Active Learning Strategies for Building Engineering Students for Sustainable Knowledge Development

摘要

Acquiring building engineering knowledge requires students not only to study technical skills from 'hard' technology subjects based on hands-on experience but also learn their 'soft' management skills from theories to practice. As a result, most building engineering students find it difficult to learn management subjects effectively which indeed forms a great challenge faced by teachers as well to call for an urgent need for effective learning and teaching methods on management subjects. In particular, most students studying engineering-related subjects have been adapted to hands-on exercise in technology and measurement subjects giving them a perception that the more exercise they do the better their performance. As a result, management subjects filled with mostly theories and abstract terms make it difficult for students to learn in an effective manner. This study aims to promote active learning strategies for delivering management courses by introducing a research framework to educate building engineering students, based on a two year active learning research project. The background and the methodology will firstly be introduced, followed by discussions on implementation and evaluation of the project. It is believed that the outcomes of the project can meet most University's core functions nowadays in Learning and Teaching which aims at enriching the students' learning experience by encouraging active learning among the students.