Abstract
Short course curricula for seafarers using a traditional, teacher-focused, instructional pedagogy has resulted in students demonstrating surface-level achievement of learning outcomes and limited development of their critical thinking skills. This paper reports on the introduction of a student-centric pedagogy aiming to develop self-directed learning and critical thinking. The elements included introducing authentic and collaborative learning activities, constructively aligned with the content delivery and assessment. The differences between the current ‘traditional’ approach and a ‘student-centric’ approach was evaluated. This included a pre- and post-test on student assessment, and a set of semi-structured interviews with the students. A thematic analysis identified three themes including: authentic learning, constructivist learning and self-directed learning. The evaluation demonstrated that a student-centric approach promotes critical thinking and active learning in students, improving learning outcomes.
Highlights
Fedila (2007) proposes that the weakness of traditional teaching methods to seafarer engineers is, that after graduating from their maritime engineering course, they do not have problem solving skills for an onboard working environment
In the Australian Maritime College (AMC), students come for seafaring studies from different parts of the world, because there are a variety of courses in Bachelor and Master programs such as Maritime Business and International Logistics study, Marine Engineering and Hydrodynamics, Ocean Seafaring, Coastal Seafaring and a range of short courses
This paper identifies the importance of evaluating curriculum within the AMC short courses for the purposes of increasing quality, and eventually being able to assure quality (Carr et al, 2020)
Summary
Fedila (2007) proposes that the weakness of traditional teaching methods to seafarer engineers is, that after graduating from their maritime engineering course, they do not have problem solving skills for an onboard working environment They do not understand how they can apply their knowledge to real life engineering problems: what to do and how to do it. My experience is that students in the Certificate of Proficiency in Survival Craft (CPSC) and similar courses, do not have a habit of seeking an answer independently and do not scan research for knowledge They go to the teacher directly to get the answer, even if an answer is available in books and the Internet. Students rely on the lecture presentation as a primary form of instruction, with a limited orientation towards engaging in self-directed problem-solving (e.g. Internet searches, textbooks, or shared sense-making)
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