SCU Engineering Discipline undertook a full curriculum review in 2021 in preparation for Engineers Australia’s planned accreditation review. The team concluded to undertake a complete program revitalisation and modernisation to strengthen the engineering system approach.
The engineering team put into practice the system approach in designing a holistic program collaboratively. This is achieved through weekly Unit Development reviews, an overview of unit development by CTL, and a change management approach to approve any deviation from the Unit Learning Outcomes, topics or assessments.
The new curriculum design is centred on a Case Study for each specialisation (Civil and Mechanical). Each exercise and assessment is designed using a discipline (geotech, structural) based scenario allowing the students the opportunity to apply the theories to real-life problems and authentic assessments.
The new curriculum designs promotes:
- Active learning by immersing the students in solving an engineering problem over the duration of their degree. Each unit uses a discipline specific scenario that highlights the interactions with other engineering disciplines.
- Self-directed approach through the use of an eportfolio to document and record the students’ application of Engineers Australia competencies.
- Assessments are designed to encourage interactions between the students and between the students and lecturer.
- Community of Inquiry.