On 28 January, Prof. Alan Lau Kin-tak, UCG Teaching Award Winner 2013 and Associate Dean (Industrial Relations), Faculty of Engineering, conducted a sharing session and open forum on “Building Excellence in Teaching”. He shared some insights on how to engage students and professionals in the industry to enhance teaching quality through both in-class and out-of-class activities. He also addressed the ways for adding value and creating effectiveness in lecturing. In this issue, Prof. Lau will share his thoughts about this new teaching approach.

1. What is “Industry-Engaged, Outcome-Based Education” approach (IeOBE)?

Industry-engaged outcome-based education (IeOBE) is a newly proposed teaching method to allow the industry to deeply engage with our students and teaching activities, including providing our students with the opportunities to visit factories, attend technical seminars and interact with industry professionals during their studies at PolyU.

This new teaching approach starts from the first year of the programme offered by the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Students will progress from “product design idea generation”, then “product realization through modeling and computer analysis” to “product prototype and functioning” in final year. All these projects are funded and collaborated with local industries in different engineering disciplines. In addition to engineering knowledge and expertise, students are required to build up a broad knowledge base in business, finance, marketing, human resource, etc., as well as good communication skills, entrepreneurship and global outlook in order to meet the requirements of the industry.

2. What remarkable advantages and changes are found in student’s learning?

As an engineering teacher, I wish my students become competent professionals who can solve real-world problems effectively and efficiently. After being exposed to this IeOBE approach, our students can communicate with external parties with more eagerness and confidence. Even though students have to put in more time in learning, they indeed treasure the knowledge and experience gained. Interestingly, students are found to be more dedicated and responsible in taking up different roles throughout this approach. They are motivated to show their passion, diligence and talents as good event coordinators, problem solvers, product innovators and communicators by applying engineering and design knowledge in their design and innovation.

The good feedback and appreciation received from the industry and sponsoring companies show that student’s independence in managing different projects in product innovation and development can be enhanced under this comprehensive training scheme. Up to now, we have three graduates successfully established their own companies in new product development after the training of IeOBE.

3. Which values have you added in effective lecturing/teaching?

The students can fully apply their knowledge and experience from what they have learnt in the programme to the final stage of designing, making, testing, functioning and marketing their products. They are also required to directly discuss and defend their design ideas with our industrial partners, which is part of the job of an industry practitioner. Many positive responses regarding this new teaching approach have been received from our graduates. 

4. Please share a memorable experience of out-of-class activity.

Let me share a quote from Albert Einstein: “Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think”. I believe that student’s thinking can be enhanced by providing them diverse learning experiences. One of the most memorable experiences of out-of-class activity is a theme-based overseas visit I once organized for students. In that study mission, they had to visit no less than five companies and attended three lectures offered by our partner university abroad to come up with concrete design ideas for green products. It was so encouraging to see that they enjoyed very much the interaction with foreign students during the process of joint-team design projects. This provided a very good opportunity for them to exchange ideas and learn the cultural differences in thinking during the planning and discussion processes.