REEP Team

Dean's Division REEP Team Reflection

Prof Karin Wolff - Project Lead

Teaching and Learning Advisor

(Full-time)

Being the dedicated, faculty-appointed Teaching & Learning advisor in Engineering at Stellenbosch University has made a significant contextual difference. There is a wealth of literature on STEM academic resistance to AD practitioners, who generally hail from the social sciences (Winberg et al., 2019). In the context of both the institutional and faculty mission to transform our practices, enable a ‘transformative student experience’ and ‘networked and collaborative teaching and learning’ (SU, 2018), the faculty has increasingly embraced and supported what I (as T&L advisor) do, one ‘student’ at a time. I am a firm believer in the concept of organic solidarity (Durkheim, 2010), where societies (or indeed, Communities-of-Practice) evolve based on mutual need, as opposed to primarily mechanical solidarity, which is imposed. Each staff member with whom I work (both within and beyond the official professional development (PREDAC) programme) has a particular orientation to his/her role and initially often uninterrogated views on teaching and learning. I attempt to identify how I need to work with each staff member, based on his/her experience, scope, context and needs. The overwhelming need in the faculty has been to improve strategies linking theory to practice. The Semantic Wave (Maton, 2014) has been an obvious SOTL instrument to explore, since it can demonstrate the teaching and learning journey between abstract concepts and concrete contexts of application. Early collaboration with staff members like Robbie Pott, Margreth Tadie, Deborah Blaine and their colleagues planted the seed for the uptake of a SOTL-based approach (cognitive intention) to what we do in the faculty. The adoption of the various instruments, and the opportunities for T&L research and innovation projects has seen the organic development of a community of practice (CoP) that gave birth to the formal Recommended Engineering Education Practices (REEP) initiative, as well as a number of collaborative publications in top international journals. Deborah Blaine and I presented our CoP approach at the international 2021 WEEF-GEDC conference. All our case studies and publications are now proudly shared on our REEP website, which I established to enable staff to showcase their practices.

Not every staff member has the same priorities. There are many staff who feel they just need classroom management and communication strategies (systemic interventions), for example. Yet other staff often reveal a lack confidence or are overwhelmed (affective needs). Our organic REEP community has enabled each of us to find ourselves, celebrate our strengths, tackle our challenges and develop a sense of belonging that lies beyond the technicist and technical aspects of HE. Our key challenges, however, lie in having enough time to engage in this meaningful, voluntary work and the perception of 'reward': Although we (SU) were recently lauded as one of the top 12 institutions globally for our approach to rewarding teaching excellence, STEM faculties and leadership are not doing enough to go beyond paying lip service to the so-called ‘transformative learning experience’ and the value of teaching (over or alongside research). Our journey ahead is intended to enable meaningful engagement with the spirit of "transformative learning" and holistic Graduate Attributes, with a specific focus on diversity, inclusivity and sustainability, so as to empower our students and graduates to legitimately participate in their complex and beautiful worlds!

Prof Celeste Viljoen - Vice Dean

Teaching and Quality Assurance

(2020 to date)

(Full-time)

(3300 UG and 1400 PG students )

Holistic student success

Tackling our student needs holistically, in the affective, systemic and cognitive domains, takes a team with a growth-minded approach. Our REEP team and collaborators strive to enable our students to succeed, not only academically, but at life. We are intrinsically motivated by the greater purpose of this work, our agency in devising incremental improvements, and the feedback that these make a difference. Co-leading and contributing to efforts that address the wide range of needs is a humbling and deeply rewarding experience. Some needs may be identified from hard data, others from anecdotal evidence. Often, we try, iterate, and improve. My contributions are in recognizing needs, enabling our REEP team and other faculty members, coordinating efforts, and generally cheering on a fantastic team.

I’ve initiated the creation by Natalie of the TFAS support platform in 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic created acute demand for psychosocial support from students, exceeding our capacity at the time and highlighting the critical importance of supporting the psychosocial needs of students and its impact on academic success. The platform continues to increase the accessibility of our extensive support services to students that need them. Our low ECP completion rates bothered me. I mandated Karin and Debby in 2021 to investigate the efficacy of our undergraduate programmes (Extended Degree and Mainstream programmes), an exercise that identified key gaps in our educational practices which are being addressed in subsequent REEP initiatives.

From lived experiences, I recognised that our ability to succeed depends in no small measure on our sense of belonging and identity. In 2022 we reworked the so-called “Deans Lectures” in Intercultural Communication 113 to include lectures and reflective exercises on topics like a Sense of belonging, Growth Mindset, Motivation, etc. aimed at assisting first-years from diverse social and cultural contexts with the transition to Engineering studies. From hundreds of readmission applications, and other data sources, systemic issues like overloaded curricula and bottleneck semesters became apparent. Since 2024, I have been leading a large-scale curriculum review of all our undergraduate programmes, aimed at reducing credit load in overloaded curricula, improving scaffolding, and improving integration of the revised ECSA Graduate Attributes into our curricula.

In between we are grappling with the impacts of AI on our educational practices, while recognizing its immense potential to assist our common purpose. It remains a joy and a privilege to work alongside this team. Our work is not yet done!

Ms Lauren van Breda - Project and Research Admin

Engineering Research & Project Assistant

(Part-time)

As a female engineering practitioner of colour, my experiences in my years in industry – though not unique – have been enlightening and discouraging. Despite evidence that my work was of the highest standard, I consistently faced challenges of being treated unfairly. I then began questioning why my experience in industry was so negative, whether it was a personal experience only, and eventually, what I could do about it. This led to my interest in assisting to provide students with the tools, skills, and attributes that they need to be successful (tangibly and mentally). My career transition from industry to academia and then nearly a decade as a research assistant and collaborator in engineering education has garnered this interest in helping to prepare students appropriately for the working environment starting with the staff who teach them. This can only be done successfully if we do not lose focus on providing industry with the type of engineering graduates that they need.

My personal contribution on the REEP project is that of research, support, and administration (which includes the management of all the data and resources, correspondence and logistics support), but my greatest value to the team comes from my past experiences and my individual perspective. My participation on the project has broadened my understanding of the complexities that academics face in providing the best for their students. This has helped me to better assist and guide my peers in producing tangible deliverables. These deliverables help both staff and students to further their understanding of relevant engineering concepts and reveal the opportunities for staff to develop Graduate Attributes that industry require a deeper focus on. What I have learnt throughout the REEP project process is invaluable to my and my future students’ success.

Core Team Reflections

Prof Deborah Blaine

A/Professor in Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering

(Full-time)

Material Science | Strength of Materials | Complementary Studies | Intercultural Communication & Competencies | Global Engineers (with Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences)

(20 - 1000 students)

Cumulative & Peer learning through online forum engagement, UCDG MS/EDP throughput, Concept Inventories; FINLO: Problem-solving strategies for Strength of Materials, Student Engagement in Large Class Tutorials, Integrative Learning for Materials Science; Assessment practices: Co-opting AI chatbot for formative assessment

It is impossible to disconnect my participation in REEP initiatives from my life and work as an academic; it permeates, supports and integrates into all my daily activities. This is probably as my teaching philosophy is strongly linked to what Quinan termed the Holistic Learning Environment, that is constructed from a synergistic interaction between the organisational conditions of the university, the way in which the academic models a meaningful life, and how they engage with the leadership of learning. I perceive it to be my responsibility to ensure that these spaces are continually informing each other, all in the goal of creating a space for students to grow, learn and find their paths in life. In whichever role I find myself, lecturer, co-lecturer, mentor, taskteam member, researcher, facilitator, participant, I try to integrate a holistic approach to learning where SU values of excellence, compassion, accountability, respect and equity are embedded in all activities. Through my participation in REEP activities, I have seen this approach to the transformative student experience come to life in a myriad of ways. I have watched hundreds of students face and overcome challenges, learn about engineering and life as they grow into global citizens, proud SU graduates through our excellent engineering programmes.

Prof Wibke de Villiers

Associate Professor in Civil Engineering

(Full-time)

Strength of Materials

(40 - 470 students)

Concept Inventories, Epistemic Transitions & Transformation

Under the REEP umbrella, I assisted in developing a UCDG-funded online concept inventory in the form of a ‘check your engineering knowledge’ quiz set to help our students self-identify knowledge gaps from preceding modules. The process of developing this resource led me to rethink how I can help address my students’ varying levels of preparedness within my own module. I subsequently incorporated a reflective and forecasting exercise for them at the beginning and at the end of the semester and developed weekly preparatory online quizzes for cumulative learning on a small scale.

Some of the concepts covered in my Strengths of Materials module can be difficult for my students to visualise and in the past, I would reference real-world examples, but the diversity of my student cohort means that the examples I used would not necessarily be within every student’s frame of reference. My time on REEP and Transformation projects has sensitised me to these realities and to help my students bridge the gap between the abstract and the concrete in the semantic range, I have introduced physical objects into the classroom that stand proxy for structural elements and materials. My students can observe how a squashed marshmallow also expands in the lateral directions and see the Poisson effect, how a bent fizzer contracts at the top and elongates at the bottom like a beam under bending would, or how a twisted Oreo cookie shears the cream like a shaft under torsional loading would. These tangible objects level the playing field in, and every student has the same opportunity to observe the phenomenon.

Dr Melody Neaves

Senior Lecturer in Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering

(Full-time)

Materials Science

(450 – 500 students)

Engineering Maths linking videos; Concept Inventories; Graduate Attribute Development

Through participation in the REEP initiatives, my teaching philosophy has become firmly grounded in educational theory, as I aim to cultivate "holistic engineering graduates". I integrate Barnett’s (2000) epistemological-ontological-praxis framework to prepare students for a "supercomplex world,” focusing on the interplay of "knowing, being and doing". This has become particularly relevant since the digital overhaul of the world that has been maintained since the interruption of COVID19 and the rapid development of generative AI. For this I rely on Maton's (2013) concept of cumulative learning, creating "semantic motion" between abstract theories and concrete, real-world contexts to make learning meaningful.

Within the REEP activities, I have designed digital resources that pull together abstract mathematical concepts with practical applications in discipline-specific modules such as machine design. I have also developed concept inventory quizzes with Prof Deborah Blaine for a theoretically dense and interconnected Materials Science module. In work presented at the World Engineering Education Forum (van Rooyen et al. 2022), I describe how I leverage digital tools to design an integrative, hybrid learning experience this module. I have adapted to challenges like the rise of generative AI by redesigning my module activities to "co-opt" generative AI in a way that fosters lifelong learning and evaluative judgement. This innovation, which has been funded and presented at symposiums, SoTL and IMES conferences. My research extends to evaluating these methods by analysing student perspectives on the integrative approach using grounded theories (Neaves et al. 2023). This helps me refine my practice for better student engagement, exemplifying a scholarly, research-led commitment to developing adaptable engineers.

Dr Margreth Tadie

Senior Lecturer in Chemical Engineering

(Full-time)

UG Coordinator Dean's Division

(90 - 350 students)

Foundational Engineering Chemistry Concept Inventory; 1st Year Orientation

My pedagogical journey at Stellenbosch University has largely centred around teaching the foundational module Engineering Chemistry 123. This module is a cornerstone for all first-year students in the Faculty of Engineering, serving as a gateway that introduces engineering thinking through the lens of fundamental chemistry. In addition, I serve as the undergraduate coordinator in the Dean’s Division, where I contribute to the Dean’s Lecture, a structured mentorship programme aimed at bridging the gap between high school and tertiary education. The diversity I encounter within my teaching context, ranging across gender, socio-economic background, educational preparedness, and student motivation, presents both challenges and opportunities for transformative learning. I strive to create a learning environment that is supportive, inclusive, and relational. Students arrive with varying degrees of preparedness—some with a long-standing passion for engineering, others still discovering their direction. I make a deliberate effort to understand these differing motivations and respond to them through interactive teaching strategies. My participation in REEP has shaped my pedagogical identity. Through this group, I adopted the CAS model, contributed to the FINLO-funded 'Check Your Understanding' project, and received feedback that directly informed my practice. I also completed the Scholarship for Educational Leadership (SOEL) course in 2021, which extended my focus from classroom teaching to programme-level support.

Prof Robert Pott

Senior Lecturer in Chemical Engineering

(Full-time)

Engineering Chemistry | Fluid Mechanics | MEng and PhD researchers

(35 - 450 students)

Graduate attributes and skills, as reflected on by alumni

I have spent the last decade interested in how students engage with material in their curriculum (examining things like non-assessment driven learning, or using competency testing as a tool for deep learning). All of this work ultimately points towards where our students will end up – in the world of work. Our students need to be well equipped to succeed in the complex and evolving world of engineering. Who better to ask whether we are achieving this goal than our alumni? Their feedback and insights proved to be extremely helpful in understanding how our curriculum meets their needs after graduation (and where we could consider modifying our offering). The act of stepping back and reviewing the purpose, the process, and the outcome of the degree is a useful exercise. Asking for feedback from students while they are in the throws of a degree can be useful, but doesn’t answer many of the more important questions about the efficacy of our offerings. My major takeaway: look towards where our students are going, and help them succeed there.

Prof Craig McGregor

Senior Lecturer in Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering

(Full-time)

(350 students)

Engineering Writing; Peer Learning & Assessment; Generative AI

When nearly 50% of my final-year students failed their experimental design reports in 2020, I realised I faced a fundamental challenge. These students had successfully navigated demanding technical coursework yet struggled to communicate their work coherently. Participating in REEP has shifted my approach from identifying problems to developing research-informed solutions. Working with Karin Wolff, I implemented a peer review system where students evaluate draft reports using structured rubrics before final submission. This builds critical evaluation skills while improving their writing through exposure to diverse approaches. The results have been substantial: failure rates decreased by 35%, with overall pass rates reaching 95% including second attempts. However, the more significant impact has been on my teaching philosophy. REEP helped me recognise that technical communication requires the same systematic development as any engineering competency. This classroom intervention has evolved into publishable research that can inform practice across the discipline.

Faculty of Science Collaborators

Prof Sonia Fidder

Associate Professor

(Full-time)

Applied Mathematics

(100 - 460 students)

Engineering Maths concept inventories and epistemic transitions

A key contribution on the REEP team has been the design of a poster which unpacks the mathematical tools required to master the different topics taught in Applied Mathematics and also how the different topics are interrelated. The impact of this is to give the students an overall conceptualization of the module content, including the relevance thereof through illustrative pictures of practical applications. They can revert back to it at any stage to reflect what has been done and where we are heading to during the course of the module.

My involvement in this REEP project has evolved my teaching philosophy by realizing the importance for students to know why they need to be taught specific module content and find the connection between the mathematical tools available and the physical problems being solved. Understanding how concepts are connected turns knowledge from a set of facts into a network of meaning. That shift drives curiosity, memory, insight, and innovation - all keys to effective learning. When the students see how the various concepts connect, they are not just memorizing isolated facts, but creating a web of meaning. This allows them to understand why something works (not just that it does) and also to transfer knowledge to new situations or problems.

Dr Maret Cloete

Lecturer

(Full-time)

Applied Mathematics

(100 - 600 students)

Applied Mathematics Education at the Intersection of Theory and Engineering Practice

As part of a broader initiative to enhance the pedagogical value and real-world relevance of Applied Mathematics, I collaborated with Dr Melody Neaves on an animated educational poster with a voiceover. This project used the crankshaft of a car’s combustion engine to demonstrate the application of pure mathematics and classical rigid body mechanics in machine design. This interdisciplinary effort with the Faculty of Engineering broadened my perspective and enhanced my ability to communicate the relevance of theoretical concepts to students.

I also created an animated PowerPoint poster for a first-year Applied Mathematics module on Particle Dynamics. This resource aimed to provide lecturers with a concise and pedagogically sound overview of the module. To support student engagement and preparedness, the video was shared several months in advance as a preview and to prompt revision of foundational physics concepts and thus so supporting a model of pre-instructional scaffolding.

In collaboration with Prof. Sonia Fidder, we are developing two formative online quizzes for use in tutorials at the start of the second semester of the first year and the first semester of the second year. These assessments aim to diagnose students’ baseline understanding of dynamics, an area in which many struggle. This diagnostic approach supports targeted remediation by identifying gaps in foundational knowledge.

Through the REEP programme, I became aware of ECSA’s Graduate Attributes, including the growing emphasis on "softer skills." To develop teamwork and intercultural communication, I plan to introduce structured group work in second-year Civil Engineering tutorials.

These initiatives reflect my commitment to innovative, applied, and student-centred teaching.

Dr Francois Koch van Niekerk

Lecturer

(Full-time)

Engineering Mathematics

(100 - 600 students)

I have worked with the engineering REEP group for 3 years now, and this has opened a space for collaborative thinking about different foundational sciences and how to teach them. Initially I collaborated with Karin Wolff on a pilot intervention to support first year student engineering mathematics learning, which revealed several challenges. This work was presented at the SU SOTL conference in 2021. The subsequent collaboration with engineering lecturers in all the Stellenbosch engineering departments as part of the REEP team has given me insights into how the engineering staff and students see the concepts I teach. Working with the core REEP team to annotate my first year engineering mathematics notes has given me and my students a really useful set of learning materials, which I believe can change my student perceptions of the key concepts.

Through my engagement with the different team members and the collaborators in the departments, I believe we have contributed to each others' understanding of the different knowledge domains, and a better understanding of our collective desire to improve student success.