The Challenge: The Role of the Student in Engineering and Technological Literacy Programs, Perspectives, Discussions, and Ideations

In this work, we address the role(s) students play during their education. While the student’s main role is to learn, it is observed that in most classrooms, students approach learning through the lens of the instructor’s vision. The authors have experienced it in Engineering as well as Technological Literacy classes, with some differences. Newer pedagogical approaches and improvements in instruction techniques have expanded this vision. Nonetheless, students who are taking more than a few classes with heavy syllabi tend to focus on finishing the classes with reasonable performance. This is done knowing that it is not the best approach to learning. However, the students end up believing that grades are more important than deeper learning. The pedagogical approaches may have the right approach to include the students’ views and voices to some degree. However, the students’ struggles to survive and to graduate, in many cases, overcomes the students’ autonomy and perspectives in their in-depth learning and ownership of their role as active participants in the class. Another lacuna is that while the new pedagogical approaches increase student participation, they are yet to tap into the students' actual thoughts and learnings within the classroom (unless the classroom does active learning, and in particular includes reflective practice, and various ways of engagement and sharing of perspectives). This is because students generally tend to communicate what they think the instructor expects of them, rather than their confusions and doubts. To overcome this facade, we believe that students need to be more invested in their learning environment. Inquiry-based learning with elements of reflective activities in a “safe and brave” environment is one such platform where students can communicate their progress and learning and contribute to the classroom learning environment. The instructor needs to make sure students have avenues to share their ideas, critiques, and challenges with the instruction team. It is an approach that makes learning current for both the instructor and student. In this work, we discuss the similarities and differences between how instructors and students view the students’ classroom roles and how recognizing and synthesizing these roles can eventually lead to a collaborative learning environment. We will also discuss some of the similarities and differences between the Technological literacy classes and the engineering ones.