Why listen to me?
- I lead a team of 50 engineers, including technical and professional services staff
- My team teaches across all of the diverse Faculty of Engineering at UoS
- My team and I specialise in teaching at scale
- My academic reputation has led to a personal chair (teaching-focused) and PFHEA
Ambition to diversify the programmes
- The current programme portfolio for the School is primarily focused on Computing: A great start because software engineering is engineering
- Designing and implementing new engineering programmes isn't that hard
There is nothing new under the sun
What are we trying to optimise for?
Strategic decisions to make in order to succeed
- “High quality outcomes for our student and graduates”
- Perception of value for students
High quality outcomes
- Careful curriculum design
- Focus on fundamentals & application of engineering principles/technology
- Industry-led and industry-informed
- Management of industry requirements and expectations
A coherent curriculum is established and maintained with clear definition of what you don’t do.
Perception of value
- Remote education is not as good as face-to-face
- But significantly cheaper
- What provides the greatest value for learners?
- Credibility of those in charge
- Contact time (delivered by more junior staff)
- Didactic learning through flipped, digital, AI
Expectation management is key
Practical classes
- Transferable skills, group work, software classes, didactic content, etc, have mature technology to deliver remotely
- Lab classes are more tricky
- Fortunately, I have some answers
- Remote labs, simulations, etc
- Buy these in
- Buy in physical labs as well
Target audience
- HE vs apprenticeships
- L2 and L3 carry significant regulatory burden (Ofsted)
- Higher hands-on requirements
- Competitive edge in HE and greater opportunity for disruption
- Current political landscape
Impact and future of AI
- I am a voracious user of AI
- Most transformative technology in the modern world
- Anyone with a detailed AI strategy is most likely unaware how fast it is moving or it’s impact
- Rate of technology change exceeds the academic cycle
- Direction of travel, diffusion, rate limits (chips, token cost) are all unknown
