Curriculum renewal and learning through doing: Work-integrated learning in practice

Abstract

In late 2018 Curtin University commissioned the independent Foresight Review of the WA School of Mines’ Mining Engineering curriculum. The review was conducted against a background of declining enrolments in the Mining Engineering programmes across much of Australia and the Western world, including at Curtin. 

A key recommendation of this review was that the WA School of Mines (WASM) should: 

“Work with the resources sector to develop and implement a renewed curriculum that reflects the needs of the resources sector of the future and the new skills required, while maintaining the important core graduate attributes that define each discipline and the requirements of accreditation bodies (i.e. Engineers Australia)”.

This presentation will share insights into some of the collaborative teaching models that have been piloted as a part of WASM’s staged implementation of work-integrated learning into their mining engineering and metallurgical engineering curricula with the author’s hope that, through sharing what they have “learned through doing”, they might help other colleagues seeking to do similar within their own organisations.