A control system framework for reflective practice Design-based research applied to process control teaching Lidia Auret Department of Process Engineering Stellenbosch University, Private Bag X1, Matieland, 7602 South Africa lauret@sun.ac.za Karin E Wollf Centre for Teaching and Learning Stellenbosch University, Private Bag X1, Matieland, 7602 South Africa wolffk@sun.ac.za Abstract—Reflective practice in teaching is an important requirement for continuous improvement in professional education. In this work, we report on an approach to reflective practice which leverages the technical domain knowledge of the teacher - specifically that of engineering control systems. The structure, elements and properties of a typical control system are appropriated as a model (Control Systems Framework) for the teaching and learning of control systems in a Chemical Engineering qualification in South Africa. By considering the analogies of the various control system elements (and where these analogies break down) in the teaching and learning environment, reflection on teaching activities, as well as potential intervention design, is achieved. The CSF model is demonstrated in a particular case study, and the approach is shown to fit within the broader frame of design-based research methods. The desirable properties of successful design-based research are determined from literature, and reflected on for this work. Keywords—reflective practice; design-based research; control system framework I. INTRODUCTION With increasing pressure on educational institutions to meet the demands of preparing students for the complex world of work in the 21 st century, engineering educators face the added challenge of particularly poor retention and graduation rates. The complexity of the relationship between science, technology, society, and nature [1] suggests that the curriculum can no longer be seen from a predominantly science-oriented basis. The holistic International Engineering Alliance graduate attribute profiles already demonstrate a significant shift across the Sciences versus Humanities divide in a focus on attributes such as “the professional responsibility of an engineer to public safety; the impacts of engineering activity; economic, social, cultural, environmental and sustainability” [2]. The graduate profiles highlight that a key function of the problem-solving engineer is the “creative use of engineering principles and research-based knowledge in novel ways”. In order to achieve the kind of teaching that will produce the innovative problem-solvers required to address global Sustainable Development Goals, engineering education has begun to see several professional development initiatives for academic staff. A key underpinning principle is that of reflective practice [3], which, in engineering terms, is very much like traditional design review – an iterative, continuous improvement process. A study in Malaysia has even seen the development of a mobile application to enable educators to engage in reflective practice [4]. A number of professional development cases designed to enable lecturers to reflect on and understand their practices see the explicit use of frameworks drawn from engineering and design sciences. By way of example, Extreme Programming (an agile software methodology) has given rise to Extreme Pedagogy [5], whereby the best practices in software development are applied to improving education. These include practices such as student involvement, goal-oriented teaching, pair learning and continuous assessment. A similar strategy is the use of the popular CDIO (conceive, design, implement and operate) principles to develop staff teaching competencies [6]. Yet a further study describes the development of an elaborate model that links research findings and teaching practices, in an effort to enable STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) educators to find synergies between their research and teaching roles [7]. The Research-Knowledge- Utilization model saw the liberal adoption of multiple frameworks and features to enable application of the model to multiple contexts. What these approaches suggest is the necessity of a pragmatic approach to educational research, in selecting the best possible tools from different disciplinary research traditions in order to answer the research questions [8]. Given the complexity of new modes of knowledge production [9], it is essential that the work of engineering educators begins to reflect that of the very fields for which they are preparing their graduates: inter-/cross-/multi-disciplinarity. More traditional approaches to educator professional development often see STEM educators finding sociological or educational discourse alienating. A useful mediating strategy is to create a ‘translation device’ [10] through which to view practices. Usually these lenses are accessible educational lenses, such as the range of taxonomies which differentiate between levels of complexity or phases in the learning process. John Biggs [11], however, uses what could be described as process terms familiar to engineers when he talked about student learning as early as 1979: Student learning may be conceived in terms of the three stages of input, 978-1-5386-2957-4/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE 17-20 April, 2018, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain 2018 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON) Page 106