Lucami

Contemporary Engineering Education

Bridging the gap between academic skills of engineering graduates and their employability skills is an ongoing challenge, being actively engaged in redefining teaching materials, introducing novel teaching methods and listening to the needs of the employers.

Our group has been involved in several projects and research activities addressing the topic of contemporary engineering education.
Supported by EU social fund, we have been involved in several projects dedicated to practical engineering experience and soft skill development through direct cooperation between students, university staff and the industry. Within the projects, students got an opportunity to practice engineering skills through a part-time engagement with companies on real industrial problems, thus stimulating development of a range of engineering competences and soft skills among the participants followed by scientific evaluation of the results.
LUCAMI has also been involved in a consortium that modernised study programmes and methodology in the wider region with the goal to move from traditional telecommunication towards ICT engineering, with specific emphasis on local industry needs. A framework has been established that supports regional collaboration among the stakeholders in order to increase the quality and attractiveness of ICT studies.
The team is also involved in development of new learning technologies. One of our ongoing projects is dedicated to optimisation of learners’ attention during lectures based on video observations. Among others, we have developed a method of an objective and non-intrusive evaluation of learners’ attention against learning outcomes by deployment of an inventory-based lecture gain evaluation, based on an innovative learning gain matrix. Our procedure allows for a detailed analysis of the lecture time flow with regard to learners’ observed behaviour. The results could well be used in self-learning environments where educator is unable to react to students’ attention as observed in the auditory.
Our vision is to remain constantly active on the challenges of curricula development combined with development and utilization of learning technologies in order to educate qualified individuals meeting current and future expectations of the employers and community.