A Practical Engineering Education Conference

It feels like a long time since March when the unprecedented disruption to our traditional ways of teaching suddenly took hold. Since then, there has been a flurry of innovation brought about through necessity combined with limited opportunity to travel to conferences to disseminate and share what has been learned. With real possibility of a vaccine bringing an end to the effects of the pandemic, it is time to start planning events that bring like minded educators together. 

Our department, Multidisciplinary Engineering Education,  is dedicated to the delivery of practical engineering education, and we feel that now is the perfect opportunity to start a conference specifically about the subject. In September 2021 we plan to run the inaugural "Practical Engineering Education 2021 Conference". 

Engineering is fundamentally about designing or optimising things, be they tangible or conceptual, and this is reflected in the state of the art of Engineering Education which often favours the introduction of real world and problem based approaches rather than the delivery of abstract theory. 

Testing, along with making and evaluating, is a necessary requirement within any engineering design cycle process. This is why it is widely acknowledged that experimentation is an integral part, and included in almost all, engineering programmes. It is these teaching methods that will be the focus of the conference.

Practical Engineering Education 2021 aims to bring together specialists from across the world to exchange idea and best practice on the teaching of practical engineering in further and higher education. The focus will be on prototyping, testing, experimentation, validation and any other laboratory related teaching. 

Since the widespread suspension of face to face teaching due to the Covid-19 pandemics, practical engineering education has received a renewed interest due to the challenges in pivoting this type of learning into a remote format.  The disruption has engendered innovative practical teaching methods that deserves to be shared with the engineering education community.  

While the conference is targeted at practical engineering education, the significant crossover with laboratory teaching in science and other disciplines provides the opportunity to exchange ideas and knowledge. Practical teaching from other disciplines can inform engineering education, and vice versa, allowing practitioners to learn from one another. 

We are still in the planning stages, so specific details are yet to be decided. The conference will be held in the Diamond Building in Sheffield, UK during September 2021. We are asking for potential attendees, presenters, sponsors, exhibitors or steering committee members to register their interest to help with planning and to receive news and updates as planning progresses. We are working with the organisers of the enormously successful Unimaker conference, hosted by Sheffield University's iForge, to facilitate delegates attending both if they wish. 

The conference will be held in the University's Diamond building. This purpose built learning and teaching facility houses lecture theatres, seminar rooms and multidisciplinary workshops and laboratories, making it the perfect backdrop for the event. And the planning committee is currently considering how best to make best use of this fantastic space, and I'm sure there will be some entertaining activities included in the programme.