Educational learning outcomes and expected professional competence in engineering

Nina Reistad Piotr Szybek,

Lund Institute of Technology Department of Education,

Lund University, Sweden

Expected competence and required curriculum

• From curriculum to capabilities

• From capabilities to competence at work

• From expected competence at work to required curriculum

curriculum

competence at work

capabilities

The research programme

• Relation of capabilities accrued in education and the learning environment

• Relation of competence at work and capabilities accrued in education

The affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill. The verb to afford is found in the dictionary, but the noun affordance is not. I have made it up. I mean by it something that refers to both the environment and the animal in a way that no existing term does. It implies the complementarity of the animal and the environment.

(Gibson 1979, 127; emphasis in original)

• What kind of environment does engineering education constitute?

• What does it offer the students?

(either for good or ill)

One example

The environmental engineering

education programme at the Lund

University Faculty of Engineering

(the”W-programme”).

The structure of a Physics course

• Lectures• Seminars• Problem

solving exercises

• Laboratory exercises

Literature

mandatory

Photo: Nina Reistad

Photo: Nina Reistad

What does this environment afford?

• There is a lack of a latent presence of a teacher

• Students are left alone, they are supposed to assume responsibility for the problem solving

There are more girls in this programme than in other programmes

Photo: Nina Reistad

Exercises tie together several aspects of physics

Example –

Compute the kinetic energy of nitrogen molecules:

Mechanics and spectroscopy

Compute the distance between atoms in en hydrogen chloride molecule given its potential energy

Mechanics and thermodynamics

What does this afford?

From:

MAKING SENSE OF STUDYING PHYSICS

Åke Ingerman & Shirley Booth

presented at the 12th Annual Meeting of the Southern African Association for

Research in Mathematics, Science and Technology Education (SAARMSTE),

Cape Town, 2004,

http://www.phy.uct.ac.za/SAARMSTE2004/proceedings2004/data/

pdf/051_ingerman_booth.pdf (accessed May 2006)

Courses are identified with the study situation

Here the engineering physics programme has been experienced as a discrete set of courses, a means to the end of a degree. These are related to authority, i.e. teachers and tradition, and common features, such as the ways in which courses were organised.

One course is seen as a prerequisite for another course

… a pre-ordained, correct sequence of acquisition of knowledge fragments is assumed. A ‘red thread’ is sought in terms of needs and demands. Authority for (…) content and structure is still the domain of teachers and tradition.

One course is seen as being useful in other courses

Courses now support one another, but are still necessarily arranged in a specific order. Reference is made to the knowledge fragments that constitute the courses, which mesh into one another, course-to-course.

Courses are related through mutual illumination

(…) Courses now lend meaning to each other and understanding in an earlier course can be found in a later course. There are now networks that mesh and unmesh, knowledge fragments might be grouped together in different ways and offer different perspectives. (…) The Physics that is constituted takes on a dynamic form (…)Courses fit together

into an adaptable whole

The courses are seen as constituting parts of a whole, and the strict ordering structure of the educational programme knowledge content is broken apart. An internal dynamic enables a picture to develop which is different on different occasions, depending on what aspects are brought into focus.Courses in physics

come into physics of the world

The borders between courses are erased, (…) physics and the physics world are one with the knower.

Courses in physics come into physics of the world

The borders between courses are erased, (…) physics and the physics world are one with the knower.

a discrete set of courses, a means to the end of a degree. These are related to authority, i.e. teachers and tradition…

Courses are identified with the study situation

Laboratory exercises

• Heat pump and the Stirling motorThermodynamics

• Carbon cycleGases

• Spectra of lamps, car exhaust etc. Spectroscopy

• Background radiationRadiation

Photo: Nina Reistad

The affordance seems to be:

• Things must be kept together, not separate

• Things are connected with a future competence at work

Literature

”The course is problem oriented. You choose as literature the material which works best for you. ”

Two standard texts are recommended for those who want

Lecture compendia available

Online literature list

This affords:

Take an active stance toward literature.

Do not confuse the authority of the staff and your responsibility for your own learning.

Seminars (one example)

Uranium ammunition (used by USAF A10 Thunderbolts against tanks) left on the battlefields in Kosovo, in the late 1990s. Media did not make the problems concerned with this visible. Students identified and elaborated them from the point of view of physics. A picture of hazards was made clear. After this students were charged with the mission of explaining the results of their work to their families and friends.

Depleted uranium

UraniumDepleted uranium used in projectiles is pure uranium metal. Being heavy (r = 19 g/cm3) and hard, the projectiles can penetrate even thick armour. In Kosovo such projectiles have been used against tanks, armoured vehicles, hardened artillery positions and decoys. Projectiles which penetrate armour are ignited and burn to a fine ash of black uranium oxide. Projectiles which miss their target enter soil unscathed but can break if encountering a hard object.Uranium is an element naturally occurring in rock, soil and water and the human body. The uranium content of rock and water varies and is relatively high in Swedish granites and alum shale. Material with uranium content exceeding ca 0,1 % can be used as uranium ore for the production of reactor fuel. However, to be of any use as fuel in light water reactors a material must have a higher percentage of uranium 235 than naturally occurring uranium. This is achieved in the enrichment process. The rest product of the process is called depleted uranium and contains ca three times less uranium 235 than naturally occurring uranium.When uranium is produced, its decay products, such as the highly radioactive radium, are removed. This is why depleted uranium has a relatively low radioactivity compared to pieces of uranium ore. The external gamma radiation coming from the depleted uranium forming a coating on the ground is so low that it is normally not measurable with hand-operated instruments. Depleted uranium gives therefore no gamma radiation higher than the natural level of radiation coming from the uranium, thorium and potassium always present in soil and rock. To stay near projectile made of depleted uranium does not constitute any danger unless one is staying for a longer time (days) near to a stock of uranium projectiles or is bearing one for a long time. (…)When depleted uranium is used in armour penetrating ammunition the whole projectile or parts of it break down to fine dust of mainly uranium metal and uranium oxide. Uranium dust is spread by air and when it falls down forms a coating on the ground. Uranium can enter the body e.g. by breathing uranium dust, and orally, when contaminated food or drink is ingested, or directly via contaminated hands.Since uranium is both a heavy metal and a radioactive substance it presents a twofold risk: a biochemical-toxic and a radiation risk. If it enters the body it can both interact biochemically with inner organs and emit radiation, which constitutes a higher risk of cancer.

From the study material by Nina Reistad

Depleted uranium (problem solving)

Plutonium is radiotoxic, i.e it can harm humans by its ionizing radiation. There were speculations in the discussion about depleted uranium that depleted uranium also contains very small amounts of plutonium and that this could have contributed to the health deterioration found in many veterans of the Gulf war and the Balkan conflicts. a)Plutonium (239Pu) disintegrates via an a- disintegration with a half-life of 24100 years and the a-particles energy is 5,2 MeV. Which daughter nucleus is formed when 239Pu disintegrates via an a-disintegration?b) Assume that a person inhales 2,5 mg plutonium dust, that the plutonium stays in the lungs for 12 h and that 95 % of the a -particles are absorbed in the lungs. How much energy is absorbed in the lungs?c) is there any reason to be concerned with small amounts of plutonium dust – i.e. how big an equivalent dose is a person exposed to because of the plutonium, when the person’s lungs weigh 1,1 kg? The limit for persons coming into contact with ionizing radiation in their work is 100 mSv over five years. An average Swede gets a little over 4 mSv from radiation sources in her/his environment. Let the quality factor for alfa - radiation be 20.

From the study material by Nina Reistad

• Students identified and elaborated them from the point of view of physics.

• A picture of hazards was made clear.

• Students were charged with explaining results to their families and friends.

• Students translated an “everyday” issue into physics.

• The result of the problem solving was translated “back” into “everyday events”

• Cf. the 9§ of the Higher Education Act “…students [shall] develop the capability (…) to exchange knowledge also with persons outside the specific knowledge field.

The emergence of meaningful knowledge in the course of putting science to use (Szybek 1999, 2002)

formulation of an ISSUE

The originary experience of DIFFICULTY

need of REMEDY

translation 1 formulation of a PROBLEM

(the crucial point)

finding of REMEDY

translation 2 solution of a PROBLEM

The stage of everyday events The stage of science events

This affords:

Connect physics knowledge and everyday action.(Keep together physics and the human world)

Capabilities implied

• To connect content to something presenting itself to the learner as a difficulty – something which has the potential of affecting a person, and thus being relevant as subject matter.

• To assume (part of the) responsibility for the situation.• To formulate and solve a scientific (physical, in this

case) problem. • Thus to “translate” the originary confrontation with the

“source of affection” into a setting (“stage”) where strict problem formulation and solving is possible.

• To “re-translate” the problem solution into the setting where the remedy is sought, to be able to examine its relevance for the originary difficulty.