Evidence suggests that the highest quality of learning occurs within a horizontally and vertically integrated curriculum that guides motivated students to high levels of self-directed learning, meta-cognition (eg. critical thinking), and process-oriented (rather than domain specific) knowledge.
High levels can most effectively be achieved through a variety of learning-centred activities that generate individual and social experiences on which the students are able to, first reflect upon, then communicate, what they have learned. Experiences of exceptionally high quality may be most valuable during the first year of study, during which learning motivation for the program of study may be established, and during the final years of the curriculum, when students are able to develop process-oriented knowledge and when they may become highly motivated to engage in meaningful professional practice.
Like many engineering educators, I acknowledge the need for curricular development, at both the course and the program levels, to be informed by evidence from a variety of teaching and learning perspectives, including engineering practice, education research, psychology research and neuro-science. Discourse on the scholarship of teaching and learning provides a transdisciplinary environment where expertise from pertinent fields is brought to bear on the challenge of optimizing learning within the engineering education experience.