Do you throw the baby out with the bathwater?: Tradeoff between realism and desire when introducing new learning material in engineering education

摘要

This roundtable proposal deals with the challenges lecturers face when including new course material into an existing module as a result of new developments in the technology or knowledge covered by the module. While the new technologies are gaining ever more grounds, the “old” technology or knowledge still remains important for the students to master, as much of the existing products and research activities still will be based on this former knowledge. The challenge lies in keeping the total amount of new learning material relatively constant, implying that some of the existing materials have to be removed from the module. What new learning material can be brought into the module, and which parts must be removed from the module? With references to Analogue Electronics and Control theory modules, we search for strategies, and inclusion and exclusion methods that should be utilized to ensure both the quality of the module itself, and the competitiveness of the students completing the module. The ultimate goal is to develop an “objective” approach for developing best practice when introducing new learning material.