ENGINEERING PEDAGOGY COURSE MAPPING

Abstract

Graduate students of technical universities have practical difficulties with learning and successful instructional implementation of the fundamentals of engineering didactics. The paper is focused on the formulation of a thought-provoking curriculum with computational assignments for the course of “Technical University Pedagogic and Methodological Foundations of Engineering Education” (TUPMFEE) for graduate and Ph.D. students. The paper uses computational modelling of behavioral processes in socio-educational systems. The TUPMFEE-curriculum teaches future engineers to apply computational techniques to modeling of socio-technical phenomena. The author-formulated and a computer modeling-supported metaphor for the psycho-educational effects of high social pressure impact on student learning dynamics was allegorically visualized using mechanical rolling stress distribution for the nonlinear social process of student knowledge acquisition during instructor-enhanced education with description of some successive forgetting of the previously acquired instructional material upon the studied course completion. The author-proposed TUPMFEE-course successfully triggers graduate students’ interest in both social, mechanical and computer sciences.