Abstract
The recent global economic downturn brought sharply into focus the need for engineers that excel not only technically and academically but also having a multiplicity of transferable skills, flexibility of mind and resilience. Considerable effort has been focused in UK and internationally on the development of doctoral students with such mind-sets and skills. At the Universities of Sheffield & Manchester, the teaching of transferrable skills in the Doctoral Training Centre for Advanced Metallics is done in the form of a Diploma in Personal & Professional Skills and such skills are embedded in the students’ consciousness by practice. The development of Problem Based Learning experience through a two week long exercise where groups of students tackle “real-life” problems at an SME has been organized and successfully taken place over the past two years and students, staff and industrial partners have all felt the benefits. This work shows the multiplying effect that the SME case studies have on student skill and attitude development and as a result their employability. Colleagues will see how the use of “real-life” problem solving can be used to focus and sharpen the students’ use of transferrable skills that have been taught in other parts of a structured course. The reality of the situation faced, the tight time limits afforded, the responsibility to function and deliver as part of a group of “professional” consultants act as multipliers of the skills employed towards generating and proposing solutions. Students see in practice what transferrable skills mean to them and of course employers are suitably impressed when they see skills they seek from graduates being used to the full.
Highlights
I firmly believe that traditional methods of educating our students are not adequate to cope with their world of vast technological changes at ever increasing rates of change, proliferation of information, the need for multidisciplinary approaches, market Globalization and the Cultural awareness that it implies, Environmental issues andHow to cite this paper: Kapranos, P. (2015) PBL for Doctoral Students in Collaboration with SMEs: “Thinking like a Professional Engineer”
Knowledge is the “data base” of the professional engineer; skills are the tools used to manipulate the knowledge in order to meet goals that are strongly influenced by attitudes
After we delivered a number of transferable skills to our Doctoral Training Students during their Diploma in Personal & Professional Skills, we decided, as we believe that these skills are really learned if they are put into use, that it would make more sense if the students were put in a position that they will have to use these skills under conditions that they will face in an industrial setting
Summary
I firmly believe that traditional methods of educating our students are not adequate to cope with their world of vast technological changes at ever increasing rates of change, proliferation of information, the need for multidisciplinary approaches, market Globalization and the Cultural awareness that it implies, Environmental issues and. He states that ballistic missiles are ideal for positional warfare, i.e. when the targets do not move, but when the targets are invisible to the gunner, faster than missiles, erratic, unpredictable, one needs an intelligent missile that constantly updates and corrects its position and trajectory and even chose its target as it goes This relates well to my flexible curriculum concept that relates to the fact that students learn as they go and should have the ability to forget or change their minds about what they are learning and shape their learning to new contexts and circumstances; information “ages” rapidly and knowledge is disposable and if no longer needed can be thrown away, forgotten or replaced. This is being addressed by ensuring that the students are aware of the why we take the approaches we take, by establishing a culture of trust and through active personal involvement motivating students intrinsically as they are part of a process and not passive bystanders
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