Teaching in higher education through the use of variation: examples from distillation, physics and process dynamics

Abstract

Contemporary learning research and development that is embedded in primary and secondary schooling is increasingly acknowledging the significance of a variation approach for enhancing the possibility of learning. However, the variation approach has so far attracted very little attention in higher education, but where it has, the results have been most worthwhile and encouraging. In this article, aspects of the approach that are useful for higher education are described and illustrated using three examples: learning distillation in third-year chemical engineering using a computer simulation, learning Newton's third law in first year physics using an interactive class session, and a proposal for teaching and learning a particular application of Laplace transforms in process dynamics. It is contended that explicit use of variation enhances the possibility of learning for students.