The discourse community and problem within that community I chose to research is the city tech mechanical engineering students community and the problem of the decrease in hands on learning and the quality of teaching because of the pandemic and even before the lack of hands on and involved learning.
There are many people who advocate for a more hands on, involved learning process not just for engineering or STEM students but for all subjects of study. One of Benjamin Franklin best quotes was, “Tell me, and I forget. Teach me, and I may remember. Involve me, and I learn.” Lawrence E. Carlson And Jacquelyn F. Sullivan of the University of Colorado wrote a paper on the integrated teaching and learning (ITL) program they have at their school where they integrate hands on learning into their engineering programs and are advocating for other school to do the same. At City Tech, I can only speak for some Mechanical engineering professors, there are many professors that integrate some hands on learning into there classes like Professors Popkin and Giuliani and many more. Thought the difficulty of having a lot of hands on materials is difficult for most colleges thye shift the responsibility to internships.
I believe all city tech students should be told about how much integrated learning the school provides as well as the teachers who are teaching them because the students need to know what kinda of education there getting and for the teachers what kinda there teaching. This is a problem because most students who does not have any internship or hands on experience will find it extremely difficult to find a job and the ones that do the employer’s need to spend time training them for the job. This makes them undesirable and is causing a lot is unemployment today. Now there are some professors like Professor Gailani that works to expose students to work and internship opportunities though most standards are very high but this is very helpful compared to the quite literal couple internship programs City tech has.
Sources:
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2020-06-09-how-learning-engineering-hopes-to-speed-up-education
I’m having a hard time following but it sounds like you have a great idea here. Are you saying that the problem for City Tech Mechanical Engineering students is that the program lacks enough hands on training and internship opportunities? Are you saying that the program needs to rethink its approach to incorporate more of this type of learning?