Experiential learning and its impact on graduate attributes and employability

The nature and content of engineering education are in a continuous state of review to meet emerging needs of industry within a globalized, online and increasingly technology driven economic landscape. Employers require recruits who not only possess core knowledge and skills but also a collaborative mindset adaptable to ongoing change. To endow students with the capacity to effectively contribute within workplace conditions, the CDIO (Conceive, Design, Implement, and Operate) educational model provides a learning and assessment framework that imparts: Understanding, interpretation, and ability to solve ill-defined workplace related scenarios. The CDIO syllabus encapsulates technical elements together with personal and professional standards, as well as soft skills and attributes. Beyond the CDIO, the professional accreditation organization, Engineers Australia (EA), has documented sets of competency standards expected from graduates. For its part, the Australian College of Kuwait (ACK) has developed a pedagogy of experiential learning model utilizing the CDIO employability focused model, while meeting the graduate attributes specified by EA. Applying the ACK learning model implied the delivery of a range of courses utilizing Project Based Learning (PBL) consolidated with the CDIO model. Introduction to innovation and entrepreneurship, internship opportunities including international placements through the International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience (IAESTE), and graduation projects requiring students to synergize elements of individual courses into a summative research and presentation exercise are among the aspects differentiating the ACK model. This paper presents the different aspects of the model including: - The structure of the model; - The achieved learning outcomes by adopting the model; - The impact of utilizing the model on the attributes of the ACK graduates and the readiness of the graduates for assimilation in the workplace in the public and the private sectors