Assessment and Feedback is central to the activities of educational institutions. It fulfils a wide range of purposes:  from assessing the academic achievement of students; demonstrating the professional competency of graduates; enable learners to gauge their own progress and understand how they may further their development.  These activities often take place in the context of a desire for increased transparency, inclusion, growing numbers of students and staff, and technical innovations for delivery. These issues present a great variety of opportunities for the development of education through assessment and feedback.

Research within the problem-based-learning (PBL) theme focuses on developing innovative educational approaches to supporting self-regulated and self-directed learning, and enabling reflective practice within student-centred PBL contexts. The outcomes of the research are intended to facilitate the acquisition of key skills and tacit knowledge related to creativity, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and the application of core subject knowledge to real-world problems.

Engineers have a lot to contribute to the pedagogy of learning environments. Firstly our courses require us to teach in a variety of different environments from labs to design offices. From muddy fields to lecture theatres. As a result we are interested in rethinking our learning environments to improve the student experience and enhance the opportunities for student learning. Secondly engineers understand about design process’s. When re-imagining learning environments to integrate pedagogy into these spaces the design tools, which are common in engineering practice, can be used to help anyone think differently about these spaces. Finally engineers are not limited by physical space, much of our work is virtual, whether modelling buildings or creating immersive virtual reality we are constantly required to think beyond the physical. Similarly learning doesn’t just happen in physical spaces but also when students log in or connect digitally. Therefore we will use our expertise in digital technology to explore a variety of learning environments.