As an assistant professor in the Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution, I am particularly interested in promoting active learning in engineering technology education. Today’s industry employers expect graduates to possess not only strong technical and scientific knowledge but also social skills, problem-solving abilities, and practical experience. Among these competencies, teamwork, decision-making, and communication are in highest demand yet often underdeveloped in current graduates. Despite this need, traditional lecture-based teaching still dominates engineering technology classrooms. This passive approach tends to emphasize memorization over conceptual understanding, fostering surface learning. As a result, some graduates demonstrate procedural expertise without fully understanding how the underlying principles connect, often because learning occurs in isolation from meaningful real-world contexts. Furthermore, lecture-based methods typically omit the reflective component of the scientific process, as the action-reflection-action cycle is largely absent.

To address these gaps, I advocate for project-based active learning, which immerses students in realistic professional scenarios and encourages reflection, critical thinking, and the integration of disciplinary knowledge into practical problem-solving. In particular, I draw on constructivist teaching practices, such as collaborative design projects, peer instruction, and problem-based learning modules, to help students construct knowledge through experience and social interaction. These approaches transform the classroom into an active learning community where students engage in inquiry, experimentation, and reflection rather than passive reception. For example, my teaching portfolio includes constructivist resources such as reflective learning journals, digital project portfolios, and peer assessment rubrics that support the development of metacognitive skills and reinforce the connection between theory and practice. Through these strategies, students not only master technical competencies but also develop as independent, adaptive, and collaborative engineers prepared for the evolving demands of the modern workforce.