Most students seem to focus more on "passing the next exam" than on "developing engineering skills". This seems to go along with a tendency of rote-learning vs. deep learning. Some approaches to counteract rote-learning, such as Project-based Learning, as well as apporaches to increase student motivation have been discussed and published for quite some time. Are there further promising approaches?
Problem-based learning; Constructivism; Knowledge building.
Vacation work.
Collaborative work.
Problem-based learning; Constructivism; Knowledge building.
Vacation work.
Collaborative work.
This is a general attitude of students world-wide. I agree with what Ian proposed. What I can add is that we need to completely review how we package the engineering syllabus. There is talk of students getting exposed to hands-on from day one, although I'm not sure what the progress is with this approach.
Despite our best efforts, I'm afraid that students are still of an age where they have a very short term view on life, and the next exam fits well within their ability.
It may be a little difficult to answer that in absolutes, as from my perspective the education you'll be subjected to differs from place to place, on different scales, for different reasons.
I am very much for most of the points already mentioned, but I would want to caution that the devil remains in the details, especially with view to being cost neutral.
On a general level I would think that it makes sense to allow intimate exposure to real engineering challenges encountered in various fields. Internships may (or may not) do that. However this is generally something we should be able to do better and less disruptive then we used to with the improvements communication we now enjoy.
Also I could imagine a well documented self-directed or collaborative project may replace an internship in full or part.
One fundamental issue I have with most exams is that they are generally announced. I cannot fathom why one would want to do this from an educational point of view. From an organizational/budget perspective this was an easy decision (at some point in time). But is it really necessary or even (bottom line) beneficial and cost effective today? I could imagine a larger number of smaller unannounced tests give a more reliable indication of capability. More importantly this would make learning to understand (and remember) much more effective than learning specifically for an exam. It may make sense to allow partial amendment of one failed test through another, in reply to the seemingly inevitable "bad day" argument.
On the collaborative front I am toying with various ideas to improve the educational effectiveness and reliability of such projects. If someone has some literature recommendations on the topic I'd be glad to read them. I am not formally educated in these matters but my superficial impression is that net-centric approaches (that can be applied to engineering) are pretty scarce at the moment.
Lastly a little quibble with "vacation work" - is that not an oxymoron? At least on the level we are talking about it I would want to be careful. However I think it is intended to mean something like an internship where the educational experience is in the focus (which may involve stretches of repetitive work).
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