achievement have also been presented. Keywords: CO evaluation, programming course, OBE

This article outlines a new engineering program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, which teaches students how to design theme parks, theatrical productions, and other sophisticated amusements. From pyrotechnics to virtual reality, the biggest shows in Las Vegas rely on engineers. UNLV's entertainment engineering and technology program is teaching engineering students how to apply their imagination, as well as their technical know-how, to designing these lavish spectacles.

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