Bringing the Inquiring Mind Back into the Labs – A Conceptual Framework to Foster the Creative Attitude in Higher Engineering Education

Contemporary laboratory learning in combination with state-of-the-art ICT can provide a vast variety of novel opportunities for creative experimentation and inquiry learning. Fostering and encouraging creative laboratory learning in engineering education may not only breathe life into what is learned but also involves the chance to consolidate students’ understanding as well as creative self-efficacy. The presented conceptual framework proposes an individual learning environment based on mobile technology in combination with an e-portfolio system to facilitate and foster creative laboratory learning in engineering education. Since new ideas largely appear spontaneously, the application of mobile devices aims at boosting creative thinking processes. Having the mobile device handy permits the user to get hold on at least a quick note of an idea or to record it, as well as storing observed artefacts and activities for further elaboration. This article also features six different task-based scaffolding scenarios to foster creativity in the lab in order to illustrate how the proposed personal learning environments might enrich formal classroom activities and laboratory work to attain high-level learning outcomes.