No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

is a senior lecturer and Convenor of the Future Engineering Education Directions (FEED) research and scholarship group at CQUniversity. She has BEng (Mech), ME in Dynamics and a Professional Doctorate in Transdiciplinary Studies. She moved to the higher education sector in 1990 after a career as a mechanical designer in industry. A love of teaching has kept her there since. Prue has received National Awards in the areas of Women in Engineering and Curriculum Innovation, as well as having received the University's Vice-Chancellor's Award for Quality Teaching and the Deans Award for Teaching Excellence twice. Since 1994 her research has centred around engineering education, resulting in significant publications and grants. A major outcome of early grants was the evidence to introduce PBL initially as a philosophy, and then as the basis for the University's Carrick Award winning engineering programs. Since then she has been involved in research in the area of Safe Design and the transdisciplinary teaching of safe design. Research areas now include the development of identity and how this can impact on student learning.

Understanding how we take in, process and present information as part of the learning process, provides clues on how specific teaching methods can be utilised to maximize learning. The literature suggests that a mismatch between learning styles or preferences and teaching styles and approaches may present a barrier to learning and contribute to attrition. This paper presents some early findings of an ALTC Associate Fellowship program, involving three universities, which uses a case study approach to explore the interactions between students' learning styles on the one hand, and lecturers' teaching styles, goals and philosophies, on the other. The paper also initiates discussions on how teaching approaches may be tailored to address the diversity of students' learning styles over the duration of the engineering program, to enhance their learning experience and outcomes.