The WoodSolutions Education Program delivered its Industry-Educator workshop last week in Melbourne (7-8 Nov), supported by Deakin University at the beautiful CBD Deakin Downtown Centre.
The event was well supported with 76 participants travelling from all over Australia to participate, including 40 key wood products industry and 36 university lecturer representatives.
This is the second time the event has been delivered by WoodSolutions. The first, in November 2018, was particularly successful and well received, with attendees hoping to see the event held annually.
The aim of this initiative is to bring industry and educators together to discuss facilitation and incorporation of timber content being taught across Australia – to ensure that the students of today are well informed about timber as the specifiers of tomorrow.
WoodSolutions saw the need to build and strengthen industry and educator networks that will allow industry experts to meet face-to-face with university academics and researchers. The workshop facilitated open discussion and the dissemination of ideas and information that will inform and inspire new innovations and industry aspirations. These discussions will encourage lecturers to add more timber content into their syllabi and develop more university R&D project activities and linkages.
Dr Alastair Woodard, WoodSolutions Education Program Manager, said “this industry-educator initiative was a very unique and valuable event and was strongly supported by everyone involved.” He added: “the industry education program has been active for 27 years – making it one of the longest running industry programs. A key to its longevity is its ongoing relationships with university academics and TAFE teachers to clearly understand their needs.”
Head of the WoodSolutions Program, Eileen Newbury, said “the WoodSolutions education program has constantly updated its resources to keep current and to meet the latest course delivery needs. The last few years of COVID-19 restrictions have seen major changes to how education is delivered, with more remote learning frameworks being implemented. WoodSolutions is now investigating how it might build on these changes with new visual and digital timber teaching resources”.
Newbury said, “this initiative enables WoodSolutions to learn directly from the lecturers what worked and what didn’t, in delivering remote learning to students. The information provided will be enormously valuable in the current educational resource update WoodSolutions is embarking on.”
“It was an extremely positive two days,” said Boris Iskra, FWPA National Codes and Standards Manager, who presented at the workshop. He noted that: the university lecturers were all keen to be part of discussion and expressed a desire for WoodSolutions to develop more resources that they can then apply in their own lectures.”
The two-day workshop included presentations on topics from Micro Certifications and upskilling to innovations and challenges in codes and standards. Participants also heard from industry experts on timber design, wood products, prefabrication and construction. Rounding up day one, was a presentation on innovations in the European industry and timber education from Prof Robert Jockwer from Chalmers University, in Sweden.
The second day included presentations from representatives from all the university participants. Presenters outlined their timber related teachings, R&D projects and expertise to give the workshop a complete picture about who is doing what in timber education, in Australia. Next, an interactive session focused on opportunities for industry and educator collaboration in research and development.
The final Group discussion involved a series of roundtable discussions on R&D topics and how collaboration and coordination can deliver effective and timely activities.
For further information on this workshop or the WoodSolutions Education Program contact woodard@woodsolutions.com.au
