Journaling and sketching in support of formative learning in engineering

Effective engineering students have to be able to utilize a variety of critical study, metacognitive and communication skills. At the same time, teaching has to apply appropriate methods to foster understanding for all learning preferences. The first half of the paper presents data from engineering students in three different continents that compare their proficiencies in learning. This is followed by a discussion of formative teaching methods applied in a second year undergraduate course on Construction Equipment and Methods. It will be shown how the goal of formative student development was achieved during one semester using weekly journals and engineering sketching.