UK Centre for Materials Education
Working with you to enhance the student experience
Working with you to enhance the student experience
This project developed and implemented innovative teaching methods in Materials, in response to existing departmental needs at the Centre for Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Edinburgh. It was necessary to develop Materials teaching resources and facilities in the Department, as well as update and modernize existing equipment and infrastructure. A bid was made for setting up the Materials Teaching Studio by four members of staff (Christopher Hall, Jane Blackford, Vasileios Koutsos and Michael Zaiser), and the project funded by the UKCME was part of this process. The UKCME grant provided seed-corn funding, which further enabled the PI to obtain subsequent funding to develop the studio from the University of Edinburgh and the Alumni Fund.
The basic concept of the studio was derived from the PI’s experience of doing a Materials degree at the University of Sheffield, where the 2nd year degree course involved artefact study. Feedback from 5th year students at the University of Edinburgh also highlighted the benefits of this approach, and the course making use of such teaching methods (‘Deformation, Fracture and Failure’, which was optional earlier) has now become a compulsory one.
The initial stages of the project involved a review of good practice in Materials teaching in order to implement innovative teaching methods in a more effective manner. The scope and progress of the project was further enhanced by the PI’s own research experience in Failure analysis, and conditioned by work environment. Working in an Engineering Department rather than a purely Materials environment invariably led to a consideration of L&T outcomes for engineers, and this helped in bringing in new ideas (e.g. the use of the Ashby approach where the primary focus is on the application, and then the analysis shifts to the materials used for construction).
The implementation of such innovative teaching methods in the Engineering materials studio has met with considerable success. The usage of the lab facilities has been steadily on the rise since 2003. The Materials Library of physical resources is used in Manufacturing lectures, and in student reports / case studies on failure analysis. The fullest potential of the studio is realised in lab sessions with final year (4th or 5th year) students because these sessions are more open ended. For all other years the studio is used for normal prescriptive lab sessions.
The impact of the Engineering Materials Studio, and the use of postgraduates to enhance undergraduate teaching have been evaluated, and the project has now received further funding.
