Wiser after failure analysis

”Injury makes you wise” is an old Norwegian saying. (A vaguely related saying in English is “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”) Failure analysis is the natural culmination of two years of building relevant material competence in the bachelor’s degree programme in Materials Engineering at NTNU. In a project starting now, we want to structure and coordinate the teaching better, link the teaching more clearly to learning outcome descriptions in both one specific course and the study programme, and in particular to streamline formative assessment to improve the learning outcome in several activities. The failure analysis is the final activity in a course that contains characterisation methods (XRD, SEM, LOM and NDT) and fracture mechanics, both theory and practical work in the laboratory. Cases and guest lectures from relevant companies are also included. We are starting a project where we will evaluate different types of assessment (formative and summative) and their influence on learning outcome. The course will be divided into four learning packages. In the first three packages the students will acquire knowledge and skills that are necessary for solving real-life failure cases presented in the fourth package. Each learning package will have clearly defined learning outcomes that will be assessed in several ways. Some examples are digital self-assessment in newly developed tests, feed-back from student assistants, laboratory engineers and professors, peer evaluation from other students and reflection individually and in groups