Seminar title
Engaging Theory with Practice in Engineering Education: What role for Virtual Reality and Immersive systems?
Abstract
The nexus between theory and practice in engineering education has a very long history. Formal engineering education since the early 1800s to the present day has experienced very large swings in the balance of theory and practice in engineering curricula, often with quite perverse outcomes. That context provides the starting point for a discussion on how that nexus can be addressed into the next decade and beyond.
With the growing and rapid developments in information and communications technologies, advanced virtual reality and immersive systems are now becoming easily accessible. How can these developments be strategically used to better engage the theory-practice nexus within curricula?
This seminar will highlight key factors driving educational interests in the application of various VR and immersive systems with specific reference to developments in chemical and mining engineering.
Come prepared to participate by thinking about your current curricula and where these new ICT developments might take you.
About the presenter:
Ian Cameron completed his BE degree in Chemical Engineering at UNSW, Sydney as a cadet engineer with CSR Ltd, working for 9 years in process design, commissioning and operations across the sugar, building materials and petrochemical industries.
Following a MSc at the University of Washington he completed his PhD at Imperial College in Process Systems Engineering (PSE), returning to consulting work in Argentina and Turkey with the United Nations.
He subsequently joined The University of Queensland and has combined his international research in PSE areas with an interest in curriculum design, particularly how theory and practice interact, and how we create environments to enhance student engineering decision making in complex situations.
He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, and recipient of numerous Australian awards for engineering education.