Contents
Engineering Laboratories and Facilities. 2
Engineering Laboratories and Facilities
Executive Summary
Engineering laboratories, as well as the facilities, are dynamic, mechanically and technically sophisticated intensive structures which are expensive to maintain, build and also design. Therefore becomes a challenge to develop adequate facilities for all the students in most universities. Developing more engineering and science facilities and laboratories at the Tulsa University will work to develop theoretical knowledge of the students as well as their intellectual skills. This is, therefore, crucial in influencing the competence level of the students. Laboratories facilities increase will thus work to analyze the abilities of the students in applying gained knowledge in practical exercises. Laboratories development will help in the provision of adequate learning spaces for all the students in the university thus developing their skills. The facilities will help in the student’s evaluation of their practical practices on the science and engineering skills in the active surrounding which is additionally equal to the environment in which the students will be working in the future. Currently, the university holds fewer laboratories as well as theoretical facilities to assist the students in developing their general skills. The synthetic course of the laboratories in the university as well as the facilities should be reformed through professional resources integration, arranging of the systems of practical teaching system of the general synthetic experiment as well as adopting technical science and engineering materials. This can thus be achieved through the means of creating adequate laboratories facilities. This is purposed to make the facilities potentially open for the students, broaden their perspective of the students and enhance the interactions between the instructors and the students. This initiative will thus help in promoting and developing the creative skills of the students through the developed technical skills.
Introduction
A laboratory is described as a facility that provides the students with conditions that are controlled that technological and scientific experiment, research as well as measurements of the research can be conducted. Laboratories that are utilized for engineering research utilizes man forms based on the differing requirements of the engineering and science specialists. Recently several researchers have concluded on the importance of having adequate laboratories and well as facilities in an engineering and science university. The role of a science and an engineering professional is to manipulate energy, materials as well as information and generating benefits for humankind. In order for this to be achieved effectively, engineers and students undertaking the science courses must hold adequate knowledge of the surrounding nature which works beyond mere knowledge of theory. According to Zhang, and Chunliang Zhang, (2011), Knowledge theory is gained traditionally in the educational laboratories but in the recent years, the nature of the facilities and laboratories has transformed greatly. At the university, there lack a coherent studying purpose for facilities and laboratories for the students undertaking science and engineering courses due to the inadequacy of the facilities the lack of the adequate resources which has produced a learning system that is incoherent has caused laboratories ineffectiveness due to the hampered meaning of the research and technical facilities.
Alam, (2014), Engineering is described as a practicing profession in which a profession is fully committed to modifying and harnessing the three main essential resources which are held by mankind for the development of technology. These resources, therefore, include information, materials as well as energy. The general purpose of engineering education is to prepare its students in practicing engineering and particularly to deal with materials offered by nature as well as forces. This will, therefore, discuss the historical changes which need to be done in the laboratories and why the provision of additional facilities is essential in triggering learning (Alam, 290). Therefore from the earliest engineering education day’s instructional laboratories have been a significant part of the engineering students for both the graduate and the undergraduate levels. Instructional laboratories should be added because despite the growing need in the University of increasing the number of the facilities what the laboratories are required to accomplish is additionally important (Alam, 290). In order to promote a learning that is based on competency skills, the laboratories should develop the intended outcomes for the students as well as the general objectives. The objectives are crucial because they help the instructors as well as the students in determining the effectiveness of laboratories experiences in developing skills as well as competence. The laboratories should thus be set in a manner that encourages educational purposes as well as development. This is mainly because despite the fact that the laboratories are expected to meet the educational purposes the level of competency that they achieve is crucial. The laboratories should additionally support knowledge development through the enhancement of technical skills.
Following a competency-based technique helps in the evaluation of both the intellectual and analytical skills. Laboratories help engineers to attain competence when the setup and the facilities are effectively distributed. When an engineering student holds academic skills with appropriate technical skills to accomplish their tasks objects they can thus be referred as incompetent (Sudhir, 305). With the increase of lab facilities for the engineering student, the existing gap between competence and academic skills will be reduced gradually. Based on recent researches it is thus clear that the most suitable way of producing competent engineers is by providing them with both intellectual and technical skills in order to generate competence. This approach, therefore, necessitates the provision of adequate facilities for technical practices for the theoretical knowledge application (Sudhir, 305).
The university is therefore required o increase the number of engineering and science laboratories to provide the students with maximum space to apply the theoretical knowledge. The laboratories should, therefore, hold additionally facilities as well as instruments. Providing more technical facilities will help in developing creative skills to the students as instruments. This approach will be crucial in exposing the students to the work nature that they will face in the future. This will provide them with the ability to identify issues and developing appropriate solutions as they will develop the capability of making individualized decisions. Technical facilities are effective in shaping learning for the students as they help in building visions which they utilize as a form of reference. Effective learning necessitates adequate technical laboratories and developed facilities for the engineering students. Therefore in order to improve the current situation at the university, the laboratory surrounding and facilities should be implemented to make the environment suitable for achieving competency. In order to manage the laboratories and facilities conditions in the university more, courses need to be set as the students are required to go to the north campus of TU. Additionally, a policy can be developed where the students can make appointments with the facilities and the laboratories to avoid congestion and to increase fairness. In order to eradicate the safety issues while utilizing the laboratories, more TA students should be hired to provide assistance and instructions for those using the facilities.
Problem Statement
The university’s Bachelor of Science in engineering is one of the most reputed in the science universities as it holds better regards for generating excellent and effective engineers. In the university, the program is one of the programs which holds the greater pass in the national engineering examinations. However, the school is faced with the issue of producing engineers who hold greater intellectual skills will lower competency skills. This, therefore, results in the poor performance of the individuals in the engineering field as most of them are unable to solve problems despite the wide range of theoretical knowledge that they hold. According to , Sunal, Dennis, Wright, and Sundberg, (2008)Several studies have been conducted recently in order to establish the major forces which influence the capability of engineering competencies. The studies involved the conduction of interviews as well as the distribution of questionnaires. The research questions utilized were aimed at establishing the factors that hinder the competence capabilities of most engineers. Based on the study’s conclusion it is thus clear that lack of adequate technical facilities and curriculum support has mainly contributed to the competent efficiency (Sunal, Dennis, Wright, and Sundberg, 68).
Most of the participants that were involved in the study cited similar findings by illustrating that the incompetent level is mainly contributed by reduced technical practices in the learning institutions, poor curriculum which favors theoretical knowledge competence as well as intellectual skills, scarce laboratory facilities and equipment, lack of instruments diversity and advancement, high workload and technical practice strain. This, therefore, illustrates that the engineering universities fails in incorporating both technical and theoretical skills. Scarcity resources s an issue because the laboratories facilities. High loads of work of theoretical work fail to support competence development because of lack of resources to support technical learning. Theoretical knowledge is not important when adequate technical skills are not provided because they help in the development of both analytical and intellectual skills.
In Tulsa University, the engineering students are many by the space in the engineering laboratories as well as the facilities that are utilized are not adequate. Most of the students are always required to work during the midnight hours when there is no congestion as during the day the laboratories are continuously occupied the facilities are inadequate and this, therefore, requires one facility to be shared by at least two students and some students are thus required to utilize the same facility for the whole day. The facilities are not therefore diversified in order to enable the students to utilize different facilities in developing their skills. Safety measures are not observed as students utilize the wrong facilities which results in damages and injuries. Security and storage facilities are inadequate and students lack adequate space to store their personal items as well as project tools. This results in theft of important materials.
Mechanical engineering requires longer hours of technical application and the listed issues above are the leading factors to incompetent for the engineers who are joining the task force (Sunal, Dennis, Wright, and Sundberg, 72). A recent study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of providing additional technical hours in order to address the increasing issue of the incompetent. Based on the conclusions of the study it is thus clear that engineering institutions are required to increase the number of facilities and laboratories and thus equip them with adequate and diversified t instruments in order to serve the required purpose. This was established to be quite challenging for the institution as proper designs and planning needs to be utilized in achieving the objectives. Due to the limited technical facilities, the institution is therefore required to introduce distinctly courses to ensure that the strain of the technical facilities accommodating the growing number of the students is reduced (Sunal, Dennis, Wright, and Sundberg, 88).
The national engineering examinations aim at examining the student’s intellectual capabilities thus ignoring to evaluate the general capability of the students in practicing the gained intellectual skills through technical practices. According to the recent study that was conducted in order to establish how well the engineers are prepared technically by the institutions, it was concluded that technical preparation is provided by the institutions were inadequate (Zhang, and Chunliang, 423). This is because the technical facilities are only adequate to prepare the students in passing the national engineering exams. This, therefore, implies that the decreased practical participation of the students is mainly based on gaining intellectual and passing skills but not on developing technical skills for competence purpose. The issues of laboratories and facilities scarcity are the major reasons as to why the level of competence for the engineers is outweighed by the educational cost. This, therefore, raises the necessity for more laboratories and facilities in learning institution and incorporates them with learning objectives through intellectual and analytical skills development.
Objectives
The engineering education effectiveness can be achieved through a developed curriculum. The education can thus benefit through the development of adequate laboratories as well as diversified facilities. At Tulsa University this can, therefore, be achieved through increasing laboratories. The university should, therefore, build an engineering lab which should hold at least four to five facilities in the different rooms. This will create the opportunity for the school faculty to be able to analyze the abilities of the students. This will additionally benefit the students by enabling them to utilize more time in the laboratories in developing their skills. The engineering students will acquire developed practical experience via mechanical skills as well as evaluation skills development. The general objective of increasing the number of laboratories and engineering facilities is to increase the capability of engineering competence in the institution. This will help to prepare the students by providing them with mechanical and intellectual skills which will help them in working in the future. This can be achieved through appropriate planning and designing of the engineering labs as well as facilities.
The utilization of practical practice is required In order for the school to be able to evaluate the capabilities of the students in the university. This will, therefore, require the school management to develop procedures for developing and building the engineering labs as well as assessments that can be utilized the in assessment of analytical and competent skills. Appropriate engineering labs construction will work to ensure that the experience of the students is well maintained and developed. The provision of adequate laboratories and facilities will work in preparing students for the future engineering tasks. The constructions plan will thus be aimed at developing individual’s analytical skills which will thus require the application of a theoretical knowledge. In the assumption that the management will be able to develop properly designed and formulated laboratories and facilities with a safe surrounding the utilization of the labs will be utilized as a competent learning tool which will benefit the engineering students abilities. Moreover as stated prior, this will assist in enhancing the members of the faculty the capability of evaluating performance as well as the capability of the students in interaction. The main objective of the initiative of building more engineering laboratories and facilities is to produce professional individuals who not only hold the required academic skills by also the competent skills. This can thus be achieved through the general engagement in practical practices which requires adequate resources, adequate assistance as well as the development of safety, health and security measures.
This therefore requires hiring of more competent professional to provide technical as well as instructional assistance to the students during their technical practices in the laboratories. This will help in reducing the safety issues which are mainly caused by reduced assistance based on the number of students utilizing the laboratories and the facilities. Additionally during the night personal assistance is rarely provided which raises safety issues as the students utilizes the wrong instruments in their experiments. This leads to damages which is associated with financial loss as the instruments are highly value. This trend therefore reduces the number of resources in the laboratories which causes strains. In order to manage the equipment in the lab the faculty should build ID controlled storages for the students. This will help in managing individuals who visits the labs as well as the facilities that they utilize during their laboratory stay. Appointment should be done on an online platform for the student’s wishing to visit the lab. This will help in eradicating congestion as well as resources and items loss. In addition the labs management will have adequate time to plan the schedules and the instruments to be used. This implementation therefore necessitated for the increase in the number of laboratories and engineering facilities to accommodate the large number of students in the school.
Solution
The analytical and intellectual learning based approach will work in ensuring that the prior objectives are accomplished adequately. This is through ensuring that the students are prepared thoroughly for the future engineering task force while providing benefits t the engineering and mechanical fields and the associated outcomes the approach is effective in ensuring that the students are prepared for the mechanical setting through the provision of technical and working knowledge that which require utilizing while providing mechanical and technological solutions. Based on Grossmann, (2011) this approach has been established to be more effective in comparison to other assessment and development approaches. This is mainly because the approach can be utilized in measuring the developed skills as well as knowledge which can be measured in a more reliable way. This is because the analytical assessment involves the general assessments of the capabilities which lie in the values, knowledge, skills as well as the practice attitudes. This therefore shows that the approach will be effective in ensuring that the students are capable of utilizing their self based knowledge in developing solutions. The technical skills are essential in ensuring that the gained knowledge is appropriately utilized (Grossmann, 27).
In order for the analytical skills to be achieved this requires the use of increased laboratories hours for the engineering students. Increasing the number of laboratories and facilities will work to ensure that the students will not be involved in any dispute in the objective of accessing the laboratories. The professional assistance will work to ensure that the safety issues in the laboratories are reduced. This will additionally stop the students from damaging the laboratories facilities as assistance will be provided on how to use the facilities. Students will additionally be able to store their project materials and personal items in the storages which will thus be controlled using IDs. This will thus eliminate the worry of losing materials which are essential as well as loss of stuff. The online appointment application will work to ensure that the laboratories utility is well controlled. This is mainly because the appointment will ensure that the lab is reserved for the particular students for a time period to utilize the facilities thus emitting other students to make use of the facilities.
Resources
The faculty should conduct research based on the recent articles which are addressing the measures in which university laboratories can be improved and developed in achieving efficiency. This should thus involve the measures which encourage the development of technical skills through the available resources. This will involve the comparison of the engineering laboratories that are being utilized by other universities. This will help in evaluating the associated disadvantages and the disadvantages of the developed laboratories (Grossmann, 29).
Method
Implementation of the approach will involve that the labs are opened on longer hours based on the daily schedules. The engineering and instructional labs are a most effective method in technical skills practice. This would thus provide increased benefits for the students undertaking the engineering program. This will, therefore, include developing creative and decision-making skills of the students. The laboratories increase will work to ensure that interactive learning is developed. The actual involvement in the labs experiment will equip the students with adequate experience to deal with challenging mechanical issues (Standiford, 25). This will additionally help the professional in developing a case which will help in providing grounds of assessment in providing students with adequate gestures. This will provide weekly cases for the students to participate in a particular case which will necessitate them to react to a given case. The impact of laboratories and facilities would be essential in assessing the competent impact on the students. The building of additional laboratories will help in providing the students with the necessary opportunities of conducting persistent and skills that are non-persistent. This is mainly because engineering is based on technical practice as the acquired knowledge must be utilized in providing technical and mechanical solutions (Grossmann, 31). Utilization of the labs will help in ensuring that the engineering students are able to discover their analytical skills development extent (Grossmann, 33).
The implementation timeline for the initiative is elastic as it will depend on the school management organization. This will, therefore, work to ensure that the present management schedule and the students learning schedule are not affected in any way. An experiment will be conducted within the next six months which will involve a preliminary small scale study which will be performed in analyzing the time, feasibility, cost, statistical variability and the adverse effects of the approach. This will thus be performed in the attempt of predicting the appropriate measures and samples that will be utilized in developing an appropriate conclusion for the plan. This will thus help the school management in analyzing and developing plans for the future operations of the school. So that the project will be effective in the future it is thus recommended to utilize the students that are currently undertaking engineering to prepare them for the future. This will help in developing the general technical curriculum before the whole transition is achieved. The implementation in the present learning will help in providing training as well as experience to the students which will help in impacting the overall schematic development which is required for the transition in the future (Standiford, 25).
Costs and Resources
The cost for the project is very high. This is because building modern laboratories with advanced and diversified equipment requires a higher cost than the implementation o van learning approach. This will, therefore, require the management to develop a specified design which is associated with limited cost and ranges of academic benefits. Additionally, the development requires the implementation other measures such as safety and provision of instructions which is expensive. It is my opinion that the management should opt for the best design in order to install the required skills in the engineering students. This will, therefore, require the management to cut down o the costs which are not basic in order to cater for the project. Student’s school charges should be raised by at least 3% to provide adequate finances to speed up the development. Although this may be an issue to the students the school will require a good amount of capital to start the development. This will help in providing adequate resources for all the engineering students. This will help in maximizing the potential of the school laboratories and the utilization will be increased and will be effective. This will help in ensuring that the engineering curriculum is developed and the technical skills required in the task force are achieved.
Conclusion
It is essential to building more laboratories and facilities for the engineering and science students in Tulsa University in developing their skills. The technical approach has thus proved to be the most appropriate in generating the necessary mechanical skills. This will help in developing the engineering programs at Tulsa University thus enabling the management to further the intended changes. This approach will benefit the general engineering industry thus leading to better solutions for technical and mechanical issues. Towards Tulsa University the expected benefits are endless as this kind of program will be adopted by the learners in the future and these will help in developing strategies for the employers in evaluating their employees competent. Setting more types of facilities will help in achieving more developed skills as technical learning will be diversified. Hiring TA professional to assist students during the experiments will additionally reduce resources damages as well as safety issues. Building storages to store individual stuff will help in reducing loss issues as well as theft.
Work Cited
Alam, Firoz. Using Technology Tools to Innovate Assessment, Reporting, and Teaching Practices in Engineering Education. , 2014. Internet resource.
Grossmann, Claudia. Engineering a Learning Healthcare System: A Look at the Future : Workshop Summary. Washington, D.C: National Academies Press, 2011. Print.
Standiford, Kevin. Facilities Maintenance: Residential Construction Academy. Clifton Park, N.Y: Delmar, 2010. Print.
Sudhir, Reddy M. Technical Manpower Planning. New Delhi: Discovery Pub. House, 2005. Print.
Sunal, Dennis W, Emmett Wright, and Cheryl Sundberg. The Impact of the Laboratory and Technology on Learning and Teaching Science K-16. Charlotte, N.C: IAP/Information Age Pub, 2008. Print.
Zhang, L C, and Chunliang Zhang. Engineering Education and Management: Vol. 2. Berlin: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2011. Internet resource.
