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Two Revolutions in the Engineering Settings, Many Learning Opportunities

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The Challenges of the Digital Transformation in Education (ICL 2018)

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 917))

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Abstract

Engineering practices evolved from prehistory till now in a pace that sometimes went fast, others slowed down, according to the gradient of environmental change. Simplifying we can say that the evolution of engineering practices shows basically two revolutions. The first, centuries ago, was commanded by the absorption of exact sciences in the way engineering is practiced. The second, timidly in motion, is pulled by the absorption and internalization of social sciences. We repute that learning/teaching strategies should pace accordingly to the evolution of practices and we also stress that learning in general should be driven by practice. Collaborative practices and group work with “local” autonomy are the feasible support for learning strategies, and should be explored in a wide range of different settings. Internalizing the need for a new education paradigm in engineering is fundamental. Our research method is a mix of qualitative narratives and abductive reasoning in cultural contexts of engineering practice, through history, exploring conjecture. The results point out the lack of consensus on some concepts, definitions, and objectives, thus, based on reflective reasoning, some future directions are proposed. The novelty about this article is only the tentative internalization of new engineering practices, some of them already known, others less recognised, but all underrated, seldom assumed, and even less presumed.

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Acknowledgements

This paper was financially supported by InnoEnergy as a part of Techers’ Benefit project 2018 (Case 2).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CEG-IST, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    José Figueiredo

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  1. José Figueiredo
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Correspondence to José Figueiredo .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Carinthia University of Applied Sciences , Villach, Kärnten, Austria

    Michael E. Auer

  2. Department of Informatics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki , Thessaloniki, Greece

    Thrasyvoulos Tsiatsos

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Figueiredo, J. (2019). Two Revolutions in the Engineering Settings, Many Learning Opportunities. In: Auer, M., Tsiatsos, T. (eds) The Challenges of the Digital Transformation in Education. ICL 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 917. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11935-5_83

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