Teaching Engineering with an On-line Student-centred Environment

The multi-media-rich content associated with the Internet delivers a suite of information media such as video, sound, animations, diagrams and graphs to a student audience. The effectiveness, however, of internet-related technology for the purposes of education, is still not well understood. This paper investigates how the new Internet-based tools can be used to nurture learning at various levels by enhancing teaching with the support of a student-centred learning environment. This paper reports on the experience of using WebLearn, within which student learning is linked to learning objectives at identified learning levels. This ensures that the learning material and activities are coordinated to achieve the desired outcomes. WebLearn greatly facilitates this student learning strategy. The learning taxonomies are illustrated with an Engineering subject as an example. Other features of WebLearn, such as instant feedback and assessment content and administration, and their impact on learning are also described.