New Perspectives in Science Education

This paper will describe the development of a blended/online engineering program in the area of industrial instrumentation and automation, which was developed in collaboration with senior engineering staff at a number of regional manufacturing industries within the South West of Ireland. The process involved an investigation into the educational needs for such a blended engineering program, to provide an effective method of up-skilling production operators currently employed within a number of regional manufacturing industries. As the students were in full time employment a novel method of learning was required and a suitable blended learning environment was developed. This one-year certificate program is running for the past three years and the feedback from the students and employers has been very positive. This paper will describe the intended direction and projected outcomes of the project/program and how it addressed the issue of remote learning in such a manufacturing environment. As the physical nature of the engineering disciplines requires interactive practical sessions in dedicated specific laboratories, it can be difficult to facilitate the up-skilling of current staff within the manufacturing industry when they are in full time employment. Also, it is important that the concept of interactivity is addressed, as research has found that students' retention of knowledge increases from 20% to 75% of the total amount of information when students interact with the learning environment. This can be more difficult to achieve with a remote learning approach. This paper will present the different methodologies and tools that were used, both theoretical and practical in the characterision of such a blended learning environment. Today’s engineers need to have a greater understanding of all the engineering disciplines from mechanical, electronic, mechatronic, production, design, test and manufacturing, this can be achieved by introducing up-skilling content through blended learning environments such as described in this paper.