Teaching and learning of practical skills: Learning from the pavement laboratory course

Abstract

Having the necessary technical skills is one of the issues faced by the community of graduates. Assessing the current status of engineering education at universities and adapting to other countries can provide policies and solutions to improve current programs and processes. Laboratory classes are an integral part of an engineering course designed to improve technical skills, provide opportunities for developing thinking skills and promote experience-based learning. The objective and topics discussed in this study are not limited to a specific topic of civil engineering laboratory course and include other technical disciplines as well. In order to achieve this objective, this study provides a framework of study that can also be used in other disciplines and laboratory courses. In this study, while evaluating the experiences of different countries in the application of laboratory training at universities, a primary proposed solution and strategy is provided. The present study is descriptive-analytical in nature using library and field methods together with questionnaire for data collection. The results show that the use of active teaching methods in the process of teaching a skill can promote effective teaching and increase students’ satisfaction. Finally, some strategies are suggested to improve training and prepare the eligible graduates for working in industry.