Developing Engineering Curriculum In An Integrated Knowledge Environment

Unlike curricula in professional courses such as medicine and law which are focused on specific discourses such as health and justice respectively, engineering curricula at Australian universities lack, by and large, a unifying ideology. In general schools and faculties of engineering at Australian universities have failed to address this issue and resisted calls for change in professional engineering education curricula. This can be attributed to the philosophical perception about engineering, and the introduction of problem-based delivery in engineering schools at Victoria University has opened a door for not only placing greater focus on constructivist learning but also on re-thinking engineering knowledge itself. The reality that many professional engineering graduates not only diffuse across a range of technical areas but also integrate technical material within social, cultural, and environmental frameworks can be embodied into the new course delivery. This paper is concerned with the development of a multi-disciplinary subject syllabus in Chemistry and Materials Technology with an emphasis on, to what Felder and Brent 1 refer as, independent and contextual knowing. Preliminary student feedback has been fairly mixed with many students feeling more comfortable with the traditional passive and prescriptive approach whereas other students were very positive and indicated that the new approach has been responsible for their decision to continue with their enrolment in engineering.