Day 6, Friday, July 13, 2018
Today is the last day of the first week of my visit. I had a free morning and used it to review the upcoming afternoon session on accreditation and curriculum.
In the afternoon, we had a listening and discussion session with the mechanical engineering faculty about accreditation items, mostly on five topics – ethics, continuous quality improvement, lifelong learning, oral and written communication, and teamwork. We exchanged ideas about these topics on how to implement and evaluate these topics in the classroom. The idea that although we teach ethics and students may not follow those standards in the university are universal ones. I believe that we still need to meet the minimum standards of teaching ethics, give examples, and let our students reflect on case studies.
Photo: A sharing session with the department of mechanical engineering faculty of UTP, Malaysia.
In the evening, there was an after-Eid celebration at the university. Families of staff and faculty were invited to an evening of music and food. I tried several different foods including tomato rice, curried chicken, shrimp fritters, and fruit salad with local fruits. I met several faculty members from other departments and we shared our common interest in improving teaching and hence student learning. I also met an instructor of Numerical Methods, a course I teach every semester as well. He was already aware of the open courseware we have developed.
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This material is based upon work supported by the Fulbright Specialist Grant and the products of the National Science Foundation Grants# 0126793, 0341468, 0717624, 0836981, 0836916, 0836805, 1322586, 1609637. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or the Fulbright Program.