QEP-Real World Problem Solving

Journal of STEM Education: Innovations and Research 2012, 13(5) :52-61.
Promoting the adoption of an alternative pedagogy can be a difficult process. Many professors are not interested in significantly modifying how they teach their course. Those that are interested in pedagogical reform still have concerns that must be addressed before or during an implementation. This paper presents a case study following the stepwise adoption of an alternative pedagogy, with special emphasis on the insights given by the adopting professor. Adoption related literature reveals that data has limited use in convincing people to adopt new technologies or techniques. While the literature also makes it clear that early adopters are in some way disposed towards innovations, our case study indicates that adopters can be developed through a process of awareness building, both of the need for and the process of the innovation.
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Art Education 2010, 63(2): 49-53.
Creativity often has been associated with the arts, although creativity also is essential for innovative discoveries and applications in science and engineering. In this article, a pilot study is presented about an investigation concerning how creativity is fostered in an art education course in conjunction with an undergraduate engineering course, through visual arts experiences and instruction using creative problem solving strategies. Through emphasizing creative strategies and ways of thinking developed through art, such as resistance to closure, tolerance of ambiguity, visualization, and use of metaphor (Eisner, 2002), interdisciplinary collaborations of art with other disciplines, such as engineering, can become very successful.
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Decision Sci J Innovative Educ. 2016,14(4): 382-411.
The article describes a project that employs problem-based learning (PBL) to teach the Lean Six Sigma (LSS) methodology as part of an undergraduate or graduate business course. It is scalable to a variety of course delivery and schedule formats, and uses data sets that can create distinct problem-solving scenarios for up to 16 student teams. It exploits available internet resources for supplemental information, thus requiring no physical setup or experimentation, and eliminating material costs. The project provides a complex business problem in a familiar setting, allowing students to focus their learning efforts on technical mastery of concepts and tools rather than underlying business descriptions. It emphasizes critical thinking, team work, and project management, in addition to the fundamental concepts and supporting tools of the process improvement method.
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Shaping Higher Education with Students: Ways to Connect Research and Teaching 2018 :208-221.
The focus of this chapter is on exploring how the implementation of a curriculum focused on learning through research at all levels of education, which connects students with external audiences through real-world outputs, has many benefits. Engaging students with research involving real- world objects not only motivates students, it offers an introduction to valuable and desirable research skills, instils a variety of skills highly attractive to employers, provides students with the ability to apply their subject knowledge to real- world scenarios and generates impact outside of university. We will explore a number of examples of how students tasked with a project have produced an output with real- world impact. We also hear from Rachel McCrindle, Professor of Human and Computer Interaction at the University of Reading, to whom I spoke during an R=T Masterclass.
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