Publications by Siara Ruth Isaac

Editorial: Integrating Epistemological Fluency in Interdisciplinary Learning

FRONTIERS MEDIA SA2025

How teachers can use the 3T PLAY trident framework to design an activity that develops transversal skills

EPFL2024

Teaching assistants' contributions to creating inclusive and equitable learning spaces in engineering

Siara Ruth Isaac, Helena Kovacs, Joelyn de Lima

Sustainable engineering education requires us to address discrimination and inequity of experience, thereby contributing to a renewal of the engineering profession that reflects a rich diversity of experiences and perspectives. Many students experience dis ...

Taylor & Francis Ltd2024

Exploring Engineering Students' Perception of Sustainability and Ethics in Their Curriculum Across Disciplines

Siara Ruth Isaac, Roland John Tormey, Jessica Elke Dehler Zufferey, Joelyn de Lima, Yousef Jalali

Sustainability and ethics are topics of significant, current importance in higher education. In engineering education, they take on even greater importance as engineers play a key role in addressing global issues. While multiple institutions have implement ...

2024

Distinctly Human - Student's Perception of Transversal Skills in Engineering Curriculum

Siara Ruth Isaac, Jessica Elke Dehler Zufferey, Joelyn de Lima

Through their participation in accreditation procedures, engineering educators are well versed in documenting transversal skills addressed by individual courses and across programs. But to what extent do students perceive support for the transversal skills ...

2024

Enacting Our Values - Steps Towards a More Sustainable and Inclusive SEFI Community

Siara Ruth Isaac, Joelyn de Lima

Our mission of educating responsible engineers requires a diverse and inclusive community where sustainability is a shared commitment. This workshop engaged participants in considering what it means to be a sustainable community and how this interacts with ...

European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI)2024

How to support students to develop coaching and peer teaching skills

Siara Ruth Isaac, Joelyn de Lima

Students learn more when they are actively engaged in the learning process. While hands-on activities, labs and projects are moments when students are active, the learning benefits can be amplified with coaching strategies. This activity will enable studen ...

EPFL2024

How to Support Students Giving Each Other Constructive Feedback, Especially When It Is Difficult to Hear

Siara Ruth Isaac, Joelyn de Lima

Being able to deliver feedback to peers is a key management skill and something engineering students report finding difficult, due to the relational and emotional implications. This experiential activity provides students with emotional management strategi ...

EPFL2024

Transversal skills priorities and curricular support as experienced by engineering students on their path to becoming responsible engineers

Siara Ruth Isaac, Jessica Elke Dehler Zufferey, Joelyn de Lima

Transversal skills (TS) are fundamental to both work effectively autonomously and with others in society. They are key to educating responsible engineers able to assess and proactively respond to issues and opportunities. As evidenced by recent course syll ...

2024

How to Support Students to Develop Skills that Promote Sustainability

Siara Ruth Isaac, Joelyn de Lima

Sustainability should be integrated into everything we do, including engineering and student projects. This experiential activity uses the selection of materials for a wind turbine to engage participants in a contextualised negotiation of multiple facets o ...

EPFL2024

CREATING EXPERIENTIAL ACTIVITIES TO TEACH TRANSVERSAL SKILLS IN YOUR COURSE WITH A BACKWARD DESIGN TEMPLATE

Siara Ruth Isaac, Joelyn de Lima, Yousef Jalali

Providing authentic experiential learning activities is an important part of educating responsible engineers. In addition to disciplinary knowledge and skills, it is important that our graduating engineers achieve fluency in transversal skills. The trident ...

European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI)2024

TRANSVERSAL SKILLS THAT PROMOTE SUSTAINABILITY - AN EXPERIENTIAL ACTIVITY FOR ENGINEERING STUDENTS

Siara Ruth Isaac, Joelyn de Lima

This workshop addresses two major preoccupations in engineering education: the need to integrate sustainability and transversal skill development. In addition to knowledge about sustainability, engineering students require skills for effectively integratin ...

European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI)2024

Inclusive engineering classrooms: student teaching assistants' perspectives

Siara Ruth Isaac, Helena Kovacs, Joelyn de Lima

Inclusive teaching is the intentional practice of recognising biases, working to mitigate their impact, and ensuring that students have equitable learning opportunities. In addition to improving students' sense of belonging and self efficacy, inclusive tea ...

TU Dublin2023

DRONE GAME THAT HIGHLIGHTS ETHICAL AND SUSTAINABILITY IMPLICATIONS OF DESIGN DECISIONS

Siara Ruth Isaac, Jessica Elke Dehler Zufferey, Gianni Lodetti, Barbara Bruno

This paper reports on the development of a brief scenario-based challenge to prompt engineering students’ reflection about the broader impacts of their design decisions, and thereby increase their ethical sensitivity and motivation. The game scenario asks ...

CDIO conference proceedings2023

Sustainability and Ethicality are Peripheral to Students’ Software Design

Pierluca Borsò, Siara Ruth Isaac, Bryan Alexander Ford, Aditi Kothiyal

The conceptual design phase is a fascinating moment to observe how a design task is interpreted, as the (often implicit) relative importance students accord to the various requirements and constraints offers a window into the thinking underpinning their de ...

Tempus Publications2023

Are engineering teachers ready to leverage the power of play to teach transversal skills?

Siara Ruth Isaac, Roland John Tormey, Jessica Elke Dehler Zufferey, Natascia Petringa, Yousef Jalali

What conceptions do teachers hold about learning activities to develop students’ transversal skills? This qualitative exploration at a research-intensive engineering school draws on interviews and focus groups to explore teachers’ ideas about developing in ...

2023

Educating Engineering Students to Address Bias and Discrimination Within Their Project Teams

Siara Ruth Isaac, Roland John Tormey, Nihat Kotluk

What training should engineering students receive to enable them to contribute to reducing bias, discrimination and the persistent lack of diversity in engineering? Collaboration is central to professional engineering work and, consequently, teamwork and g ...

2023

Bringing Visibility to Transversal Skills in Engineering Education: Towards an Organizing Framework

Siara Ruth Isaac, Jessica Elke Dehler Zufferey, Yousef Jalali

Professional engineering work occurs in dynamic, complex contexts that require engineers to leverage various skills beyond their technical competencies to work productively with different stakeholders. Problem-solving is not merely a technical endeavor; ed ...

2022

Students' learning strategies, motivation and project-management skills during interdisciplinary projects in Covid times

Siara Ruth Isaac, Julien Delisle, Jessica Elke Dehler Zufferey, Helena Kovacs, Marc Lafuente Martinez

In this study, we investigated an interdisciplinary project-based learning program. Students were confronted with interdisciplinary challenges in the form of complex and authentic problems, like building a racing car or making a mobile laboratory for genet ...

Technische Universität Berlin2021

Facilitating Experiential Learning in Higher Education Teaching and Supervising in Labs, Fieldwork, Studios, and Projects

Siara Ruth Isaac, Roland John Tormey

This book provides evidence-informed and practical advice on how to design, teach, and facilitate hands-on, experiential learning in practical higher education settings. With rich case studies and carefully considered analysis tasks, all underpinned by res ...

Routledge2021