Learning spaces

The Faculty's traditional formal lecture theatres include tiered seating, individual tablet-arm furnishing and contemporary audio visual equipment. The Advanced Engineering Building's GHD Auditorium is co-located with collaborative teaching and learning spaces. It is the largest auditorium at UQ with the capacity to seat over 500 people. The GHD Auditorium has changed the way the University presents lectures to students, transformed the student learning experience, and offers opportunities for conferences and exhibitions, expanding its accessibility to the wider community.

Virtual tour of the Advanced Engineering Building's GHD Auditorium

The Faculty's learning centres provide a technologically rich, flexible and comfortable social learning space for students to congregate, share ideas, help each other and socialise. Our learning centres allow students to come together to work collaboratively on shared projects or engage in peer tutoring and study groups. Students are encouraged to think, explore and create in these spaces.

The First Year Engineering Learning Centre (FYELC) has had a major impact on the first-year experience. The FYELC has become a hub of intense activity by facilitating the development of learning communities and by promoting a sense of ownership over the space, which has in turn lead to the development of a sense of belonging at UQ.

In 2014, students and staff donated to the UQ Engineering Class Gift – the refurbishment of the Second Year Engineering Learning Centre. This joint gift from students and staff created an interactive learning space, so that future engineering cohorts may collaborate, innovate and excel together. The Centre features an large open-plan area furnished with modern booth style seating and data projector equipment to encourage collaborative learning and sharing of ideas.  Each of the four breakout rooms feature 40 inch LCD screens, whiteboards and laptop connectivity for students to host meetings, practice presentations and tackle group projects.

The Extension Learning Centre (ELCX), situated next to the FYELC, provides a blended learning space for student engineers of all levels. The ELCX is also frequently used for classes. The structure of the space supports multidisciplinary, team focussed, highly interactive learning and allows students, lecturers and tutors to interact more freely and effectively.

Our virtual practice environment for mining operations provides a visual and audio experience of mining practice settings. It provides students some familiarity with structure and processes that they will encounter entering into experiential placements and practice in an environment that is safe, controlled and supervised. The room features three conjoined screens which project hi-resolution images, allowing students to navigate through a virtual space using a controller. 

Effective technology and facilitation provides new opportunities for students and teachers to create, share and discuss resources, lectures and other learning materials. eLearning@UQ provides collaboration and communication tools such as blogs, discussion boards, wikis and virtual spaces. These tools create opportunities for students and lecturers to network, collaborate and distribute accessible information. Online virtual spaces allow students and lecturers to participate in virtual classes and webinars and also include tools to facilitate virtual meetings and seminars. eLearning@UQ includes a suite of assessment tools for lecturers to issue peer and self assessment, student response systems and use TurnItIn to organise online assignment submission and marking. 

‘Hypersonics – from Shock Waves to Scramjets’ (HYPERS301x) is the first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) course to be rolled out by the Faculty in partnership with edX. Delivered by UQ’s top Hypersonic experts, the objective of HYPERS301x is to allow students to build a better understanding of flight at speeds greater than Mach 5 and discover how to analyse the performance of a scramjet.

Designed to support an unlimited number of students from across the globe, MOOCs are facilitated completely online, allowing anyone with internet access the opportunity to participate in higher education courses free of charge. To read more about how UQ is involved with edX and other UQ MOOCs courses available, visit the UQX website.