45th SEFI Conference, 18-21 September 2017, Azores, Portugal
representatives (the three stakeholders of education) from many STEM areas to discuss, gather and distribute knowledge on specific topics concerning engineering education. Forum discussion was chosen as the event’s format and the facilitation was performed by professor Emilija Fidanchevska from the Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy at UCM. Initially, a working team was put together within the LBG. The team’s responsibility was the coordination of a one-day event within the framework of the official opening of the local round of European BEST Engineering Competition (EBEC). Several aspects, such as the topic preparation, the event structure and the discussion coordination have been included in the organization of the event. There were three stages concerning the methodology: ● Presentation In the presentation’s content, a large pool of relevant questions about modern and traditional methods was presented. Some of the pros and cons of the teaching methods had been included, as well as the steps that need to be undertaken to improve the learning experience. ● Discussion Next, the prepared questions were used as a guide for the discussion. Between the academics, students and company representatives, the seamless flow of the discussion was attained. ● Questionnaire Lastly, in order to obtain quantitative data for the events’ effectiveness, a questionnaire was handed out to all of the participants at the end of the event. This was used to get a better grasp on the overall effectiveness of the event and see what interest students showed to further participate in initiatives focused on improving education. The opinions had been expressed and the ideas had been exchanged among all of the involved parties. And while many ideas were unanimously accepted by the three stakeholders, the differences in opinions were strikingly large for some of the questions asked on the discussion. The outcomes shared in the part below have been constituted from the report generated from the notes that have been taken from the discussion.
2.
RESULTS