During 2022, we have been sharing the learning journey of engineering students, academics and other staff as Summer Studios were developed, launched and established in the Faculty of Engineering and IT (FEIT). This series has been collaboratively written and edited by Beata Francis (FEIT) and Dimity Wehr (IML), and so far include:
- How FEIT took flight on a 5-year learning journey
- The MIDAS touch: how Summer Studios were born
- Endless summer: 10 principles for engineering change
- Bright spots: success stories from FEIT summer studios
In a previous post, we shone a light on success stories from the academic perspective, sharing some of the innovations developed through Summer Studios across several subjects. Now we put the spotlight on the students, who have shared constructive feedback throughout the development process.
Learning together with FEITClubStudio
FEITClubStudio is our place for ongoing professional development through conversation with colleagues. We promote collaborative expertise and collective responsibility to engage everyone in shifting behaviour, language and emotions to evolve students’ learning and assessment.
Students are invited to join the monthly club meetings and have trusting conversations with academics, bringing to life their insights about student learning experiences. A recent opportunity brought six students together as a Panel Session at the annual FEIT T&L Retreat, speaking on behalf of the collective student voice to 140 academics and professional staff.
Students and recent graduates on the panel had studied before MIDAS, during MIDAS and beyond MIDAS. Collectively underlining the importance of Summer Studio subjects, they described how developing professional capabilities during the course of their degree enhanced their opportunities. These hands-on subjects allow them to gain technical knowledge and skills, as well as pre-professional capabilities that prepare them for the workplace.
Communication, collaboration and becoming work-ready
Students identified communication, collaboration and learning how to learn as the most valuable experiences. In studios, they are able to put theory into practice which helps them become more well-rounded and work-ready professionals.
In terms of teaching technical skills and professional capabilities, I have found studio-based classes really consolidate learning as they immediately put theory into practice and encourage students to solve problems on their own. There are a lot of intricacies to developing a technical understanding of engineering theory and studios or more practically based assessments are good at that.
Final year undergraduate mechanical and mechatronic engineering student
Industry and organisations also want students to be good communicators. Studio-based learning provides role play environments where students can assume the roles of professionals in their disciplinary field. They apply skills to real-world problems, to both define and solve problems. They learn to be disruptors on the inside so as to keep the organisation competitive, practising through assessment tasks such as pitches, defence arguments, live demonstrations, peer feedback, and verbal assessment such as viva voce. Even in technically-heavy subjects, the content and context is connected to the why, and issues such as safety and impact on society. Studios teach students to be inquisitive and to pursue research that is personally meaningful; as they explore and experiment, they learn to think in different ways.
The next 5 years: whole curriculum enhancement through care, connection and conversational feedback
MIDAS has been a successful 5-year educational cultural shift to more innovative, design-oriented students through studio-based learning. Students also recommend areas for improvement, however, and the next 5 years will shift our focus towards ‘care’ in particular. Students want the unheard voices to be heard, and this must be relational between academics and students, thus leading to changes in curriculum design, development and delivery.
While the SFS is great, sometimes students don’t see the other side of how the feedback is received. This disconnect sometimes discourages us. Perhaps a face-to-face conversation asking students where they are struggling could provide that necessary tactility that gets students giving feedback candidly.
Final year undergraduate mechanical and mechatronic engineering student
Students encourage academics to have a more conversational approach to feedback and challenge assumptions, especially in more technical subjects. They feel that students are often assumed to understand foundational concepts and specialist jargon even in introductory subjects, when they don’t always. They want student technical knowledge limitations to be better identified, so academics can pick up teaching from different points to meet the learning needs of a more diverse group.
Connecting discipline specific language to where it is needed as specialist knowledge and why terms are necessary can be helpful in ‘joining the dots’ for all students. When students see the whole picture, they feel more included, capable, and can determine where they are and where they will step next, until they get to that pre-professional level.
In the final blog of the series, we share a few short profiles of some of the students who have been through Summer Studios, and three key messages to consider to help students and academics find more meaning and reach their goals through their studies, work and lifetimes.