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A Pro-Active Approach to Addressing Student Learning Diversity in Engineering Mechanics

Project updates, announcements, and useful links...

Project Summary

This is a substantial Australian Learning and Teaching Council funded engineering education research project led by the University of Wollongong, with partners the University of Tasmania, the University of Technology, Sydney, and the Australian Maritime College at Utas. The project aims to address increasing diversity in engineering students’ prior learning, learning styles, personal interests and other factors, which are affecting learning in engineering mechanics. The project will develop a process and tools that take a pro-active approach to addressing factors that cause difficulties for students in this topic area.

Existing learning resources will be identified and new resources developed to provide students with the supplementary education they require to overcome these issues before they cause problems. Methods for identifying problems and selecting the appropriate resources will also be established. The project team envisage a ‘toolbox’ which can support a holistic early intervention approach to rectifying issues that cause students’ poor performance in engineering mechanics.

Projected outcomes

Projected outcomes for this project are:

• A means of addressing the increasing diversity in engineering students prior learning, learning styles, abilities and other factors.
• A practical approach to tailoring education to satisfy diverse student learning needs without increasing the burden on teaching staff.
• A directory of publicly available learning resources for engineering mechanics, and a guide to their applications (a ‘toolbox’).
• Ongoing use and evaluation of the ‘toolbox’ by the project team.
• A process for increasing quality of learning overall by addressing specific student needs.

Project Team

Professor Timothy McCarthy, UOW  (Project Leader) tim_mccarthy@uow.edu.au
Dr. Anna Carew, UTas anna.carew@utas.edu.au
Ms. Anne Gardner, UTS Anne.Gardner@eng.uts.edu.au
Dr. Giles Thomas, AMC @ UTas gthomas@amc.edu.au
Dr. Alan Henderson, UTas alan.henderson@utas.edu.au
Mr. Thomas Goldfinch, UOW  (Project Officer) tom_goldfinch@uow.edu.au

Mailing List

To join the mailing list for project updates and announcements, please contact Tom Goldfinch by email at tom_goldfinch@uow.edu.au